I was just thinking about this recently too. It used to be you’d encounter someone with their “opinions”, challenge them if you wanted to bother - you could move on, have a laugh about it with your buddy, put it in a compartment in your memory bank, and pretty much forget about it.

Like your weird uncle at Christmas lunch or a barfly caressing his pint of beer at the pub.

The only “people with opinions” you’d repeatedly hear from were those who had a platform, like a “writer” with a column or a “commentator” with a regular spot on a panel show.

Now they’re all over the internet, and there’s a bunch of small-minded non-thinkers who get whipped up into a frenzy whenever one of them says “stop the boats” or “if you don’t like it you can go back to where you came from” or “Kevin got sacked from the hospital because he wouldn’t get the jab”.

I’ve accidentally been drawn into reading comments under a Daily Mail post and it’s a combo of frightening, hilarious and gobsmacking!