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.
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.
Big mood
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!
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
Just call them white boy and move on.
This is the way
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.
Out of the three times I’ve engaged, two times it was friendly fire. I’m always so eager to jump into arguments because it’s fun, yet I suck at it…
Yeah, im not reading all that tankie. Happy for you, or sorry that happened, i guess.
No but jokes aside yeah I catch myself writing something and deleting it midway when I realize what I’m doing. I think there are cases where interacting with such people is worth the effort in a gamble, you know I’m sure out of all the effortposts you’ve made surely a few fell on receptive ears, even if you didn’t see the fruits of your labor. So as an occasional thing I think it is ultimately productive, the most receptive people will be lurkers silently reading who will take multiple interactions with “tankies” before it amounts into a change. But it definitely is not good to do as a habit.
Yeah. I was one of those fortunate lurkers on Reddit to have found this community and ProleWiki.
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.
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.
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 😑
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, 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
The narwhal bacons at my axe
I think if lemmy had per user instance blocking that would he nice. It would allow federation with lib instances while also allowing those who do not want lib interaction to have to deal with it.
As far as I know that is in the development queue and is being worked on, no real schedule for when it will come out though.
