I feel the pain of reality show contestants everywhere, when I go online.\u00a0 But in the long history of humiliation as entertainment, my experience on the Internet barely registers on the torture meter.\u00a0 Our ancestors were a bunch of twisted, sadistic sociopaths.\u00a0 Google the history of the term \u201cRoman Holiday,\u201d or when you\u2019re worried about CTE in the NFL, look up the famous Mayan sport oollamaliztli or the precursor to soccer in Britain called \u201cmelee,\u201d and try not to cringe!\u00a0 Or how tug-of-war was played by the Danes (spoiler alert, there\u2019s a fire pit), or the better-known Gladiator battles.\u00a0 Public whippings and stocks existed in early colonial American days, too.\u00a0 All of which is to say:\u00a0 the Internet is terrible.\u00a0 But at least it hasn\u2019t featured my trolls tying me to a stick and letting me be eaten by bears.\u00a0 Yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I feel the pain of reality show contestants everywhere, when I go online.\u00a0 But in the long history of humiliation as entertainment, my experience on the Internet barely registers on the torture meter.\u00a0 Our ancestors were a bunch of twisted, sadistic sociopaths.\u00a0 Google the history of the term \u201cRoman Holiday,\u201d or when you\u2019re worried about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n