End X Xenophobia Now!

Listen up, Xers, you can thank your lucky stars that yours truly has maintained the necessary self-possession to tear free from X’s hypnotic thrall long enough to log these observations.  And trust me when I tell you that you’re going to thank me later for coming up with the following game plan that’s guaranteed to break the chains of fear with which X has shackled you (and which, up to this point, you never even knew existed).  It’s time to end X xenophobia now, and it starts with you.  Everything you need to know is laid out right here in three simple steps.

Step One: Fix Your X Bio

The obsequious X bio is where the platform’s plague of xenophobia sets down its sinister roots.  Telling your new and future pals on X a little bit about yourself seems innocuous enough.  But don’t be fooled.  One false step on your part, and the next thing you know, you’re a xenophobia germ carrier.

Common nouns are polarizing no-nos.  When you describe yourself in your bio, you’ve got to be exceedingly careful about how you do it.  If you’re not, you could end up attracting only a certain kind of user – the kind that identifies only with what you’re all about as defined by your own X bio.  The kind that’s afraid of everything that’s not him or her or you.  The kind that’s a xenophobe.  People who are terrified by anything beyond that with which they’re familiar – xenophobes – are galvanized into X following/liking/fearing/blocking frenzies by common nouns.  They’re comfortable with common nouns with which they can identify, and scared shitless by those with which they can’t.  (Even the word “xenophobe” is a common noun.)  If it’s a common noun to which they can relate, xenophobes are going to be comfortable with it and cozy up to it.  If you tell people on X that you’re a “gardener,” for example, you’re only going to get scaredy cats who identify with that word as your followers.  People unfamiliar with this intimidating common noun and all that it could potentially imply aren’t going to give you the time of day.  And likewise, people who identify on X as “gardeners” are going to be terrified of anyone who uses a common noun other than “gardener” to describe themselves in their X bio – they simply won’t follow them, or be at all interested in anything they have to say.  The same goes for using the common noun “writer” as a description of what you’re all about.  The chicken-shits on X who believe that they’re “writers” will flock to you (and to others who utilize the same common noun in their X bios), but anybody who doesn’t identify as a “writer” won’t.  And those same chicken-shit “writers” aren’t going to identify with, or be at all interested in anyone who’s not another chicken-shit “writer,” as defined by his or her X bio.  Here’s another one: “doctor.”  Who the hell is gonna follow you besides other “doctors” (or maybe someone sucking up to you for a free diagnosis) if you describe yourself in your X bio as a “doctor?”  See what I mean?  What about “poet?”  Check.  “plumber?”  Yep.  “astrophysicist?”  For sure.  It’s all about the common nouns.  They’re X’s hammer and nails in its construction of your personal cage of fear.  Ok.  So far, so good.  But now that you’re getting the picture and understanding how using common nouns in your X bio is fomenting more X xenophobia, you’re probably asking yourself, “Since common nouns are off limits, how can I describe myself in my X bio without spreading more xenophobia?”  The answer is simple:

Use predicates to describe yourself in your X bio.  In my own X bio, I describe myself using predicates.  Even though I do indeed write for a living and could effectively be considered a “writer,” I simply use a predicate in my X bio to introduce myself: “Write stuff.”  I think that by introducing myself in this way (rather than with the fear-inducing common noun, “writer”), I might actually meet more people that I’d like to hang out with and get to know, and who might like to hang out with and get to know me in return.  They might say to themselves, “Hey, even though I really dig vintage German porn and heavy drinking, and I don’t really consider myself a writer, it doesn’t mean that I don’t like to scribble my own thoughts down on a bar napkin every once in a while, too.  It might be cool hanging with this guy who says he also likes to do that.  And who knows?  Maybe he likes getting completely shitfaced every single day of the week, or watching an 8mm reel of Ilsa getting screwed by a Barbary ape, just like I do.”  So you see, without any frightening common nouns around to put up xenophobic barriers, the liking and following situation becomes totally chill.  And the same goes for other professions, too.  Rather than being curious about and maybe following a “doctor,” a typical, non-medically-trained X user might be more inclined to want to get to know someone who instead says that they “open peoples’ craniums and surgically excise glioblastomas,” or “palpate and express sebaceous cysts until they’re depleted of their contents,” or “treat genital warts.”  That same non-doctor X user could then very well say to himself/herself, “Hey, I might be a diesel mechanic by trade, but I think I’d really love digging around in somebody’s skull with a pair of pliers and a box cutter some time, looking to maybe eliminate an unwelcome growth or two.  Or maybe taking a crack at squeezing the pus out of a big, ripe whelk blooming on some some guy’s forehead.  And if I end up never getting to do any of these amazing things myself, it’d be cool to hang out with somebody who actually does get to do it.”  See?  Totally chill.  So, remember:  No common nouns in your bio!  Use predicates instead.  They’re way friendlier and way more inviting.  If everyone used predicates to describe themselves in their bios, xenophobia would be eliminated from X quicker than you can say that you like to “criminally prosecute accused serial killers.”