My experience on this platform has been mixed so far but one thing I’ve noticed the most is a significant contingent of the user base is really reactionary in their discourse.
This is a very typical exchange I have here :
User: I don’t like this color because it’s red.
Me: I don’t know, looks more like purple to me. What about red is bad?
User: Why don’t you fuck yourself in the face you fucking cuntfuck!
Me: OK…
Like, what gives? I don’t have this experience on other platforms. I have arguments but never this shutdown meccanism.
“If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you’re the asshole.”
I could be an asshole. I won’t debate that. Maybe I am.
My point isn’t to claim I’m not an asshole. My point is compared to other spaces the vitriol and anger here seems ramped to 100.
I think what you’re experiencing is people here being less tolerant of your assholery.
I’m Ok with that. It seems to come up in benign comments too. Thats why I was curious. I’ll own the asshole position and declare myself a loser. I’m not offended by that.
I wasn’t necessarily calling you an asshole, it’s just a quote that represents what the other commenter was talking about.
To answer your initial question, I haven’t personally noticed Lemmy being more toxic than other platforms like it. Most conversations I’ve had have been pleasant. But I tend to avoid commenting on hot button topics. You commented on a topic that people feel strongly about and got angry comment replies. I wouldn’t say that necessarily represents the site as a whole. But both of our experiences are anecdotal so it’s difficult to say which is more common.
I think you’re right. Hot button topics are just to be avoided I guess or fare repercussion.
How can we avoid being captured by epistemic bubbles though? That’s the part that scares me.