This post is as much for me as it is for all of you. I’m doing some live self reflection and criticism here.
I’ve been growing more and more frustrated with “Lemmy is becoming Reddit!” or more accurately, “the people from Reddit are bringing their bad habits and toxicity over to Lemmy.” But upon closer inspection, it’s mostly one instance that has by far the biggest problem with this and act by far the most like Reddit. Think you all know which instance I’m talking about. I’ve been finding myself writing paragraph or even multi paragraph responses to random people’s hot takes which they probably spent two seconds thinking through before posting, and I have been deleting them because I realized that I don’t fucking care and it’s not worth my own time, energy, or mental health. And I’m the kind of person where if they respond with some sarcastic meme comment or a further bad take, I literally cannot stop myself from engaging further, writing walls of text addressing in detail every one of their points that they probably won’t read before closing with “ok Tankie” or something.
At some point I had to ask myself, why are you doing this? You’ve just ruined your free time on Lemmy because of someone else’s shit take or toxicity. Fennekin, don’t fucking engage the next time you see something that pisses you off, because you could write a book, complete with links to scientific papers (which I have done in the past), it’s not going to resolve your being pissed off and who the hell do you think you’re trying to actually convince with a detailed response when there is clearly a hive mind that’s the genetic clone of the one from Reddit? If I think I actually have a good chance of convincing them or others that might see my comment, then yeah I will still totally write a wall of text to that effort. But in the vast majority of times this is far from the case, and I can more effectively spend my time elsewhere, like maybe actually engaging in discussions with more rational people where they could potentially be convinced by me and I could also potentially be convinced by them. To say that every single non-socialist is like the average Reddit lib would be totally wrong of course, as would be saying there is nothing we can learn from non-socialists, but I actually need to go out and look for those more rational and open minded people, which there are plenty of. Even if I’m not in a debate those people are generally more pleasant to interact with.
If you can go in and debate those people and maintain your own sanity and baseline mood, I applaud you. But I can’t. So I’m just not going to engage at all. That does not actually mean I’m going to start removing my access to lib content by blocking it or anything, I still think it’s important as a socialist to at least be aware of the takes of the opposition. And like I said in a comment just an hour or so ago, I’m confident enough in my beliefs and ideologies that I’m by no means threatened by these people, quite the opposite in fact, which is why I compulsively try to correct them and respond to them. No more of that, I need to keep myself happy first, or if not happy then at least not pissed off whenever I go on Lemmy.
Hello me, I’m you.
I’ve basically burned out and mostly spend my time doing my historical research and other hobbies, heck I’ll even take long periods off to touch grass, sand, mountain rocks, and so forth just to actually reconnect with reality. Like I’m learning table or card games just to play with friends, coworkers, and acquaintances and delving into the whole apolitical Americana culture damn near everyone lives and I’ve slowly started to realize the entirety of online culture is so toxically abnormal and unhuman that telling people to touch grass has taken on a while new level of meaning.
Redditors are very easy to detect due to the fact that they use a jargon typical of that place and that they cannot avoid bringing to the rest of the internet with themselves. Stuff like saying “oh you sweet summer child”, replying “this” to comments they agree with, congratulating others for their “cake day”, or simply making comparisons with reddit directly (“this is exactly as it was in r/example”). There are more, and most times they are subtle, but when you see them you will know that they are people who come from reddit to turn this place into Reddit 2.
The solution? Just mock them for being redditors.
Redditors are very easy to detect due to the fact that they use a jargon typical of that place and that they cannot avoid bringing to the rest of the internet with themselves. Stuff like saying “oh you sweet summer child”, replying “this” to comments they agree with, congratulating others for their “cake day”, or simply making comparisons with reddit directly (“this is exactly as it was in r/example”). There are more, and most times they are subtle, but when you see them you will know that they are people who come from reddit to turn this place into Reddit 2.
The solution? Just mock them for being redditors.
You must be fun at parties.
You, my gentlesir, have won le interwebs 🤓
You know come to think of it, posting trite Reddit memes as a defense mechanism against anyone taking a certain post too serious is not such a bad idea…
7/10 internet observation, 8/10 with rice
posting trite Reddit memes as a defense mechanism against anyone taking a certain post too serious
That just makes another place like
because 's general population already hypocritically cares a lot about “things being taken too seriously” and posts about le bacon to try to derail people caring too much about things.Honestly I wasn’t even thinking about repeating cringy reddit memes back to them, just laughing at them plain and simple.
The narwhal bacons at my axe
Very relatable, I have a bunch of ex reddit trolls following me around like flies after the migration. They literally jump into every thread to attack me and downvote everything I post to lemmy.ml. Blocking them is really the only way to stay sane.
You have a whole team of federal agents dedicated to you. lol
🤣
That’s just incredibly sad behaviour from the trolls. Do they have a life outside of the internet?
Makes you wonder about a person who spends their whole day chasing down lemmy comments to downvote. I’ve come to take a perverse sort of pleasure in knowing that I live rent free in these people’s heads.
I assume some of them make minimum wage sitting in some air force base in West Virginia or some shit. lol
lol wouldn’t be surprised
It’s kind of hilarious how angry your mere existence makes them, yet they know if they actually tried to challenge you directly, they’d quickly show they have no clue what they are talking about, so all they can do is impotently downvote.
