The Waldo Junction Knitting Club is a bubble of groupthink

There is something I need to get off my chest, and it is about the deplorable treatment I received upon joining the Waldo Junction Knitting Club four weeks ago.

I joined the Waldo Junction Knitting Club because I wanted to form social connections after being banned from LinkedIn because of reasons, and because there are no other clubs in Waldo Junction that I am aware of. Arriving at the meeting location, I was was warmly welcomed by knitting club president Julia and by the other club members, some of whom praised me as a "handsome young man" and said they were "excited to see a new face."

It was not long, however, before the trouble began. The other group members began the meeting by showing off their progress on their latest knitting projects, and Nancy asked for advice on what she called a "tricky part" of a dog sweater she was working on. This went on for some time.

Personally, however, I don't think knitting is very interesting? I was willing to listen politely to the conversation, but after twenty minutes or so I suggested we talk about woodworking, since that is something have always wanted to become interested in. You could have heard a pin drop when I said that.

The members were polite enough, but after a while club president Julia "reminded" me that the Waldo Junction Knitting Club was primarily a group that talked about knitting, implying that asking questions about woodworking was unwelcome. But as this was my first meeting, I held my tongue and listened as the group continued their interminable talk about dog sweaters.

After the conversation died down, the other members began work on their various projects; apparently most of the meeting was going to be devoted to knitting things and making idle chatter. I am an adaptable person, and believe I am quite the good conversationalist.

No topic I suggested, however, seemed to satisfy these people! I mentioned that I was a fan of cryptocurrency, and asked them whether they had Bitcoins and wallets, but only got perfunctory answers. I told them that cryptocurrencies were the investments of the future; again, nothing. I mentioned that cryptocurrencies were getting a bad rap, primarily because the government (thank you very much, JOE BIDEN) was spreading conspiracy theories about them, and at think at one point I heard Beth snort like a farm animal.

From there I pivoted to talking about Jade Helm, which I had heard about on a podcast. I mentioned that I didn't know if Robert F. Kennedy Jr. knew about Jade Helm, but I did think he knew about fluoride in our water supplies. I believe that fluoride is the reason why Taylor Swift's music is so popular, by the way. It is changing the human brain in ways that make us more susceptible to Taylor Swift and Beyonce: I call it the Vixen Molecule and have contacted RFK several times to arrange a meeting and show him my slide deck.

I talked about all the violence in Europe, and how the war in Ukraine is actually a proxy war by France because French people hate other languages and will go to great lengths to expand the global reach of French. (That's also why the speed thing on your car instrument panel includes "km" and not just miles. Who paid for car companies to do that? And why is our government not cracking down on it, hmm? Makes you think.) I also mentioned that I once was on a boat at Lake Tahoe and I saw a Great White Shark, but nobody believed me because sharks "can't live" in freshwater lakes, according to the elite biologists who decide these things. But I know what I saw, it was definitely the thing from Jaws.

And that reminded me of the time I was in New Mexico visiting a relative, and I went out and looked for gila monsters since I'd heard New Mexico had them. I spent three hot crappy hours looking for gila monsters, and know what I found? Nothing. Not a damn thing. Gila monsters are supposed to exist, but what if it's been AI this whole time? I read a story about the drugs that have been made after researching gila monster venom but I don't think they researched a damn thing. All those drugs probably contain fluoride instead, and every damn year it keeps making girl music more popular.

No matter what I talked about, though, it was like talking to wrinkly brick walls. They just kept on with their knitting. And it wasn't like the others weren't talking about things besides knitting! June talked about preserving peaches and needing to get more mason jars, whatever a "mason jar" is. Renee said she had just gotten back from a cruise, and that she thinks somebody died on the ship and the cruise company was trying to keep it quiet. It was mindless small talk, just knitting and blathering on about things that don't matter and more knitting.

At one point I tried to explain what cryptocurrency was to Nancy, so I showed her my iPhone, but instead of reading the article about Bitcoins I had pulled up she googled for "knitted dog sweaters" and now I'm going to get ads for knitted dog sweaters every time I go on the internet for the next year and a half.

This is the problem with most social circles, and why LinkedIn got too Woke and started censoring perfectly reasonable conversations and why I keep getting put on Bluesky lists even though I say in my profile that my sovereign rights clearly forbid you from doing that. Everyone is living in a bubble these days, and these old bats are so far in their bubble you can't even reach them anymore.

Try and puncture their little bubble of groupthink and all they do is look at you like they think you're stupid. But I'm not stupid, Julia. I know about lots of things you don't. You're the stupid one, sitting there listening to Nancy ramble on about stupid dog sweaters for twenty minutes at a time. NOBODY CARES ABOUT DOG SWEATERS, NANCY, YOU CAN'T PUT YOUR STUPID DOG SWEATERS ON THE BLOCKCHAIN. ELON'S NOT GOING TO INVEST IN DOG SWEATERS, NANCY. THERE'S NOT GOING TO BE A FEDERAL DOG SWEATER RESERVE, NANCY.

The United States is now nothing but a big collection of bubbled groupthink-thinkers, and that's why we're getting our ass kicked by China and why I keep hearing about Taylor Swift and why French people keep putting croissants in our grocery stores. And I tried to explain that to Julia and Rachel and Nancy and all of them but they wouldn't listen.

I finally got fed up and pointed out that Nancy looked like she had some Asian heritage and maybe that's why she's so close-minded about Bitcoins, and then everybody got mad and asked me to leave.

I'm fine with that. I'm not angry or anything. But I think everyone should know that the Waldo Junction Knitting Club is a BUBBLE and that none of them are interested in new ideas or in doing their own research, so if you want to be a part of a healthy society where debate is welcome you should definitely look elsewhere. And dogs don't even like sweaters, and how are you going to keep a dog sweater clean if you can't even wash it, that's completely stupid you fossils.