What if I told you the most dangerous weapon most of us carry… isn’t a gun or a knife?

It’s a keyboard.

Millions of people every day wake up, pick up their phones, and step into a strange theater of human behavior—where cruelty spreads faster than truth, outrage travels farther than kindness, and strangers feel emboldened to destroy someone they’ve never met.

And the worst part?

For some people… it feels good.

That rush. That attention. That viral moment.

Today I want to talk about the dark side of something we all do.

The Vicarious Vicious Keyboard

Human nature is something I study.

It’s one of the tools I use to make my characters feel real—solid… and undeniably human.

People aren’t perfect. So my characters aren’t either.

Sometimes they want to do something selfish. Something indulgent. Something that brings them no real benefit at all.

And that impulse? That foolishness?

It speaks to the heart of all our pent-up reckless desires.

After all, don’t we love reading about things we’d never do ourselves? Not in the real world.

Things we lack the guts—the raw courage—to do?

I remember the first time I learned the word vicarious. It was on one of those weekly vocabulary lists in school. You remember when we had homework, and Mom would drill you on the list, while she cooked.

Vicarious—adjective

According to the Britannica Dictionary, vicarious means experienced or felt by watching, hearing about, or reading about someone else rather than by doing something yourself.

Light bulbs flashed. Thunder rolled.

I understood this. My life changed a little. Suddenly I had a word for something I’d always felt but couldn’t name: and the dangerous desires of the human heart had a vehicle.

That thrill of experiencing something through someone else.

I can be an astronaut. I could be a Duke. I could be a NASA mathematician. I could be a hockey player. I could be a cowgirl riding backwards on a horse. Anything, even a serial killer.

But like most things… we in the digital age take things too far.

We don’t know when to stop.

And the internet—well, the internet makes it easier for us to keep going.

Yes, social media and endless scrolling. I’m look at you.

Have you ever put up a post and suddenly—miraculously—it get clicks? I’m talking serious clicks.

Once I made an IG post about the imagery in the Sinners movie poster; it reminded me of Ernie Barnes and his iconic painting The Sugar Shack—the same painting immortalized on Good Times and on Marvin Gaye’s I Want You album cover.

“That swirl of limbs.

That sense of joy, rhythm, resistance.

The juke joint as sacred space.”

Well, that post—that simple observation—went viral in April of 2025.

Almost a million views.

Over ninety-five thousand likes.

And I’ll be honest… it felt good.

It had me checking the app again and again like an addict. Refreshing. Watching the numbers climb. For a few moments I even wondered—what could I do to capture that magic again?

I liked that rush. If I could do it again, I would. But that’s the magic of viral.

A scroll through threads or a dash through Twitter will show you the posts with the most likes are often vile or viscous.

Some of the most toxic posts go viral. The same feeling I had checking art comments must be the same for those who post hate or speech about harm.

Are people willing to chase the clicks even if it means posting cruelty?

Are these fiends, checking their toxic feeds for engagement? Does negative attention spur them to post something even crazier?

Is there a craving for attention, so strong that negativity will do.

Have we grown so safe behind a a keyboard that we lean in at a greater propensity to bully?

Or is it something darker—something more insidious? Does the hurt inside bubble up until it spills out online?

Do endorphins kick in when the crowd joins the pile-on.

Let’s be honest—every nasty thread post or tweet can’t be a bot.

I keep asking myself: what’s in it for someone to be that hurtful? That’s the part of the vicarious journey I don’t get.

But I do see the consequences:

Actors doing their jobs—playing fictional characters—suddenly have to issue statements condemning racist or homophobic harassment from so-called “fans.”

Any given day on Twitter—and honestly, I don’t recommend it—you’ll see people wishing harm on others simply because they didn’t like a character… or because someone attended an award show.

This newfound comfort with cruelty makes me wonder if our lives have become so hollow that we now live evil vicarious lives, victimizing others with a keyboard?

When I was writing Jacquotte Delahaye (Fire Sword and Sea), I had to wrestle with her darkness.

She’d endured terrible things, the cruel deaths of people she loved. Betrayal. Loss.

And I had to walk a fine line. I don’t do trauma porn. I believe we write of violence without hurting or triggering readers, if at all possible.

For Jacquotte, I wrestled with her resolve to survive and achieve her dreams with her thirst for vengeance.

Jacquotte was angry.

And if she hadn’t had people around her—people to talk her down—she could have become something far more violent.

Yes, she’s a pirate. Violence is part of that world.

But even pirates are human.

I had to find her humanity. I had to lay it bare on the page.

Even the most conflicted person must retain some trace of it. Rage and anger cannot pull you so far away from your essence that nothing remains but darkness.

Today, I read Psalm 38:11–12

My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague,

and my nearest kin stand far off.

Those who seek my life lay their snares;

those who seek my hurt speak of ruin

and meditate treachery all day long.

David wrote many of the Psalms while literally running for his life.

But the line that stopped me was this:

“Those who seek my hurt speak of ruin and meditate treachery all day long.”

Meditate on treachery.

Think about that.

We have too much to do in this life to sit around meditating or posting on someone else’s downfall.

Yes, the world feels chaotic right now. Politics alone can drive you crazy if you dwell on it. Believe me—I want to shout about how I warned …

If I lived inside that frustration every hour, I’d lose my mind. No. I choose to vicariously teleport into a book, movie, or research. I know I will not meditate treachery all day long.

So to the keyboard warriors, I’m asking something simple:

Step up.

If you see a friend posting or sharing nonsense—talk to them. Help them pull back before they become one of those treacherous people treachery.

And if you yourself posted something that seemed funny in the moment but later you realized it caused harm…

Apologize.

A real apology.

Not the fake kind that says, “I’m sorry if anyone was offended.”

And read the Psalms, you will see David fully anguish in his sorrow. He names it. He owns it.

That honesty matters.

When I wrote Jacquotte, there were moments where she was unrepentant in her anger… and moments where she was broken by the consequences of her choices.

I put all of it on the page so readers could see it, feel it, and understand it.

I’m grateful for the technology that allows us to reach people all over the world in seconds.

With that power comes responsibility. We never know what will go viral.

Before you post ask yourself:

Am I posting nonsense about someone I don’t know - delete.

Am I posting something that could cause harm: reputational, self-harm, mobs—delete.

Did I think not only about intent but possible impact—delete.

In the meantime… I suggest we all touch a little grass.

Get some air. Take your allergy meds. And read a good book. This week’s booklist will have some recommendations.