Stupid Friend's Conception Of Outgroup Based On Fakest Reddit Post You've Ever Seen
by Picadora Bransen
"Harry Potter fans are awful. You know, some of them raise their kids to think Hogwarts is real!" remarked your dumbest friend sometime last week.
Despite being based entirely on a single anonymous Reddit post written roughly a decade ago, this obviously incorrect factoid remains a cornerstone of their conception of what Harry Potter fans are like. Even with the emergence of many more real and pressing reasons to find Harry Potter fans to be stupid and distasteful, they have continued to push this load of horseshit like a particularly talkative dung beetle.
"I can't be friends with poly people, they always lie and try to sleep with their friends." They remarked in passing. When pressed, they admitted they had never actually known a poly person but had read several delicious r/relationships threads full of the kinds of twists and turns and dramatic reveals that only come from fiction that is responding to its audience.
"Come on, I don't think people would go to all this trouble just for fake internet upvotes." Your friend chided your skepticism when you pointed out that literally anybody can write a piece of microfiction under a picture of gross food.
When pressed, your friend begrudgingly admitted "Even if they are fake, why does it matter? It's just entertainment. It's not like it's hurting anyone. Ooh, that reminds me, I just learned about a new toxic fandom based entirely on thirdhand recitations from drama youtubers. You're not gonna believe what all those puriteens are up to this week!"