I just finished watching The Andy Warhol Diaries, a recent documentary series regarding the life and times of of that oh-so prescient artist. It’s a fascinating glimpse into his relationships with both the people that surrounded him and the world at large, and I’ve learned a lot from it. The series’ exploration of his life is based on his fascination with the line between the real and the fake, and it pulls back the curtain on a lot of Warhol’s persona. Yet learning of that persona’s origins has only made me more fascinated in the man, the myth, the legend he built for himself.

Warhol was obviously ahead of his time in how he allowed the media to define his identity. Today, you can hop on any popular “influencer”’s Instagram feed and see what is basically an exaggerated, warped cartoon of reality, albeit in “real life.” It’s the entire foundation of celebrity—we see a generated persona we jive with in the public sphere, we hit the follow button, and we become so invested that we’re willing to take sides when those personas clash or even crack. There was surely some clashing and cracking happening one week ago, and it surely caused the internet to descend into pure chaos.

I didn’t see the Academy Awards through last Sunday because I got bored, but I woke up the next morning to a Facebook feed flooded with memes about the slap. They were initially lighthearted and reveling in the absurdity of it all, but as time went on, I began to notice a shift incredibly reflective of today’s digitally powered social realm: people started to take it seriously. Too seriously. Sides were taken and stood for. I saw vows be made to never discuss hot topic debates on social media ever again after the resulting comment chains got out of hand. One of my most favorite Facebook pages, Blistering takes from every coordinate of the ascended political hyperspace, which is dedicated to the most insane ranting of the internet’s most deranged individuals, made this very ominous post:

The Slap discourse has changed me. Deleting page soon. Go save your faves.

Not even the satire pages could take it. (As of now, the page is still active.)

The airwaves are less clogged now that the hype has died down and we’ve remembered that things like the early days of World War III and the Supreme Court exist. The Grammys are on, and I wonder if some event there will cause a similar tidal wave of absurd discourse over the ‘net. That might happen; it might not. But people will still be talking about it nonetheless.

Warhol would’ve had a field day.