WikiHow is a resource site for people so utterly lost in life that they don’t even know how to ask for directions anymore. It’s full of wildly unhelpful guides for basic things like ‘how to speak without vomiting on your own shirt’ and ‘how to park a bicycle.’ It is a site that tells people the wrong way to do tasks that nobody needed instructions for in the first place, but it mostly operates under the guise of being useful. Even if it’s aimed solely at people so anxious they have become a panicking gelatinous cube and somehow forgot how to work a fork, WikiHow at least pretends to help. But How to Avoid Attention knows that you are beyond assistance, and all you want in life is to disappear. Since the mods keep deleting How To Do A Shy Suicide, this is closest thing they’re legally allowed to publish:
It makes me intensely sad to think of the person so emotionally shattered that they turn to WikiHow, the site that fails to explain how to use a ball, to help them recede from society like a meek tide. Look at this wildly useless word collage:
This fucking article is introducing the idea of conformity like it’s a unique concept that has never occurred to you, the reader. Like you’re out there on the streets wearing nothing but tap shoes and a bearskin rug, begging passersby to explain why you’re not allowed on the bus. The author takes a whole paragraph out to carefully define what ‘medium’ is — anxiety isn’t tied to lexical amnesia, you Buck-Fifty-An-Hour Freelancer, why are you pausing to explain basic words in an article already made of basic words?
Also why is there a section advising you to change colors like a chameleon? I’m starting to think I’ve misunderstood the intention of this article but… no, no that’s too crazy. I’m being paranoid again. Let’s carry on.
I’m sure that sounded perfectly reasonable in whatever Theoretical Lab of the Mild Sciences paper you’re referencing, but I guarantee that advising some poor jittery bouillon of a boy to wander into Baltimore and impersonate the way people talk there is going to end with you guys liable for Murder By Endorsement.
Man, something is up with this guide. Look at this:
Who is this for?
I’m clearly approaching this whole thing from the wrong angle. Usually the ‘Recommended Reading’ section at the bottom tells you far more about the intended demographic than you are comfortable knowing, so let’s just scroll down to…
Oh, holy shit.
I have indeed been wrong: This is an introductory textbook for incel murderers. It’s supplemental material for Remedial Manhunting 95. I assumed that, like every single other WikiHow guide I have ever read, this one was meant for shy teens raised in a closet with only an affable pillowcase for a companion. There is something much more sinister going on here. But if it’s just for psychopaths then…
Why are we shown a deliberately median human gazing with confusion at a fork? This isn’t advice for a person trying not to be bullied by unfiltered eye contact… but it’s also not for a lunatic hunting prey at an opera. Even a lunatic would understand these basic human cues by now, if only by exposure.
Yep. Okay. I get it now.
I have somehow accessed Alien WikiHow — the guide for dipshit extraterrestrials who are clueless about their first Earthbound hunting safari. You just had to go and include a section about ‘throttling your own superhuman powers to avoid notice’ didn’t you? You gave away the game, Zapzar, you 0.65-Loobars-An-Hour Space-Freelancer.
Clearly, I am no longer qualified to comment on the quality of this advice. I only have one inhuman acquaintance who enjoys hunting humans, so I’ll hand this over to Vexxox, PoxCo’s Head HR ManTis.
Well shit, WikiHow. Thanks a lot. Now you’ve got me being hunted by the worst enemy our species has ever known: An HR representative.
At least now I understand what the fuck Sophia was talking about.
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This article was brought to you by our fine patron and Hot Dog Supreme, Pauli Poisuo: who is called “Baba Yaga” by his enemies and “Double P” by Baba Yagas.