Judgment Chat

It all happened so quickly.

“INCOMING,” Milo announced, but some of us kept talking.

“FROM THE DEAN’S OFFICE,” Milo continued. “Yesterday, a day that will live in infamy, M. voted to apply a Thanos Tax to R., wiping her entire 13,000-strong message history from the chat as though she never existed. I am here to tell you what will happen now.”

Even so, some of us kept talking.

“@S. @s.,” Milo tagged the recording admins. “Why are people still talking?”

At which, I answered a question in a long-running thread—and only then saw that Milo had asked for silence.

“My lord,” I acknowledged him, but it was too late. Milo pronounced sentence: “@S. 24 hour gags for anyone who spoke after ‘INCOMING.’”

There was still chatter, including from some of my fellow Faculty.

“@S.,” Milo commanded. “Keep going with anyone still babbling. I’m not done. @s. If he’s away, my trusted deputy, perhaps you could do the honors. Now, like I said.”

@s. confirmed: “3 gagged already, more to come.”

At last, the chat was silent.

And Milo spoke:

It is time to explain how the Thanos Tax will work. 

First, I present to you this repulsive example of bragging: [screenshot] “You’re welcome for the Thanos Tax. It’s my gift to you—troll your heart [out].” M. DMs R., gloating. A very ugly sight. Only made beautiful by the fact that she has left him on read for about 6 months. 

Second, I must consider the atrocious choice of R. in the first place. Does M. hate the good, the beautiful and the true? I think he must.

Third, against those things, there is the matter of M.’s congress with the oatmeal. It did display fidelity to his Queen. And he does deserve a reward.

It is time for me to render a verdict.

After universal outcry, publicly and privately, the Crown has determined that R. will not suffer the Thanos Tax. She may instead pass it on to someone else. M. will be returned to this place and affixed with the label UGLY.

BUT! From now on, once per month, M. can select someone Unworthy of the Queen’s Presence who must perform 20 Hail Marys or be banished from Our Light. And that shall be true banishment, not just gagging. He can visit this punishment on anyone who falls short of the virtuous ideals we uphold.

That is all. R., you are safe. M., you are returned.

At which, R. chose another to be Thanosed—V., one of the women who has been the top poster in the chat ever since it started—and the chat erupted again.  “All those beautiful screenshots of you, gone forever.” “She’s the most devoted.”

Milo reconsidered: “R. this can’t happen. You have to pick someone else. PICK A MAN YOU BACKSTABBING MEAN GIRL.”

The cleansing started with W.

“Consummatum est,” Milo declared, as Mozart’s Dies irae played in the background and W.’s entire chat history vanished in the click of a mouse.

M. was next—the same M. who had gloated about gifting R. with the Tax. His chat history vanished to the tune of Verdi’s setting of the same sequence:

Dies irae, dies illa
Solvet saeclum in favilla,
Teste David cum Sybilla.

“MORE,” Milo exulted. “MORE CLEANSING IN THE HOLY FIRE. YESSSSS.”

Then C. came before the Judge. “SENATIZE THIS,” Milo wept—and cackled—as Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor accompanied not-yet-Senator C.’s messages to the digital grave. “I have died,” C. commented. “Welcome back,” P. replied.

L. “died” to the strains of Allegri (“Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam meam”), at which Milo pronounced: “And by His Light and His Truth are we saved. Amen.”

In the end, four men were erased from (chat) history, every one of their comments, links, pictures, voice messages, and videos permanently deleted. Tens of thousands of interactions with the other members of the chat, gone. And yet, they were still there!

“This shall be the last,” Milo told us, after setting up a fifth for annihilation (cue choral version of Barber’s Adagio for Strings) but forbearing to let the click-hammer fall.

Meanwhile, those of us who had kept talking after Milo issued his “INCOMING” had to stay quiet for a day.

It was all quite...apocalyptic, you might say.

Cruel, even.

Except, confusingly enough, Milo ended with a blessing: “This is today’s lesson, my children. Cling not to the past and to former glories, but forever and always be looking ahead to the dawn. Amen.”

🜊

It is not just the Thanos Tax that has struck members of the chat as needlessly unpredictable and cruel. All of the Rules in Milo’s Finishing School have an edge.

