Once a week, there is an article in the newspaper about a new way social media has pathologized a completely normal aspect of life. These articles usually attempt to dissect this pathologization through expert insight (usually in the form of sober fact-checking and applications of academic theory) and anthropological exploration of the social media accounts who promote it — but even by doing so, these stories lend a certain level of credibility to the pathologization.

I do not need anyone to tell me that liking Grape Nuts is a “beige flag.” I can simply like Grape Nuts and both you and I can feel absolutely nothing about that.