A small Boston-area bar became the internet's story of the week after regulars accused it of "genocide" for making masks optional one night a week — a bad look for the activist left and a warning about how fast a struggling small business can be eaten alive by its own customers.

• The Last Ditch bar in Massachusetts dropped its mask requirement on Saturday nights only, and some patrons called it eugenics and complicity in mass disability.
• One commenter said they hoped the place would be firebombed — over a rule change meant to kill people, in their telling.
• The business is broke: two of the three founders have walked, the remaining owner is working four jobs, lived in her truck, and owes a $50,000 startup loan.
• The bar's original promise — nobody turned away for lack of money — collided with the need to actually collect a cover charge and pay bills.
• The wider reaction has been near-universal mockery, including from people who once pushed this exact style of purity politics.

Outlook: Expect this to be cited for months as the high-water mark of pandemic-era call-out culture, with little sign it makes a comeback even under a deeply unpopular Trump administration.