Take Sharia Tuesday, when women are forbidden to speak. Or Fur Friday, the only day on which furries are permitted to post furry stickers and memes. Or every day, when no Spanish or Irish or “other terrorist languages” are allowed. Infractions are punished more or less instantly by the recording admins: “Bad case of the Spanish Flu.” “It’s Sharia Tuesday, no women.” “Not Friday, no fur.” At which the offenders are gagged, a.k.a. their posting abilities taken away, although they remain able to see the chat. Sharia Tuesday comes with the harshest penalty: a full 6 days of enforced silence, while fur and tongue count for only 3 days.

Or take Thot-Be-Gone, whereby one member of the chat can pay to have another silenced for a day ($10), a week ($35), a month ($100), or a year ($500). There is even a lifetime ban option for $1000. Conversely, with Study Hall, one member of the chat can ban the whole chat from discussing a particular topic for a mere $200/day, with violators to be gagged for 48 hours. Again, there is the Ugly Ban every 23rd of the month, when R. may choose one member of the chat to be silenced for as long as she decides.

And, as seen above, there is the Thanos Tax, price per member on application.

Did I mention that Sharia Tuesday, Fur Friday, and the language ban also come with the opportunity to buy a release? An indulgence, if you will. Or a flu shot. It is permitted for others to pay on behalf of the silenced, including the Thots. Standard indulgences are calculated per infraction according to the Fibonacci series starting at $21. Thots may gain back their voices for double the money, “except for lifetime bans, which require special dispensation from the Dean.” It has not yet been clarified whether speaking off topic in Study Hall will enjoy similar opportunities for purgatorial release.

What kind of sadistic games are these?!

“I don’t understand why anyone would care about Thanos,” one chat member told me. “Who has time to read back the chat? For me it is a lot to handle even all the new messages. I also think that Thanos and Thot-Be-Gone show the ugly in people—they are willing to pay for someone to be silenced or their messages deleted. Why wouldn’t they just donate instead? I don’t know how many of them would donate the same amount without the programs, some sure would, perhaps many. Nevertheless, I can’t relate to this willingness to hurt others.”

“I don’t consider Thot-Be-Gone a tool of power,” another told me. “It is not exclusive to any particular person, and everyone has the opportunity to use it. It is simply a way to donate to Milo and introduce a little chaos into the chat.... The biggest draw [as I see it is] to be involved in the troll with Milo. Pathetic I know! He is the ultimate troll, and I admire his ability to get under people people’s skin and provoke a reaction. I don’t know what that says about me! Or maybe I do haha.”

“I have mixed thoughts,” one of the ones who was Thanos’ed on Thursday told me. “In one sense, it is a horrible punishment to have 6+ months of my expression deleted. I built some very important relationships over those six months. In the context of the chat, my posts are my identity, and it hurt to lose that. In another sense, it was a gift. The past was wiped away and (arguably) no one knew who I was anymore. (At least they couldn’t prove it with a quote, anyway. LOL.)... Such is the curiously effective impact of Milo.”

Punishment—or gift? Invitation to play—or to be mean? Justice—or mercy? Kindness—or cruelty? It is curious how mixed people’s reactions are.

🜊

“Paying to get out of a penalty in a chat?” one friend who is not in the chat told me when I described it to him. “That sounds so medieval! And it favors the rich.”

“But,” I countered, “people can have compassion on each other. You can have friends pay for you.”

“It still favors the rich—or those who have rich friends.”

“But you don’t have to pay anything at all to get out of the penalty. You just have to stay quiet for a few days!”

Obviously, on one level, the game is about encouraging people to donate to Milo so that he has money, for example, to invite guests on his weekly show. (There have been donations made specifically even outside the game to help defray these costs for several members of the chat.)

On another, however, it is about teaching us a lesson.

What lesson would that be? Well, it depends on the game. There are different penalties for different sins, different incentives for different virtues.

Although I am immune from all penalties by Milo’s express decree (“RFB is immune from all punishments, express and implied”—Milo, October 2, 2019), I have observed Sharia Tuesday with the other women every week since it began. We had a bit of a ::ahem:: bovine stampede at the start, but since then it has turned into a day that the women in the women’s group look forward to as a chance to learn from each other about how to be better mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives, while (of course) we can still eavesdrop on the men. (It reminds me of growing up, when the women clearly knew what the men were talking about, but knew not to bother them until the game was done.)

I don’t know as much about how the furries feel about Fur Friday, but I am always eager to celebrate it myself with stickers of snow leopards, and the furries in the chat seem happy to accept the restriction, much as the women do. The language ban is a little different. People get caught all the time in short phrases, and don’t quite get the reason.

Q. What do women, furries, and non-English speakers all have in common? A. A clear need for boundaries, without which they take over the chat.

