Some asshat edgelord filmed himself walking around school, "excersicing his right to free speech", calling out that he supported ICE. I think he wore a sign too.
Then the absolute megachad in the picture shows up, and the exchange went something like this:
"I'm going to punch you now""You'll get in trouble""Ok" 👊
As someone who runs both mint and debian (for different purposes), I can tell you that both distros have removed a lot of headaches over the past 15 years. On top of that, M8nt has made it more "consumergrade friendly", so while I'd say you made a right choice in general, you might be surprised at what debian has to offer these days too.
What's that goop? Not sure if burnt filament from a leaky assembly, or epoxy from trying to seal said leak.