The Lindsay Clancy murder trial is generating a wide variety of reactions, very few of which are grounded in reality. From online crime fighters thinking they’ve sussed out the real story to the “same, Lindsay” trend on TikTok, social media is once again proving that the internet was probably a mistake. What initially held the promise of a vast, instantly accessible super-library has morphed into a medium more focused on ignorance and outrage than on information.
This quest for clicks also means some mistakes are going to be made, such as this post on X claiming that there’s a new trend of moms filming themselves throwing ice cubes into their tubs as a way of getting their anger out. The implied message is that this is in response to the Clancy trial. Except it’s not, at least not the video in that post. That particular ice-throwing mom uploaded her video in 2024, several years before the trial began. She also followed it up with a post about not bottling up your emotions and instead finding non-destructive ways to get them out of your system so you can move on without causing actual harm. That’s a position even Cosmo Kramer agrees with.
The difference between Kramer and the MomToker, though, is that actor Michael Richards was following a script in his portrayal of Kramer’s breakdown, and the audience was in on that fact, whereas the mom on TikTok was a little more oblique about the fact that she was also performing for the camera. One doesn’t have to watch much of her content to realize that it’s all an act. Sure, she is a mom, and being a mom is stressful, but the involved husband and father pops up here and there. Her parents are close by and serve as a support network. Most of her videos aren’t even that over the top and are instead of her doing mundane things like grabbing a latte before heading to the playground with her daughter or making a few hot dogs for her husband and daughter while the two of them jump on the trampoline.
Granted, she did comment on the Clancy case, saying “I see you,” which is therapy-speak for recognizing the pain and despair that Clancy was and likely is still experiencing. She did not offer a “same, Lindsay,” though. She didn’t comment on what verdict she’d like to see. Generally, she just posts videos of the online persona she’s created, which is another issue altogether and has nothing to do with gruesome murders. Chiefly, it’s fine to get frustrated or to project an idealized image to the world. Most everyone does. Serenity now may not be the answer; filming yourself actually losing it is definitely not.
Unless the question is, How do I get clicks? Which brings us back to the destructive nature of the modern internet. We could be reading great works of literature, seeing vivid pictures of paintings we might not ever be able to visit in person, or figuring out how to solve problems. Instead, we’re mostly the baddies.
And this is too often true regardless of which side of the debate, whatever the debate is, we find ourselves on. To stick with Clancy, yes, the insane conspiracy theories positing that her husband Patrick murdered the kids and framed her with an elaborate plot involving a body double and a stolen Apple Watch, because Patrick had to spoof her location, are not our finest work as a species. Similarly, the armchair shrinks, suggesting that the reason Lindsay is garnering sympathy from so many moms is that they all sometimes think about killing their children, though some of her supporters are providing fodder for that hypothesis, which is at best unhelpful.
At worst, with the opposing sides of the argument bringing back the “yes, all men” arguments from a few years ago and adding “yes, all women” for good measure, we’re getting to a point where it’s increasingly hard to have a civilization here. With birth rates declining, and with all the concomitant issues that bring, heterofatalism is not the answer we’re looking for.
For those who don’t spend too much time online, heterofatalism is the idea that it’s over for normal relationships. Men are too needy, women are too spoiled, and there’s no hope for any of us should we give in to the trap of traditional couplings. It’s best to just accept that we’re cooked and go back to doomscrolling our preferred apps. Except it doesn’t have to be this way.
Writing in the New York Times, Magdalene J. Taylor argues that there is much in the world of dating and romance for men and women to be optimistic about. Despite claims to the contrary, married people are the healthiest and happiest. Having a support system at home, as the ice thrower does and Lindsay Clancy did, makes life easier, not harder. We’re living in a time of unparalleled freedom, abundance, and choice, so, Taylor writes, “Let’s not squander that freedom, giving it all up in favor of spending more time getting angry on the internet.”
One part of that is staying bound to those around us, the ones we can see and smell and hug, instead of hitting “record.” Another is not to extrapolate one woman’s psychotic break into generalizations about every woman on the planet. And yet another is to accept that sometimes both men and women can and will do bad things and that there’s rarely a true crime twist waiting to shock us in the third act.
Mostly, though, it’s to remember that people working for clicks aren’t working for connections or even for understanding.
All people are going to have days when they’re down, when they feel compelled to hurl a few swears, when they pop off in embarrassing and counterproductive ways. There’s really no reason to create a permanent record of that, so stop it. And if you come across someone who can’t help themselves and must do so, remember that they’re not representative of entire populations. The girl you meet in the produce aisle is highly unlikely to become a murderer. The guy you start talking to while waiting in line to drop off an Amazon return is probably not a tyrant who wants to subjugate you and drain your life force.
There will always be the temptation to make sense of the wholly irrational. There will always be the desire to place blame, to find the bogeyman to serve as the source of all the bad, but that’s rarely how life works. Rather, life works by talking to one another and remembering that the pixelated representations we see of people online are too often a copy of a copy of a copy. The trick is to see past the copies, the sacrificial lambs upon which we place our fears, and remember the humanity of the people standing all around us. And the first step toward accomplishing that goal is to look them in the eyes instead of looking at them on a screen.
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Rich Cromwell is a writer living in Northwest Arkansas. He produces the Cookin’ Up a Story podcast, which you can listen to here. You can also follow him on X: @rcromwell4.
This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
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