Sharia Tuesday, Fur Friday, and Tongue Rules are all things that one can avoid simply by paying proper attention to the day of the week and one’s use of words. Study Hall is a little different. It gives members of the chat the power to set the boundary around certain topics of discussion, but again, as long as one pays attention, its penalty is avoidable. (In theory, at least. We have not had anyone take advantage of Study Hall yet!) These are rules, as it were, of self-discipline and asceticism. Minding one’s own virtue, not the virtue of others.

Thot-Be-Gone, R.’s Ugly Ban, and the Thanos Tax are something else again. They are hazards set by the other members of the chat, not by one’s own inability to follow the rules.

But who is in hazard of what? Even more to the point, why would anyone care?

Consider last Thursday’s fourfold Thanos’ing. It began back in the mists of time (a.k.a. further back in the chat that I have energy at the moment to look) with a feud between M. and R. over who knows what? A photo posted injudiciously one summer night. Enhancements made to the photo and reposted as if it were the original. Insults and jabs, memes and personal jokes. Challenges set to do things better left undone. Videos, and yet more memes. DMs left unread. More memes. Until M. was convinced that R. was his enemy, or at the very least a Thot whom it would be virtuous to ban.

And then things got really interesting. First, Milo presented the chat with another video M. made, this one involving oatmeal. Then, Milo gagged M. for a year “for degeneracy” as witnessed by the video. Then, for his obedience with the oatmeal—for which he had just been gagged—Milo granted M. “one free use of the Thanos Tax.”

The chat held its breath.

“M. HAS CHOSEN,” Milo announced. “The person to be Thanos Taxed, whose entire chat history will be destroyed as if they never existed—though of course they continue to exist here—has been selected by M. The person M. has selected is R. In 24 hours, the tax will fall due.”

Immediately, led by Milo, the chat erupted in wailing and disbelief.

“My R. My poor sweet R.” Milo lamented. “I cannot speak. I have fallen silent. I am undone.”

“Wow,” recording admin @S. showed us. “That’s gonna be one hell of a Thanos-ing.” R. had made 13,238 posts during her time in the chat, more than anybody other than V. (the one saved from Thanos’ing for her excellent screen pics), @s. (first recording admin), P. (deputy troll), Z. (erstwhile cheerleader for all the newbies), M. (a.k.a. Mr. Oatmeal), Milo, myself, and one other. (@s. made me a chart last night—I got curious!).

Milo declared that he needed some time to grieve, while others called for me: “Where’s the queen mother? We need an advocate!” P. (a.k.a. deputy troll) wondered aloud whether R. would be leaving the chat, while the wailing continued: “Oh great! A bro war in the throne room! The monarch is off crying. No one will go get Mom. And only A. [actually W.] is helping! Argh! No one can convince the Queen to change the law. Our only hope is Mom.”

Game of Thrones, move over. This is Milo’s Chatroom.

Mind you, all of this happened at 1 in the morning Mom Time, while I was asleep. I woke to yet more prayers: “My Lady, when the day comes, arouse, for your Kingdom and your Son need you. Make haste dear Mother, to his bedside and he will tell all. A depraved knight is using the law of the land and the Sovereign’s goodness to overthrow him and what he holds dear. Speak to him, plead with him. —Your devoted Servant.”

R. showed up mid-morning the next day—entirely unphased.

“It’s okay,” she told Milo. “New year, new R. 2020 🥳🥳🥳.” And then she posted another meme of M..

“Mother is here now,” I consoled those who had been tagging me. “R. is fine. She is looking forward to having a clean palette to work on. R. understands the lesson of Gollum. Not holding onto our creations, making them the Precious. It is so easy to become attached to our creations. M. has given R. a beautiful gift. Freedom. A fresh start.”

R. posted another meme: “I’ve decided my 2020 starts on the 1st of February...this was a trial month.” On which she commented: “All this means is I come harder this 2020 😈😈😈.... It’s not a ban. It’s a rebirth.... My chakras and universes have aligned, and I feel as light as a feather.... 👶🏼👶🏼👶🏼👶🏼 maybe I should change my name to [baby name].... This is going to be a great year 😻😻😻.”

It was something of an anti-climax when Milo declared that the outcry in her favor had convinced the Crown to pass the Thanos Tax onto someone else. We had all be celebrating with her—well, I had—recognizing in her the bride from the Song of Songs: “Tota pulchra es, amica mea. Terribilis ut castrorum acies ordinata.” You are all beautiful, my love. Terrible as an army arrayed for battle.

