Amid the Twitter melee, the apes were chatting among themselves, chill and supportive. Some had cigarettes dangling from their mouths, or the red eyes of the deeply stoned. Many wore blasé expressions or toothy grimaces. An increasing number of accounts that he followed were changing their avatars to cartoons of apes: apes sporting sunglasses or bunny ears, apes with leopard-patterned or rainbow fur, apes smoking cigars or shooting laser beams from their eyes. But, at the beginning of May, Kyle Swenson, a twenty-five-year-old clothing reseller in Orlando, Florida, noticed a shift in the tone of his Twitter feed. It pays to be as incendiary as possible-conflict drives more engagement than politesse or coöperation. On social media, agreements are tenuous and alliances fleeting.