Not Picking a Side is the Coolest Thing You Can Do

Hyper-tribalism in Current Year.

Tribalism is a word that I think fits our modern world like a glove.

The word itself conjures up images of war paint and arrows flying back and forth, which does seem a bit dramatic.

Truly thought, how far off is that from how we live in the present moment?

Sub out the aerial assaults for social media rants and native garments for the clothing we wear that labels us (like the last time we spoke about being tribal), and you’ll find that we really haven’t evolved as much as we thought.

No Kings = More Noise

This past weekend saw a nationwide movement called “No Kings”, which was yet another mass protest against President Donald Trump.

It was……

..exactly what you’d picture it to be.

While the right to protest is inherently American (and part of what makes our country great), No Kings wasn’t anything new or Earth-shattering.

It was the latest evolution in a species that has been mutating for over a decade:

“He will not divide us!”> Pink “P Hat” Marches > Not My President Rallies > No Kings Protests

As it’s so often said: the characters and the landscape change, but the story remains the same.

Naturally, such a divisive and prodding movement triggered a counteroffensive (especially digitally), and once again an otherwise lovely autumn weekend was tainted by the gaping open door of cultural divide.

The ultra-conservative side couldn’t let bygones be bygones, and had to fight cringe with cringe:

Once again, lines were drawn in the sand.

Modern tribalism in full effect.

Either take to the streets (in your finest Instagrammable outfit, of course) to protest “big baby Drumpf”, or affix the crown emoji to your X avatar to “own teh libz!”

Have we not grown tired of this?

(Also, I don’t intend for this to be a political piece, but I am amused by this one point- I assume 100% of No Kings protestors voted for Kamala Harris. She was appointed the Democratic nominee without the due process of a primary. So I guess it’s “No Kings”, but we’re cool with Queens?)

Anyway…

Downstream Tribalism

The main problem with this paradigm of division is that it seeps into spaces where it shouldn’t exist.

The “no grey area” mindset has become so embedded and has been the norm for so long that it’s misapplied elsewhere.

I couldn’t even get my haircut this week without being asked where I stood on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Candidates running for the most innocuous local level positions are running slimy attack ads on News12.

The tribal craving, the “us vs. them”…it’s ubiquitous.

Hell, even our television shows have become embroiled with rivalries.

Yesteryear’s The Rock vs. Stone Cold Steve Austin had nothing on the fervent passion the girls brought to 2021’s Maddie vs. Cassie.

(Even this year, it was some dude Conrad vs. somebody else idk all I know is that it was all over TikTok and people were up in arms…but how does this effect LeBron’s legacy?)

You can’t even watch a CR7 edit on Reels without Messi fanboys in the comments comparing and contrasting, and vice versa.

It’s become de-facto law in our culture that appreciation or fandom of Person/Thing A must automatically denote hatred and disdain for Person/Thing B.

Nobody is safe, not from any walk of life.

It’ the Swifties vs. Everybody.

Hailey Bieber vs. Selena Gomez.

Drake vs. Kendrick.

Stanley’s vs. Hydroflasks.

Michael Jordan played against UPS drivers!

It’s completely unsustainable.

Ronkonkoma Line Hockey Wars

Last year I found myself in a position I’ve been in literally hundreds of times before: on my way home from a hockey game.

This particular evening had been yet another hard-fought battle between the Islanders and Rangers, this time hosted at the Isles’ UBS Arena.

While the game had been over for nearly an hour, the rivalry was alive and well in the standing area of Car 9 on the 10:14PM train to Ronkonkoma.

The two belligerents- two fat white dudes in their 40’s- were carrying the energy from the ice into the cramped, wobbly train car as it puttered eastbound.

It started out harmlessly enough, with comparisons of players and coaches past, debates over missed calls….and then quickly devolved.

There was the standard raising of voices, which quickly escalated to the cliche but not at all surprising tactic of accusing the other party of being a closeted homosexual.

This sentiment spread like wildfire, and soon I was encapsulated in a closed space of blue, orange, and red chaos.

Who has been with whose sister, assumed sexual proclivities of everyone’s mothers, the whole 9.

Look, I’m a veteran of Isles-Rangers games. This stuff breaks out here and there.

This time was different.

You got the sense that it was less about the teams on the ice (both of whom were wildly out of contention) and more so about the the default reversion back to the very tribalistic patterns we’re talking about here today.

The two mathematically eliminated hockey teams were just vehicles for the outlet of repressed rage that social environments such as ours breed on a macro level.

I think that’s why it stuck with me.

I love fights in public (just being real) but this was inauthentic.

(We hate inauthenticity over here)

Is This More Cowardly Fence-Sitting Hippie BS?

The counterargument to the point I’m making here is pretty obvious.

It can come off as being “above it” or like a king (ha) on his throne, overlooking the proletariat as they fight amongst themselves.

There’s also the angle of “I’m just gonna stay out of this so I don’t get hurt!”

All of these assumptions would be losing the plot.

(This also isn’t advocacy for placing your hands over your ears and saying “lalala” as you metaphorically bury your head in the sand. That’s just ignorant.)

Rather, I’d like to harken back to what we discussed in Latent Energy Transmutation

There’s really only so much time and energy we can devote in a day, and we all have our energetic mouths to feed, so to speak.

So what’s the benefit to giving any of this a second thought?

Sure, there’s people that feel extremely passionately about a lot of these examples.

To be clear- I’m not minimizing the severity of global conflicts or the validity of people’s political opinions.

Personally, of course I have my own viewpoints, standards, and things that I enjoy. You do (and should), too.

I’ve also been around long enough now to know that not much changes.

Protests repackage and rebrand themselves, but the elections all end up looking the same.

Arguing online about global conflicts or basketball games whose eminence both pre-date the internet seems like an exercise in futility.

There’s a staunch difference between activism and traction and being sucked back into the dopamine loops of screaming into the digital void with the masses.

The “idk, I didn’t see it” Social Experiment

It’s ok to tune out the noise and carve your own little path while the world decides it’s gonna go on fire for the umpteenth time.

CTA’s in essays always seem to resonate, so let’s have it with this one:

The next there’s one of these cartoonishly drawn out divisive events (social media curated rallies, contentious local election, big game etc) watch people’s reactions when you legitimately don’t have an opinion.

Not “I purposely don’t pay attention to that stuff” (that’s an opinion).

Just a simple “idk, I didn’t see it”.

You’ll get looked at as if you’re holding your own eyeballs in a permanent overhead press lockout like that guy from Real Monsters.

“What do you mean you didn’t see it are you crazy?! We’re all gonna die/the refs rigged it/ they stole ballots/ they..”

Stand there kindly, but stone-faced.

“Huh. Sounds pretty crazy.”

It’s actually pretty chic, if you ask me.

Your energy stays in the holster, the gravitational pull of yet another sociopolitical or cultural blackhole successfully sidestepped.

I think that’s pretty cool.

Signing Off

Perhaps this is too Utopian a viewpoint, but anybody who can at least fight their way out of a paper bag will tell you that shelling up and evading so you can attack when it matters is a valid strategy.

Who’s to say what’s right and wrong?

I’ll tell you what- I haven’t seen the benefit of acting to the contrary, save for the monetization of grifting or those who get their rocks off through rage-baiting.

Look, if the barbarians were actually at the gate, all this changes.

There’s always a time to rally the troops and take action.

Until then, opting out of the blue light laden cortisol bomb tribal cultural nonsense has worked well for me so far.

Don’t knock it til you try it!

I’m also in a good mood rn, so take that into account as well.

I think it’s because the Islanders won this weekend.

Chat soon 🫶🏻

-John Abbate

21.10.2025