So millercarbon I am curious to know which specific thread got you going? Sounds like it would be an entertaining read so what one was it?
Right. Like it was one. We don't call them Mini-Mao's when its just one. They're all over the place.
There is one though, pages and pages of posts, one NPC after another. Not that they realize it. That's the thing about being NPC: no self-awareness. Literally zero. All they do is snark back and forth. Because, NPC, what they do.
Years ago the great Peggy Noonan wrote a beautiful article. I'll never be able to do her justice. What she said was, Movies, television, news shows, radio, newspapers, magazines, and books. Today she would add YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Google. These are the waters we swim in. The water may once have been clean and clear. Today it is a cesspool. But its the whole ocean, and having been born into it and swimming in it our whole lives it seems fine. We don't notice. Aren't even aware we're swimming. Not really.
One day you go a little close to shore, stick your head up, and man the lights bright. Waves thrash you around but you drag yourself ashore somehow.
Exhausted, you look around. Man, the colors! The air! Its so clear! You can see forever! You go back, try and tell someone. What're you crazy? Swimming? We're not swimming? You're nuts. You go back up, now there's a few more on the beach. You start to make some new friends.