Once you step outside of status, mind games, you begin to interact with the world in a different way. Every picture, every written word has an underlying message. It matters less what is said or what is shown and more that it is “cool” or being said by someone that is “cool”. The ideas and people that fit into the cool camp are arbitrary … but the spectators, lurkers, reply-guys follow along, encouraging or dogpiling as is appropriate.

Again, it’s never actually about what is said, or even how it was said, but who says it.

Another woman could’ve said this EXACT same thing, and people would’ve responded, “That’s cool. I personally like the Hungry Caterpillar because I have fond memories of my father reading that book to me as a child.”

But because it was Megha posting it, the people jump down her throat, name-calling, trying to silence her and cancel her. Some will say it’s because she talked about the cult classic in the confines of morality and beauty. However, this has been done often enough with literature by all sorts of people — that’s not the true issue. Megha is not the first person to think the Hungry Caterpillar is ugly. She is not the first mother to decide her children won’t have this book on their shelves. She isn’t even the only person any of us know who have strong values or standards opposite than our own.

But it is cool to hate on her, and so the masses are coming to do just that.

I dream of living in a world where that layer of social signals disappears and we can engage in civil debates without name-calling and canceling one another.

I am not offended that someone has beliefs that don’t perfectly align with my own. I am not offended if someone things something I own is ugly or evil. To be so would be to naive, to close yourself off up in a bubble. The first step toward breaking yourself free from the echo chamber is recognizing is reading between the lines and ignoring the call to tribalism.

It’s a classic case of the emperor’s new clothes. Is the Hungry Caterpillar ugly? Can you trust your own eyes? Many will say you can’t, because it has been decided by those who matter I.e. modern experts that the Hungry Caterpillar is not only beloved and untouchable, but beautiful, too.