I think that’s exactly what makes them mad, they’re used to being able to regurgitate the tropes they’ve memorized without being challenged and then pile on anybody who disagrees. All of a sudden they’re in a space where this tactic doesn’t work and all they can do is downvote. It’s kind of funny how libs like to project the aura of being rational, polite, and reasonable, but as soon as they’re not the majority opinion the mask falls off and they expose themselves as the petty ignoramuses they actually are.
Something about scratching them springs to mind…
I know we’re (hexbearians) not technically supposed to do this outside of our own instance, but your general level of anxiety and growing antipathy is why the ‘Chapo Posting Method’ was created.
It’s essentially the online leftist answer to the general question posed by Sartre’s Anti-Semite and Jew. If they are not going to take words and the conversation seriously (and why would they when there is no material incentive to do so, it is just a game of psychological aggrandizement to them) then you are under no obligation to do so. There are rarely any bystanders, and if there are, the point isn’t to convince them that you are right, the point is to convince them that you are funny, because people habitually listen to people they find funny and make them laugh. And these redditor-types, despite their two second replies ultimately take themselves very seriously so they’re easy marks for this stuff. Never be the nerd in the room.
The old Chapo sub is what really started me on the path to being a communist. If you can have a constant source of memes and shit posts dunking on lines and calling out the obvious failures and lies of capitalism and the west then people will steadily begin to question all the other shit too.
You should under no circumstances take these people seriously. The only correct response to reddit debate bros is
I clicked the “all” tab like once because I wanted to see if Hexbear was making a splash. After that I decided that local tab was staying up. lol
I go back and forth between local and subscribed. All is a shitshow
Just call them white boy and move on.
here at hexbear we have a collection of emojis that simplify the process
This is the way
I have found that the ones actually here to discuss things and learn about us aren’t going to be put off by a few snide insults. They react with confusion, because they’re sincere and don’t understand why someone would tease them for that. Because we aren’t teasing people for being sincerely curious, we tease people for having their head stuck up their own ass. So it is really easy to tell who is here to actually learn about a different viewpoint, and who is here to just be a smug asshole, confident in their ignorance of a topic they know nothing about.
The trick is not engaging with them, as you’ve said, it’s very tempting, but it is just a waste of time. That’s why they do it. They’re just attention seeking losers, flailing their arms around and making a scene so they can umm acktually the person telling them to stop.
Hopefully now with the Hexbear federation we’ll be able to learn from the experts when it comes to dealing with lib trolls.
Gonna be honest, it’s probably gonna take a few months to get back into fighting trim. We’re out of practice from peak-r/chapo era, and in general, nicer and more genial people than we were back in those days. We’ll see how long it takes before enough libs annoy us enough to reach that level of true power-posting.
Even the slightest hint of refusing to tolerate their bullshit will probably be enough to scare .world into defederating from lemmygrad. Then they won’t bother any of us!
This is more of a technical question than anything, but if we post on an instance of lemmygrad, can .world people see it? Or because they are unfederated, they can’t see anything we post, even if it is on a posted hosted in lemmygrad? Probably not the correct venue to address this, but I have given this whole federation thing about three brain-cells worth of thought.
.world users won’t be able to see your posts or comments even ones made in instances that they’re federated with, it’s quite annoying I have to check and make sure Im not wasting my time if I try and comment outside of lemmygrad (or hexbear too now)
You can take the lib out of Reddit, but you can’t take the Reddit out of the lib. Look after yourself, you gotta pick your battles to maintain your own sanity with these people.
The worst part, for me, is how aware they are that their politicians are corrupted and bad, that their police is killing innocent people, that their media is lying to them… excpet in foreign politics.
There they are always right, same people who are wrong about everything internally.
I think you give a lot of them too much credit. I’ve seen an awful lot of American lib takes like “Sure the republicans are bad but voting blue will fix that!”
Just pure terminal brainrot. At least those ones are so off base they are fun to poke with a stick.
They like feeling like others are worse off. Its all they have.
Big mood
I’ve been finding myself writing paragraph or even multi paragraph responses to random people’s hot takes which they probably spent two seconds thinking through before posting, and I have been deleting them because I realized that I don’t fucking care and it’s not worth my own time, energy, or mental health.
Could be worse, could be westolefto debatebro baiting you for wall exchange who sounds at first reasonable but after you waste potentially hours on that, they will call you red fash and quote some wiki 😑
As a ❗ ❗ ❗ debate pervert ❗ ❗ ❗ , I maintain my sanity because arguing with people is fun for me and I don’t take it super seriously.
… or maybe I’ve eroded my sanity so far that I’ve fooled myself into thinking this is fun.
Many such cases! You can take the redditor out of
, but not the out of the redditor.There’s sometimes a glimmer of hope though. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the Reddit fiasco :)
I also find it difficult to respond to a comment without writing a mini essay, not because I lack succinctness, but I find it lackluster to respond to a comment I think should be corrected with only the correction and zero justification or context. To refrain from my compulsion, I have also chosen to not debate those people. Happy you’re prioritizing your mental health OP.
I also find it difficult to respond to a comment without writing a mini essay, not because I lack succinctness, but I find it lackluster to respond to a comment I think should be corrected with only the correction and zero justification or context.
I’m in the exact same boat. Good on you for prioritizing yours too!
