A photo in a bar captures the sexism of the internet

A photo in a bar and the enduring reality of digital sens

All it takes is an image of two women talking in a bar for some people to show how little online discourse has changed. The photo, which has been circulating for just a few hours, has already collected a dozen reactions ranging from contempt to explicit references to violence. No crime has been reported, but the episode serves as a thermometer for a misogyny that is expressed without filters.

The comparisons are not long in coming. One person likens it to Line 6 of the Madrid Metro, another brings up the bar from the movie Kickboxer, where Van Damme does a little dance. The redhead in the image ends up, in one commenter's words, "served Texas Chainsaw Massacre style." The one on the chair is dismissed with "a blast from the hose and move on." The "South America was a mistake" joke rounds off a string of remarks mixing sens and territorial contempt.

What matters is not the anecdote itself, but its normalization. Some reactions are even more explicit; they are not worth repeating. What does deserve emphasis is how naturally a banal image unleashes a cascade of verbal brutality. That says more about the commenters than about what is being commented on. Digital culture has created the perfect environment for the cheapest form of masculinity to find a megaphone and an alibi. But the photo, like the women in it, has done nothing. It is still there, motionless, while the rest of the world decides whether this is humor or a war report.