I have been on reddit for just about 12 years now. Something I’ve noticed over time is just how hateful the place has become. A complete outrage machine. Every single sub became filled with it. I’ve filtered so many subreddits over the last few years, it’s insane. I don’t know enough about this place to be sure, but I do hope it doesn’t become the same type of echo chamber of anger.
I remember a while back when the first comment was always someone debunking the clickbait article headline with a good source and succinct summary. Redditors famously never read the article, but the comments were often better than the article.
Now, you have to scroll down half the page to find any original thought. You see dozens of people spouting nonsense or even defending nonsense because they…don’t want to be wrong?
One example: an image from the 50s displaying a child with their hand caught in a fire pull with a caption explaining that the device would trap the kid at the spot to deter pranksters.
The device was indeed designed to deter pranksters, and it would attach to the user’s wrist, but it would come free. So you would know the kid who did it because they have a thing stuck on their hand.
I recognized the device and had a video demonstrating its proper, safe function. People were still arguing with me.
Why would anyone want to put any creative/intellectual energy into a place like that?
It certainly became degrading after a while. I have had some amazing conversations on Reddit, but as time went on they became more and more sparse.
I haven’t thought back on Reddit much until lately with all the bullshit that’s been happening and man, being in this space reminds me of why I enjoyed Reddit in the first place.
I can relate in so many instances on Reddit where I recognized something and would explain it, but people would argue against (like you said) or my comment would get overlooked entirely as it wouldn’t create enough buzz.
I think the fediverse is just the soft reset that the internet needed.
Don’t forget the same low effort pun threads cropping up over and over. Or someone writes a pretty decent joke and the replies immediately have at least one person repeating it in a worse form. It’s not as bad as the contrarianism for its own sake or the aggressive strawmanning, but goddam. So much about discourse on Reddit had been exhausting for fucking years.