The beauty of social media’s algorithmic culture is that engagement of any kind often begets more of that content in one’s feed. Every time Vance clicks on a picture of himself, even out of disgust, it’ll catalyze the system to show him even more. (It’s a special kind of torture we’ve built, isn’t it?)

“Papaw’s distant cousin—also Jim Vance—married into the Hatfield family and joined a group of former Confederate soldiers and sympathizers called the Wildcats. When Cousin Jim murdered former Union soldier Asa Harmon McCoy, he kicked off one of the most famous family feuds in American history.”