BLACKWELL, Okla. — Local man Darren McFadden was ready to take on his day after his Instagram algorithm fed him several consecutive Reels of horrific automotive fatalities, concerned friends and family members reported.
“Life really isn’t so bad when you put everything into perspective,” reported McFadden while casually watching a sizzle reel of parkour outtakes resulting in either death or permanent disfigurement at 2x speed and sipping on his morning coffee. “Sure, my job is miserable and my ex-girlfriend just announced that she’s having twins, but things could be a lot worse. At least I wasn’t that guy who got pancaked by a drunk driver behind the wheel of an F-150 while enjoying lunch at the sub shop because he was sitting too close to the window.”
Longtime friend and victim of McFadden’s willingness to forward the most unhinged content without warning, Chris Harding, is considering therapy after months of waking up to unsolicited gore.
“Darren and I always send each other wacky stuff, but I’m beginning to think that he sincerely enjoys watching countless people he doesn’t know get severely hurt or killed before forwarding it along with a hearty ‘LOL’ that makes the hairs on my neck stand up,” stated Harding while surveying his inbox for ‘Sensitive Content’ warnings. “I never thought I’d miss the overflow of people reviewing food in their cars that typically show up on my feed, but thanks to Darren my Explore page is now a digital landfill of human suffering.”
Social media expert Lauren Hughes worries about the psychological fallout that mass consumption of snuff under the guise of entertainment will have on society if left unchecked.
“It goes without question that we’re not mentally equipped to doom scroll through hundreds of videos of unintentional manslaughter on social media,” asserted Hughes while scrubbing her feed of candid choking incidents at chain restaurants for the third time this week. “On one hand, sussing out AI-generated content versus the real thing has become increasingly difficult, and you really can’t blame users for seeing it as a form of idle entertainment. Conversely, laughing out loud at a man falling into a bear trap while you’re taking a dump is the early warning sign of an entirely new mental illness that we have yet to fully explore.”
At press time, McFadden was spotted searching for his old copy of “Faces of Death” in his storage unit.