Because, of course, she solved the puzzle. She understood what the Thanos’ing actually meant.

Milo told the men as he was deleting their chat histories: “The time for grief is over. W. will return with a new identity. Refreshed. Renewed. Reinvented. In the meantime we drink and toast.... I DON’T FEEL CLEAN ENOUGH. IT’S TIME TO FEEL CLEAN. I WANT TO FEEL CLEAN.”

Z., back from her cheerleading other chat rooms, leapt in: “I wanna be Thanosed!!”

“I WANT TO FEEL CLEAN.”

It is hard for me as a historian to let go of the past. My whole identity is caught up in making sense of the patterns I see in the play of events and ideas. Not to have my chat history? Not to have a record of everything that I have said over the past six months since the chat began? The horror! How could Milo be so cruel as to erase whole characters from the story as if they had never been? How would any of us be able to make sense of the lessons we have learned if we didn’t have our history to consult? Woe and woe and woe some more! (I asked @s. to make back-ups, but there have been Thanos’ings before.)

Why invite people to join a chat just to punish them for participating? Didn’t Milo want to encourage people to be here? Wasn’t the whole point to give his fans a place where they could come worship him?

Oddly, that isn’t what it says in the rules pinned to the top of the chat. What it says is somewhat more challenging:

You are enrolled in this Finishing School to support Milo and learn how to be an effective agent of chaos. We believe in the supremacy of western civilization, traditional moral values, the family, free expression, Christianity, capitalism and the ritual public humiliation of our enemies. We also have ground rules. Some to keep the peace, others because they amuse us. The Dean is churlish and spiteful, his rule is cruel and unpredictable, and his decisions are final.

And yet, note what he said after he had Thanos’ed the four: “This is today’s lesson, my children. Cling not to the past and to former glories, but forever and always be looking ahead to the dawn. Amen.”

Conservatives are constantly getting stuck in the past, wishing there were some way to return to the way things traditionally were. The problem with this vision is that such a time never existed—not in the sense in which many people would like to believe, as a time when the questions of culture were settled and everyone was confident how to live. This is the real reason history matters: the more you study history, the more you appreciate how everyone at every time lived anxious about the future, anxious about how to behave and how not to end up with everybody hating them.

Virtue has never been easy, that was the whole point of monasticism: for the monastery to serve a place where it was possible to practice fighting the demons of envy and pride. How did M. end up making so many videos compromising himself with food? How do any of us end up doing things that we wish that we hadn’t? Because we are tempted to believe that if we do them we will gain comfort (“Turn these stones into bread”) or status (“The angels will catch you”) or dominion (“I will give you the world”) if only we serve not God, but our lusts, our desire for attention, our need to be the one in control.

Is it cruel of God to call us on our sins when we disobey? Is it cruel of Milo to set clear rules and have us stick to them?

Perhaps, after all, the rules are not meant as punishments but are for our own good. For the women to have a time when they are not seeking the attention of the men. For the furries to be reminded that they are human beings, not animals. For those of us in the chat to remember why we are speaking English. For the chat as a whole to learn how to interact without overreacting to banter and memes.

And for those who get too involved in the insults and pettiness? They might pray to be Thanos’ed, if only the mean words that they once typed could be taken away.

“Go, your sins are forgiven you. Go, you have been washed clean.”

Once the cleansing was finished on Thanos’day, Milo was tempted to erase the chat entirely and start utterly clean, but in the end he relented: “I think we should leave this place intact. Given the enormous volume of Wisdom I have imparted so far.”

Meanwhile, because I had kept speaking when Milo had wanted us to be silent, I spent the next 24-hours quiet, pondering all these words in my heart.

🜊

Praise be to Meme Master Kevin Walter for “Miloangelo” and to all the members of the chat who sent him their likenesses to use. Original by Michelangelo, “The Last Judgment,” Sistine Chapel, Vatican City. Fresco, painted 1536-1541. See “Who’s Who in the Last Judgment?” to figure out who everyone is!  

Thanks to Banned, Alaina, and Jon for helping me identify the music that Milo played in the course of the Thanos’ing. 

For Milo’s own adventures in being Thanos’ed, see Milo Chronicles: Devotions 2016-2019, available in hardcover from Amazon and direct from the publisher at Castalia House.

For further lessons in training the soul, see The MILO Chronicles: Telegram Diaries. Start in August 2019 with “The Game of Moo.”

To find Milo’s Finishing School, go to his Telegram channel and wait for the link. You must watch—Milo does not say when he is coming!