Small and Loud

SPIEGEL TV showed up at the houses of people posting hate on Facebook. Kill them, drown them, gas them. Freital. The videos are weird—confrontation meets boredom, like watching someone get caught in a lie they’ve told themselves long enough to actually believe.

The thing that hits is how small they look. Trapped. The hatred reads so confident online and then you see the person and it’s just someone who’s scared. Not of refugees. Scared of the idea that someone with nothing might end up doing better, which feels like the worst possible humiliation in their head.

You can’t argue someone out of that. Twenty years of watching people try online and logic never touches it.

The videos don’t fix anything. Just sit there uncomfortably, which I guess is something.