From the bowels of Destiny subreddit.

Even the smartest, morally superior movements have dumb moments. A touch of dark humor on the r/Destiny sub was one of them, in my opinion. Here’s what happened when I spoke up.

(“Blockhead” by Stella Stillwell)

It started with a gut check. I was doing what I often do now, lurking in the DGG subreddit, soaking in the chaos, the clarity, the occasional brilliance that leaks out when Destiny’s orbit slams against the static of real-time, unfiltered political discourse.

But this time something hit sideways. I stumbled into a thread related to Ashli Babbitt, and the top comment said:

“Dig her up and shoot her again.”

Hundreds of upvotes. Followed by:

“Make it an annual holiday.”

“Her family should be next.”

Before you pounce on this, keep in mind, they didn’t mean it. These aren’t Twitter ghouls. The DGG subreddit is full of whip-smart, morally grounded activists with a dark, insider humor that’s more bratty than brutal. It leans sardonic, not sadistic.

But let’s be honest: from the outside, that distinction gets lost fast, and it’s not worth the risk.

I’m not new to edgy humor or brutal rhetoric. I grew up online. But this didn’t read as sharp or strategic. It read as lazy cruelty masquerading as power. Ugly. Simian. Boring. And politically stupid.

But around the same time, Destiny had gone on Piers Morgan and pulled off a high-stakes rhetorical maneuver, refusing to deliver a performative condemnation on demand, not out of flippancy, but to spotlight the absurdity of being asked to denounce isolated leftist violence while the sitting U.S. President was echoing “this means war” rhetoric and treating antifa as a domestic terror group.

It wasn’t just a petty rejection of purity games, it was Destiny’s direct challenge to the asymmetric moral standards we’re held to. He let slip, in his own words, that the Kirk thing was horrible and crazy, and that what we need most is for the temperature to come down, especially from the top. It was a tightrope act. Maybe he pulled it off. Maybe not. But the point was sharp. The timing was charged.

But back in the sub? People seemed to be using that move as a hall pass to act like sociopaths. It seemed to me (admittedly, a newb over there) that they mistook Destiny’s restraint and strategic ambiguity for permission to get nasty. To post like unhinged 4chan burners. And it made me sick.

So I spoke up. I made an “effort” post titled:

Why I almost left the sub today, almost canceled my DGG support, almost sold my Pangburns. (Tickets to the upcoming Destiny/MAGA debate.)

I made the curmudgeonly case that mocking corpses doesn’t make the center-left look strong. It doesn’t even make us look edgy. It makes us look hollow. Cowardly. Detached. A failure of basic decency.

A young woman made a terrible mistake and was killed in a tragic, chaotic moment. She has family. People who grieve her. And seeing hundreds laugh at her death, even online, even as dark humor, isn’t just ghoulish, it’s cheap. (You’d never hear 400 people laugh at that in a stadium. Because it’s not funny. It’s bad manners. And if we believe our center-left values are real, now is when we prove it.)

Some people agreed. A mod chimed in, telling me we need to let the beast out sometimes. That rhetoric like this adds fire to the movement. That we shouldn’t try to muzzle the aggression of our side, because it keeps us from looking soft.

To which I responded:

We are all the beast until we stop being a dance partner in vicious cycles.

I invoked some of the moral frameworks that shaped a whole generation: characters like Jiraiya from Naruto and Uncle Iroh from Avatar: The Last Airbender. These aren’t just fictional figures, they’re moral tractates in character form, revered by millions for how they handle power, restraint, and principle.

I brought up game theory, race-to-the-bottom logic, and the risk of aesthetic rot when we start matching our opponent’s worst instincts. Then I asked: where is the line? Do you have one?

A lot of people answered. Some doubled down, snide and defensive, clinging to the edge like it was strategy. Accusing me of being “soy,” or prissy, I guess.

But quite a few agreed, and did so clearly, calmly, even gratefully. They were glad someone said it. Not everyone wants to sound like a beast just to prove they’re not weak.

That mix of response told me everything: the line exists. It’s just not being guarded consistently in the DGG community. So I tried to guard it. That’s all.

The mods removed the post.

To their credit, they did it gently. They said it was because I referenced possibly leaving and selling tickets, which is against sub rules. Fair. I even said I agreed with the removal, sort of.

But the deeper thing is: they didn’t challenge the core argument. Because they couldn’t.

“Empty Calories” by Stella Stillwell)

A few brave commenters called the removal a low point for the sub. Others stayed silent.

Most of the replies were hostile. Not thoughtful pushback. Snide, performative, irrelevant, and mobbed with upvotes. People weren’t debating ideas, they were circling wagons around the ugliest parts of the thread and treating my concern like weakness.

When I asked, plainly, why we were mocking a woman’s death, the main reply wasn’t even an argument. It was deflection. Over and over: “Why are you feeling sorry for her? Didn’t she deserve it?”

I responded the only way I knew how, and yes, I got testy:

“Why are you deflecting? Pathetic attempts at edginess of digging up a corpse and shooting her family and cackling about it with 400 upvotes has zero to do with whether the consequences of her act were justified. Your comment is just dumb. It’s this exact lack of discernment of yours that also leads to self-indulgent dark humor that makes the most brilliant movement anywhere look backed up by a few too many callous Beavis leptons.”

That was me. I said that. And I meant it.

Because what I was seeing wasn’t just a moment of dark humor. It was a mob mentality, propped up by upvotes, feeding on each other’s crassness, defending it like it was a strategic position instead of what it really was. Dumb, mean, and disconnected from what their own movement is actually trying to be.

That’s why I channeled Destiny himself and pushed back. I got sharper than usual. Not because I wanted to police tone, but because I couldn’t stand watching a brilliant community act like it didn’t know better.

I didn’t write any of it to moralize. I wrote it because I believe Destiny is on to something massive, and that his rhetorical rigor, executed at speed, can break through where nothing else can.

But you can’t break through with sludge. You can’t innovate on the battlefield of ideas if your movement starts sounding like the worst of the ignorant, cowardly and selfish people you’re trying to beat.

The beast is real. But the beast can’t be the brand.

You want to be feared? Be feared for your coherence. Be feared for your restraint. Be feared because the opponent knows you’re smarter and sharper and cleaner, and they can’t catch you slipping. Not because you posted about desecrating a corpse and called it strategy.

If this movement is going to matter, it needs people willing to say: enough. This isn’t about being soft. It’s about being disciplined. It’s about not surrendering to performative nihilism. It’s about knowing the difference between a power move and a tantrum. And even if that stuff helps you win, what’s the point in winning if you’re cackling about corpses? That doesn’t sound like much of a win for humanity.

I’ll stay with DGG. The MAGA GOP is acting way worse, across the board, and what’s brewing is alarming. But if you want to scare off every person like me who might actually help, keep feeding the wrong beast.

That’s the story. That was the episode.

Still watching.

(“You in?” by Stella Stillwell)