The land of keyboard crusaders and RCW pretend lawyers

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, September 23, 2025

There are three constants in Ocean Shores life: sand in your shoes, deer that look both ways before jaywalking, and the political soap opera that unfolds daily in our Facebook chat groups.

Forget Netflix — the real show streams for free, comes with unlimited popcorn, and stars the same cast of characters who couldn’t organize a beach cleanup if you gave them a map, a broom, and a marching band. Yet somehow, every one of them believes they’re qualified for the U.N. Security Council.

Ocean Shores also has its own special subspecies: the sycophants. These are the barnacles of civic life, clinging to local “power figures” like wet socks to a dryer door, convinced this loyalty will lead to employment, glory, or at least the prestigious honor of “person thanked at a city council meeting.”

They orbit their chosen politician like moons around Jupiter, waiting for a little gravity to pull them into relevance. And when they wade into debates, it’s never with substance. Their weapon of choice is always the same: the all-time classic “Why can’t we all just come together and stop fighting?”

It sounds noble, until you notice they’re typing it with one hand while sharpening their digital pitchfork with the other. Within thirty seconds they’re slinging insults faster than a drunk uncle at a wedding reception. It’s toddler logic at its finest — “NO YELLING!” they scream while throwing crayons across the living room. The real slapstick arrives when they lose an argument. That’s when out comes the shiny panic button: “CYBERBULLYING!”

Suddenly, every laughing emoji is a felony, every “haha” reaction is “evidence,” and every screenshot is treated like they’ve cracked the Pentagon’s classified files. Here’s the problem: under RCW 9A.90.120 — Washington’s actual cyberbullying law, for anyone too busy moonlighting as a Facebook lawyer — cyberbullying requires things like harassment, intimidation, or threats. Not “Janet disagreed with me about the roundabout whale carving.”

If half these would-be victims ever waddled into an attorney’s office and said, “Your Honor, I was cyberbullied because someone said my unity post was hypocritical,” the lawyer would laugh so hard they’d sprain their pancreas. What’s really happening isn’t cyberbullying — it’s just the consequences of running your mouth. And trying to label it otherwise is like wiping your butt before you poop: backwards, messy, and guaranteed to leave everyone else confused.

Now imagine these warriors in an actual courtroom. “Why are we here today?” the judge asks. “Your Honor,” the plaintiff says, “the defendant reacted to my post with a laughing emoji.” The judge pauses. “And?” “That’s cyberbullying.” At which point the judge falls out of the chair and tells the bailiff to escort this individual to the nearest middle school for a refresher course in Civics 101.

At this rate, Grays Harbor County will need a whole annex just to handle “hurt feelings” dockets. Not because of legal necessity — but because the judges are choking on laughter.

And then there’s the unity hypocrisy. These are the folks who demand civility, compassion, and neighborly love while, in the very next breath, slinging more shade than the patio umbrella aisle at Costco. It’s like watching a firefighter set a house ablaze just so they can be the first one to run back in with a hose. “Look at me, I’m saving the community!” Bro. You. Lit. The. Match.

And when they’re called out, the swooning begins. The fainting couch rolls in, the tears are queued up, and the “woe is me” routine takes center stage. It’s a Broadway performance of victimhood so over-the-top it deserves a Tony Award.

Of course, this is also the same community where people cry “civility” on Monday, then accuse someone of running a shadow government out of the Elks Lodge by Wednesday. Where city council debates devolve into interpretive dance routines typed entirely in ALL CAPS. And where someone once claimed roundabouts were part of a U.N. takeover plot — and half the town nodded along like it was breaking news.

So is it really a surprise that “cyberbullying” gets tossed around like confetti? Of course not. It’s just another act in the long-running sitcom we didn’t ask for but can’t stop binge-watching.

If you’re out here crying cyberbullying because someone dared to disagree with you, here’s some unsolicited community advice: read the law before you quote it, stop wiping before you poop, and for the love of Poseidon, log off and go touch some sand.

Until then, the rest of us will keep laughing from the sidelines — because here in Ocean Shores, reality TV isn’t something you watch. It’s something you live.

CJ Ripley is a self-described Ocean Shores survivor.