The internet loves to debate, argue, and flat-out fight. Twitter’s core function might just be maintaining The Discourse — aka scores of people getting angry at one another about mostly silly things.
Recently a topic arose that might just be the perfect Twitter discussion. At its core it’s nonsensical. There’s no correct answer. There is no way to even win the argument. It’s simply an opportunity to say your thoughts and then disagree with others’ thoughts. It’s a pretty basic tweet. It simply asks which color folder goes with which subject in school. The choices are red, yellow, blue, and green and history, science, English, and math, respectively.
The tweet, first posted last week, set off an unending firestorm of debate and an endless thread of answers.
For what it’s worth my answers and justifications are as follows:
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History: yellow. The history channel is yellow. It just makes sense.
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Math: red. Math is harsh and logical and red is a harsh color.
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Science: green. Plants are green. Grass is green. Science is…kind of about studying the world? I don’t know.
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English: blue. I don’t know. English just seems blue to me.
There were some people who agreed with me.
There were, of course, lots of people who disagreed. Because of course they did! This is pure nonsense.
It caught on so much that the freaking Today show even got involved.
This folder color thing is an almost too perfect example of the internet works. Sure, it’s very silly — and often the internet is dark, scary, and awful — but it’s instructive nonetheless. It’s a debate for debate’s sake. It is arguing just to argue, with no hope of winning a thing. Nobody will change their mind. It is passing the time. Everyone is right. Everyone is wrong. Everyone it shouting into the void, certain for them it will answer back somehow.