I've noticed this quite a bit. Simply invoking the word "woke" in some unironic or non-satirical context is enough to drive a wedge between people.

The only time I personally have an issue with it is when I see someone using it to refer to themselves, as if doing so lets their readers know that this self-proclaimed "woke" person has some deeper insight or awareness than most. Similar, if I can make this comparison, to people who refer to themselves as enlightened.

But "enlightened" isn't an insult, nor did it start as one. Woke was originally a kind of insult. Now I've even seen it used to refer to just about anyone on the left side of the political aisle.

But, Gabriel, the party ISN'T yet over! There's plenty more substance and community here than the satirical ramblings, or even the sincere political ramblings, of one or two writers.

This is where we have a personal challenge in not allowing our own journeys to be swayed too easily by those who we might disagree with. One thing that bugs me more than any use of the W word would be the demotivating plethora of articles written here just to slam people.

Someone has an incident in a supermarket with an old lady, and the next thing you know they're on Medium calling all old ladies Karens and weighing up the statistics of how there are too many old women in the world, or some other similar fuckery.

These are the only writers I will go out of my way to avoid. You might not be able to see this much from my own pieces, but the optimist in me (the dying optimist, as I like to call him) needs to be protected to some degree against the tendency to rest on shallow slurs and hypercomplex written takedowns of someone, or a group of people, because of some perceived slight.

I hope you don't let them discourage you! I can be easily discouraged too, but I will not allow it... There is too much here that I'd be sacrificing, and I can tell this from only my first couple of days here.

We be bump heads - but we can't allow ourselves to become bitter, or, at the very least, can't allow ourselves to be discouraged.