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Joined 6 days ago
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Cake day: March 10th, 2025

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  • I think it’s really important to consume social media/whatever this and Reddit are conscientiously. Be aware you’re in an echo chamber and step outside from to time. Sometimes it’s just annoying (I was really into the show Mr Robot, and one of my many Reddit rage-quits was just being sick of seeing any speculation about where the show was going that was anything but the accepted popular opinion being downvoted) and sometimes just misleading (we all thought Trump couldn’t win), but there are so many ways it sneaks into your consciousness. For me, the tribalist culture wars became really glaring. We hate everyone who drives a car. We hate anyone who has a grass lawn. You can’t advocate for something there without making it about hating everyone else. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but I firmly believe a lot of that is by design. I’m sure it will bleed over here eventually if there is a large exodus, but I hope there are counter measures.


  • Germany is a really interesting example. When I’m trying to decide if I’m overreacting about what’s happening now, I often tell myself a lot of Germans probably said the same thing in the 1930s. I’ve never assumed all Germans were Nazis, and always knew there was a large number, if not majority, who were victims of their own government. However, I remember my mother (born just after WWII and my grandpa fought in the Pacific) saying she grew up with a negative opinion of Germany.






  • As a white American, I was just talking about this relatively new experience to me, and not in any way meaning to co-opt or undermine other people’s objectively worse experiences, by the way. Just wanted to throw that out there.

    At the same time, while we might disparage Russia or China, to me that’s always meant the government, not literally the people. I hate that I probably took for granted that at least most other people thought the same way I did.




  • As a pretty terrified American, I actually take some comfort in this idea. Please learn from us. I just hope if things get that far here, that the rest of you will have some empathy for those of us who did not want this. So many comments from people in other countries are blaming every American for this. Seeing so many of those comments (mostly on Reddit) has been the second scariest part of all of this for me. I’m used to being hated in the abstract for being an American, but to think that if the fascists here get their way people like me have no hope of escape is too much to think about





  • And then in 5-10 years the users will destroy it like everything else on the Internet…

    Seriously, though, make me wrong - because this kind of model is so new to me, I don’t know, is there anything different about this that will resist it going the way of things that were once good and eventually weren’t, like Craigslist and Reddit?

    Obviously a lot of Reddit sucks due to how it’s run, but let’s not overlook that part of its downfall, like with Craigslist, is the users as it grew having no respect for the model. I’ve been on my way out since well before the API exodus (and yet I was addicted and too lazy until now, that’s on me). People posting whatever they want wherever they want and having very little understanding of nuance in language (“oddly satisfying” doesn’t just mean “I like this”), misusing downvoting (I know I’m yelling at clouds, but that was where Reddit was doomed from the start to become an echo chamber, and I didn’t know if Lemmy is different in that respect - do votes determine visibility here?), moderators becoming more power hungry, and I’m sorry if this is mean, but the userbase trending younger steering content much more to “mah crush, aitah?,” fake stories for “points,” and I feel the general populace there being more gullible. Not to mention the same comments being made over and over, and I’m not talking about bots, I’m talking about constant “this is the way” and “username checks out.”

    I’ve seen so many actual discussions here already that are full of real passion and good points even when they’re heated, some lovely user created and has posted around a really through socialist reading list. I’ve only seen “this is the way” once. Reddit is lazy one-word answers and downvotes. How do we encourage this and discourage that?

    Anyway, I rant. This place is great now and will only get better as it grows, but I hope this model will in some way resist that downfall. But I’ve come to accept that nothing on the Internet is permanent. And also that people are gonna people and if I don’t like that, it’s on me to leave.