Everywhere I look online, someone is furious.Not passionate. Not purposeful. Just loud. Just angry.Outrage echoing through timelines like background noise,scroll after scroll, thread after thread, post after post.It’s not activism. It’s performance.
And I’ve been watching it all... unravel.
The volume never comes down. It's always all-or-nothing, black-or-white, scream-or-be-destroyed. There’s no middle ground anymore. No space for stillness, for curiosity, for compassion. Just rage.
And not the kind that fuels revolutions. Not the kind that builds movements. The kind that eats people alive.
I’ve been watching. Listening. Sitting with the noise.
There’s a rhythm to it now—the rage. It pulses through timelines like a drumbeat, always in tempo, always just beneath the surface. Doesn’t matter the hour or the subject. Someone, somewhere, is always screaming.
And lately, it’s been harder to look away.
Maybe it’s because the real world’s been chaos. Not just out there, but right here, in my own space. Flooded cupboards, broken roofs, a city soaked in silence after the cyclone. When everything inside you feels like it's splintering, you look outward hoping to find stillness. Hope to see proof that humanity still remembers how to breathe.
But instead, I log in and find wildfire.
Posts dripping with venom. Threads where disagreement is treated like betrayal. People waking up angry. Going to sleep angry. Performing their rage like it’s the only way to feel alive. And it is a performance—let’s not pretend otherwise. It’s a daily ritual. A curated identity.Rage as virtue.Anger as moral currency.
And if you try to offer a different perspective? They block you. Not because you were cruel, or loud—just because you disagreed. This isn’t activism. This is a cult. And ‘wokeness’, is fast becoming a mental illness.
What I see now—everywhere—is a kind of collective sickness. Performative outrage. Manufactured offence. People performing their hate for likes, retweets, and the illusion of belonging. The more you shout, the more visible you become. But visibility is not clarity. And rage is not truth.
We’ve replaced thought with fury. Reflection with reaction.We’ve confused anger for activism.We’ve confused cruelty for courage.We’ve confused volume for value.
And I can’t help but wonder... is this still about the cause? Or have we all become addicted to the chaos?
Because here’s what I see: People feeding the beast, over and over again, until the beast becomes them.
There’s a particular kind of sickness growing in these online spaces. Not loud, not sudden. Creeping. Viral. It looks like activism, but it smells like decay. It masquerades as justice, but it’s laced with obsession.
When every post becomes a weapon, every comment a battleground—what are we actually fighting for? Who are we really defending?
There’s a difference between anger as a catalyst... and anger as a costume. Between speaking truth to power, and shouting into the void because it gives you purpose.
And I say this with love: if you wake up every day looking for something to hate, something to cancel, someone to call out—maybe it’s not the world that’s broken. Maybe it’s something inside you that’s splintering.
Because you are what you feed. And if you feed on hate long enough, you will forget how to digest anything else.
I have watched people become addicted to their own rage. Obsessed with the theatre of opposition.Angry at everything.Furious at nothing.Searching for a new target the moment the last one loses its heat. And what terrifies me most is this: many of them don’t even know they’re doing it.
They think they’re awake. But really, they’re just loud.
I’ve watched people I respect fall into that loop. Post after post. Rant after rant. Every day, another headline, another insult, another enemy. It becomes... ritual.A rhythm.One that starts to define you.
And what scares me most is not the content—it’s the energy. The hunger.
The way some people look like they need the hate to keep going. Like it’s the only thing that makes them feel powerful.
That’s not political discourse. That’s not activism. That’s spiritual malnourishment.
You cannot scream your way to peace.You cannot block your way to truth.And you cannot claim to fight for justice while celebrating cruelty.
I used to think stepping back meant weakness. That silence meant complicity. But now I know: silence can be sanctuary. Space can be resistance. And not everything requires your reaction.
I’ve stepped back. I had to. For my mind. For my aRt. For my peace. Because I don’t want to become what I hate.
I said I wanted connection. And I did. I do. But lately, I’ve felt a shift. A pause. A weight in my gut that won’t lift.
Because I saw something I didn’t want to see. And once you see it, you cannot unsee it.
People I care about deeply are feeding the beast. Not in a burst of frustration—but daily. Willingly. Joyfully.
And I realised... I can’t stand that close to the fire without being burned.
I can disagree. I can debate. I can hold space for different views. But I can’t hold space for hatred masked as virtue.
Not anymore.
Thanks for reading Shadows And Midnight Screams by Samira Wyld! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
If you’ve been feeling this too—this sickness in the collective air—know that you’re not alone. You’re not crazy for needing quiet. You’re not wrong for wanting softness in a world that only rewards extremes.
Maybe you’ve been torn apart just for disagreeing gently. Maybe you’ve been labelled just for pausing to ask a question. Maybe, like me, you’re exhausted.
This post isn’t a solution. It’s a breath. It’s a hand on your back saying: you’re not the only one who sees it.
This isn’t a callout. This isn’t a fight. This is a whisper in the dark:
You don’t have to be this angry. You don’t have to burn everything down to feel seen.
There is still space for calm. For breath. For nuance.
You are allowed to think twice.You are allowed to change your mind.You are allowed to not engage.
And if no one else says it—I will: I see you.Not the performance. Not the rage. YOU.
Choose breath over battle.Choose clarity over chaos.Choose yourself.
You are more than your anger. But only if you want to be.
🖤 S xo
Thanks for reading Shadows And Midnight Screams by Samira Wyld! This post is public so feel free to share it.
