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Why are redditors like this? (beehaw.org)

submitted 10 months ago by bermuda@beehaw.org to c/chat@beehaw.org

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I made a post on r/civ (Civilization games subreddit) showing a really funky shaped randomly generated river I saw and most comments were fine but one guy was convinced that I went through the comparatively monumental effort of opening the map editor and changing the river for karma, as opposed to just starting the game and taking a screenshot.

And just to top it off another guy saw the fact that my scout unit was in the far north of the map and went on an obscenely condescending diatribe about how "ackshually" I should be placing my units in the far south of the map because that way I can explore better and whatever the hell. Dude did not stop for one second to consider that maybe the scout that was in the far north was exploring the cool river and that I didn't waste any production points on him because I got him for free from a tribal village...

God every time I go on that website (because let's be honest not a whole lot of good communities here for what I'm interested in) I get excited to share something super innocent and then some total loser has to come and ruin it all.

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[–] jupyter_rain@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 10 months ago (3 children)

That sucks, I am always a bit confused why anyone would take time to post mean answers.

[–] jarfil@beehaw.org 16 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I've posted some mean answers in the past, so I may share some insights:

Someone had a bad day. Maybe a client berated them, maybe they had a falling out with a family member, maybe they stepped into a dog poop on a rainy day and their umbrella got blown out before a passerby burned their hand with a lit cigarette (too specific? yeah, well...)
Someone decided to self-medicate (booze and weed seem to be popular choices)
Someone forgot to take their meds (high blood pressure can do it, the flu will do it, insomnia or psych meds will do it more)
Someone got a series of the aforementioned.

Generally: people post mean answers when their sense of empathy is either inexistent, or beaten into oblivion.

Once there are enough people in a place, the chance of encountering at least one person in one of those situations, quickly grows to 100%. If the place doesn't actively discourage that kind of behavior because "engagement"... then you get the likes of Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, and similar.

[–] jupyter_rain@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 10 months ago

Hey, thanks for your very reflective answer! That all seems somehow valid. Guess I am just a very harmony-seeking person. Can't even choose the mean options in Video Games sooo...

[–] Nerd02@lemmy.basedcount.com 2 points 10 months ago

Love to read some nuance on the topic. As much as we all repeat to ourselves to "remember the human", it still doesn't happen as often as it should.

Always good to remember that very few people are naturally and constantly toxic, most people are just normal folks and everyone has bad days.

[–] bermuda@beehaw.org 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Not even mean, borderline conspiratorial in terms of fake stuff. I guess people have been "burned" a lot by fake stuff in the past, but even when something's fake they bring out every pitchfork available. It's like they don't understand the concept of entertainment. Not everything has to be real to be entertaining.

I think I've seen more internet rioting over fake stuff than I have over genuinely bad things.

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I just had someone here accuse me of being part of an astroturfing campaign because I disagreed with them about FOSS licensing. At that point I just stop responding because there's no use having an argument about whether my entire comment history is just a facade to cover for my secretly paid-for opinions about FOSS.

I think that the "post-truth" world that is blossoming in Right-wing political circles, where incorrect facts are hand-waved away as "differences of opinion", is causing people elsewhere to react defensively and be very guarded against any actual differences of opinion, and some are overreacting and treating any difference of opinion as immediately suspect or even malicious.

[–] Gaywallet@beehaw.org 2 points 10 months ago

Lemmy has a specific tech slant problem where inevitably if you post anything which is even tangentially tech related (such as sharing a spreadsheet on google), you will inevitably get someone complaining or ranting about big tech, providing a FOSS alternative, and typically chastising you for not knowing/doing better. I would say a good third to half of all comments we remove for not being nice is something cussing out someone else over a tech disagreement, which is a pretty wild problem to have.

[–] sab@kbin.social 3 points 10 months ago

I guess it's pretty well established that a lot of people push others down in order to feel better about themselves. It's not surprising that many of these people will struggle to make friends in real life, and end up spending a disproportionate amount of time posting their garbage on the Internet.