A tale as old as time
Context: my friend was giving me an update about how someone at her workplace accused her of racism. As out of focus it seemed, I felt the need to address an odd part of her saying "I just prefer animals over people." in this misanthropic statement.
I hesitate to call them a friend, but someone I know resorted to calling themselves a misanthrope after I deconstructed their pitiful "Israel AND Palestine bad" argument. It's not the epic mic drop they think it is. If anything I think it invalidates their right to have any input on the subject of human kind.
I find that people who so proudly identify as misanthropes aren't genuine misanthropes. They're just trying to seem "kewl and edge" and want to have an excuse to weasel out of any actual arguments or considerations regarding the betterment of humanity.
Genuine misanthropes aren't usually so eager to claim that label because it's a very doomer position in reality. You can't avoid humans and the act of interacting with them. With that considered, it's a lot easier to navigate life and even handle matters like reading and learning about current events if you don't have a disdain for humanity. This means that actual misanthropes are typically depressed or even just outright angry and won't blurt out how "quirky" they think they are by saying shit like "I'm nOt RaciSt, i HaTE eVERYOne EQUAllY 🤣🤣🤣🤣".