#smoothsharking

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because

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because jazz is

I feel like nobody believes in anything anymore. It's all irony. We're too ashamed to believe in anything. Believing in anything is cringe. People who don't believe in anything are so edgy and cool.

Listen. Smoothsharking someone is when you insist that a very obviously false fact is actually true, and watch then lose their minds trying to convince you otherwise. Smoothsharking is fun, it's the jester baiting the hounds, and most importantly here, it is very obviously baiting because it is insisting on making up a fact.

Seeing someone state an opinion, eg "I think this is problematic!" And reacting with a "what the fuck is wrong with you" is not getting smoothsharked.

This is because you cannot factcheck whether someone actually holds an opinion or not.

You assumed that the person saying that is baiting. What if they arent? What if they actually believe that? Am I still "easy to smoothshark" then? Or are you just willing to ignore other people's bad statements and pretend that nobody is ever genuine ever?

My brother often says a shitton of transphobic (amongst other -phobic and -ist) stuff. He also says that he does it for people's reactions.

Is someone "easily baited" for reacting badly to being told that their existence is wrong? Just because my brother says he doesn't really believe that stuff?

His actions don't seem to reflect his "real" beliefs, then. How can any of us know whether he's actually a bigot or if he's just "smoothsharking" us? We can't read his mind.

My point here is that you cannot equate smoothsharking and baiting for laughs, which rely on comical insistence on a blatantly untrue fact to watch people insist on correcting you, with saying 'I hold this controversial opinion!' Because at the end of the day, there's no real way to know if the second person is trying to joke or is being genuine.