CHICAGO — This week it was reported that violent crime is down in Chicago, in line with trends of declining crime nation-wide. The only category where violent crime remains historically high is in the comments sections of social media sites, where crime in Chicago has increased by an estimated 4038%.
“We’re seeing homicides and robberies decline on the streets of Chicago,” said CPD Supt. Larry Snelling, “but they are alarmingly high in comments sections online. We’re seeing death and destruction on a never-before-seen level in these areas. Well, not seeing, but reading about them, and it’s concerning.”
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While Snelling and Mayor Johnson touted the successes of efforts like the robbery task force in aiding the decline, they remained unsure how to address the imagined crimes thought up by people posting under news articles about “Best Places to Eat in Chicago” and Instagram pictures of dogs being walked on the lake shore.
“On paper, Chicago is aligned with declining crime across the nation,” said Mayor Johnson, “but on digital paper we’re like Gotham plus Mad Max plus The Purge plus The Untouchables plus whatever media property you think of when you think of wanton violence.”
“There’s a couple key components to Chicago’s imagined crime problem,” said Dr. Fisher Franklin, a professor of criminology who worked for the FBI till he accidentally made eye-contact with Kash Patel.
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“You have repeat offenders who keep getting banned from platforms and then released back onto the same platforms. The judges at Meta or X.comtheeverythingapp’s moderating departments are letting these bad posters free so they can go right back out and comment about ‘crime-ridden hellholes’ under articles about The Bears’ draft prospects.”
“The next issue is that the idea of crime in Chicago is as violent an assault on people who spend too much time online as real crime is to people who live here,” said Franklin, showing this Chicago Genius Herald reporter a diagram of a head where the brain is really small and fucked-up looking, “to people with this condition the idea of an imagined gang member in Chicago is an painful as actually being shot and robbed by the gang member, who, again, doesn’t exist.”
While Snelling and Johnson are encouraged by the city’s progress since a post-pandemic spike in violent crime, they worry the made up crime problem will still continue to escalate. Snelling has announced a new task force dedicated to cleaning up comments sections by snarkily correcting people’s grammar and hoping the offenders get so mad they have strokes.
