> Just because someone is confident about their own weird interpretation of something on the Internet does not make it true.

Agreed. Though in the case of “cool…” there is precedent. For example, John Oliver says it sarcastically¹ with some regularity. Well, he can’t say the ellipsis, but it’s how I’d have written it.

Either way, I’m agreeing with you. People also think that putting a period at the end of a text message is rude², which is bonkers to me³. Soon we won’t be able to use any punctuation without it being considered dismissive⁴.

¹ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8q8PXoJwVk

² https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/29/crosswords/texting-punctu...

³ I do it all the time. People get used to it and learn it’s just how I write.

⁴ Yes, that’s a slippery slope fallacy. I’m employing it for comedic effect, not as a real complaint of “kids these days”.

> People also think that putting a period at the end of a text message is rude

Yes, this is essentially the kind of thing that I was thinking of. It's nutty.

I submit that anyone who assuming malice on the part of the sender without ANY direct evidence to support it likely has some trust issues to work out with their therapist. I started out my adult life being deeply distrustful of basically everyone and it took a LONG time to learn that (lacking direct evidence) assuming the best in people's intentions makes you a lot happier and gets you a lot farther in life.

I'm also reminded of the saying, "offense is taken, not given."