I know you all who have been here longer than 3 days are probably sick of the whole “leaving reddit” post trend here, but I figured this would be a good thing to talk about because I didn’t really see it mentioned too much. A lot of people have spoken on here about poor moderation, the whole API debacle, a sort of downward cycle in terms of content quality etc. Plus, when I did bring these things up on my now-deleted reddit account, people mostly resorted to the whole “You hate capitalism yet you exist in it” argument. I also wrote a sort of summary for this in my application, so whoever read my application doesn’t really need to read this. I basically said the same shit just shorter.
But for me it was just because people got kinda mean? What I mean is that over the past 4 years (probably accentuated by the pandemic), it felt less and less like a place where you could just talk to somebody. With every post I made, it felt like I was in a competition not just in terms of karma but in terms of making something that pleased as many people as possible. Every title needed to be perfect for the grammar people, every fact needed to be perfect for the fact people, everything needed to be as apolitical as possible.
And even with all of these unwritten rules, I came to realize that there really are just two types of posts or comments on reddit. There’s jokes, and then there’s debates. Jokes ended up being a little more lenient in terms of unwritten rules so I think that’s why there’s so fucking many of them on reddit and it’s almost unavoidable to escape the pit of sarcasm in reddit comment sections. But with debates, it felt like with every comment I made, people came in expecting me to either agree with them or refute a point they made. And if I didn’t make “a point,” I wasn’t contributing. I couldn’t just go “Yeah I like Metal Gear Solid V, too,” I had to go “Yeah I like Metal Gear Solid V, too, and the guy you’re responding to is a fucking moron for not doing so,” or “No, you’re a dumbass, MGS4 is way better.” I remember one time I joined into a conversation and somebody actually replied bullying me for not “contributing” and for posting useless comments, as if I were somehow wasting their time by not trying to argue with them.
And what’s even worse is people just don’t seem to know how to be nice about it? Obviously with the internet, people are going to bully you at some point but on reddit it was just all. the. time. Every post I made, every comment I made there was somebody who didn’t like it and felt the need to tell me about it by insulting me or my family or my cat. Everyone was mean. It felt truly impossible to disagree with a person on reddit without insulting them, because that was the culture that was accepted there.
While I don’t use TikTok, I ended up stumbling upon this series of them by way of YouTube Shorts called “Average Redditor…” by The Slappable Jerk and I really think they perfectly encapsulate what it’s like to browse reddit, and I hate that it took me so long to realize that’s what my experience was like. I kept watching them and going “Nah, nobody’s like that,” but then the more I used reddit the more I realized “Yeah, it’s kind of everybody including myself.” As you can see in the video I linked, the guy is either joking or debating and he’s not nice about either one, and frankly that’s kind of how every single one of my reddit experiences has been so far. I can’t really remember the last time anybody has been nice to me on reddit. Maybe that’s my fault and my brain is suppressing me from realizing it, but I do think it’s a problem inherent in the system if I’m seeing other people doing it to each other also.
I got banned from reddit as a whole a week ago for reporting a guy for calling me a “spastic loser” after getting angry when another guy got angry for me not reading some deeper meanings in his 1 sentence post. I think that whole really weird run-on sentence should tell you all you need to know about my reddit experience these past few years. Funnily enough despite it breaking the subreddit’s rules against insults, it was “report abuse.”
I ended up hearing about Lemmy while browsing today and I deleted my account just now. I saw probably a couple dozen posts at most. It seems kinda slow here. But you know what I didn’t see at all? People fighting. Calling each other names. Insulting each other. I saw debates and arguments but I straight up didn’t see the same kind of debates and arguments that I saw on reddit. On Reddit I could probably go 3 or 4 posts without that happening, but even posts of 12 comments will always have rude jerks on them. Now I’m still new here, and I have heard that there are toxic and xenophobic instances of Lemmy that are on massive blocklists, but Beehaw so far has been nothing short of just plain joyful. It’s so wonderful to see people online just. talking. to each other. And while I see people swearing (I did it myself in this post), it really just haven’t seen it directed at other users on here. On reddit it seems like there’s such a big culture of if you’re gonna insult somebody you go for the deepest-cut insult possible. On here I just haven’t seen that.
TL;DR: People on reddit are mean. Beehaw (and some other instances of Lemmy I signed up for) are far from that.
/rant
I find myself less guarded on beehaw in some ways, and more guarded in others.
Firstly, I feel I can be more authentic. Discussions always seem to be in good faith, and I often come away learning something, reconsidering something, or just being more aware of other viewpoints. Whether I participate in the discussion or just read it.
It’s just more enjoyable overall.
Which leads me onto how I am being more guarded. I am really trying to consider other viewpoints before even engaging with posts or discussions.
And I dislike that this is an effort for me.
But I like that I have realised it, and I now get to make an effort to be better.
I think with the lower userbase, it’s much less easier to say something others would find abhorrent or rude and then sulk away into the shadows of millions of other users. People can see you and go “that’s that person who said some fucked shit.” So for me at least I’ve found myself being a bit more guarded, but I think that’s a good thing.
Good point. But perhaps I’m wrong- I think most people don’t pay much attention to usernames here (or on Reddit for that matter). Lemmy makes it easier to change the display username iirc? So even if such was the case, I could quickly change mine. It would end up just like reddit, in which unless you bother checking a user’s profile you probably won’t know who they are or what they’ve said last month.
I guess that makes sense. Still, the smaller community still has me watching my words.
Lol reddit brought out the absolute worst in people. It brought out the old argumentative teenager on new grounds I used to be and I would have been mortified if anyone I knew had found any of my posts hahaha!