In a world where the most significant thing most people do with their opposable thumbs is swipe right on a filtered lie, we find ourselves confronted with the latest 'human interest' story out of a small village in China. A woman, realizing her father—a man whose utility has evidently been outpaced by the sheer biological persistence of swine—could not handle the annual slaughter alone, took to the digital ether to beg for assistance. And what did the universe provide? Thousands of people. Thousands. Not a handful of neighbors with a shared sense of duty, but a literal horde of spectators descending upon a rural outpost like a swarm of locusts in athleisure wear, all for the chance to participate in the visceral mundanity of a pig feast.

Let us dispense with the saccharine narrative of 'community spirit' that the performative Left will undoubtedly use to lecture us about the lost art of collective action. This isn't community; it’s a stampede. It is the end result of a society so thoroughly sterilized by screens and soy-based alternatives that the literal scent of blood and mud becomes a bucket-list item. These thousands didn't show up to 'help' in any meaningful sense. They showed up to witness. They showed up because their own lives are so devoid of primary experience that they had to drive hours to watch an old man admit he can’t wrestle a sow anymore. It’s the ‘Experience Economy’ at its most necrotizing—turning a chore into a carnival, a slaughter into a selfie opportunity.

On the other side of the idiocy spectrum, the Right-leaning traditionalists will likely weep into their flags about the 'death of the patriarch' or the 'softening of the youth.' They’ll claim that the father’s inability to kill the pigs himself is a sign of a crumbling civilization. Please. The man is old. Biological decay is the only honest thing left in this world. The real tragedy isn’t that he couldn’t do the job; it’s that his daughter thought the internet was the appropriate solution. The internet is a fire hose that you use to put out a candle; sure, the candle is gone, but now your entire house is underwater and filled with strangers who are filming your misery for their followers.

Think about the logistics for a moment, if your brain hasn't been completely liquefied by short-form video content. A small village, designed for a static population of a few hundred, suddenly finds itself the epicenter of a migratory event. Thousands of people arrived. Where did they park? Where did they defecate? The article conveniently ignores the fact that this 'plea for help' likely turned the village into a logistical nightmare of gridlocked traffic and discarded trash. But no, we are supposed to focus on the 'wholesomeness' of the feast. A feast for thousands? Unless those pigs were the size of small cathedrals, nobody actually ate anything besides the 'vibes' and the sense of smug satisfaction that comes from pretending to be a peasant for an afternoon.

This is the ultimate evolution of the modern human: the Atavistic Tourist. We have spent decades building a world where we don't have to kill our own food, fix our own roofs, or even look our neighbors in the eye, and now we are so bored by our own safety that we crave the 'authenticity' of a bloodbath. It’s the same impulse that drives people to climb Everest just to stand in a line, or to flock to a 'disaster zone' to take a photo of the ruins. We are a species of spectators, perpetually looking for a stage where someone else is doing something real so we can stand in the background and feel relevant by association.

The daughter’s plea wasn't a call for help; it was an accidental marketing campaign for the death of privacy. She invited the world in, and the world—being the mindless, starving beast it is—showed up and ate the village whole. Those pigs were the lucky ones. They at least get a quick end. The rest of us are stuck in a permanent village feast where everyone is filming, nobody is helping, and the only thing being slaughtered is the last shred of human dignity. We are all just pigs in the pen, waiting for a girl with a smartphone to tell a thousand idiots where to find us.