Why are conversations on Reddit often so hostile and toxic now days?
Why are conversations on Reddit often so hostile and toxic now days?
Reddit used to be a great platform to discuss some topic and get different points of few in a friendly but factual manner. However, slowly it seems like the platform has become a lot more like Facebook, where it's been invaded by toxic people that are constantly looking for opportunities to shit and hate on others.
The change has been gradual so I really didn't notice it creep up on me. It's become super evident now having used Kbin and others for a week or so where people generally seem to be more friendly again and willing to actually discuss things in a usually civil way.
The difference is stark too. Today I replied to a comment saying that I hope things turn out better for them and wound up in a weird comment chain about how people were apparently insensitive for wanting to get a basic haircut that they for some reason couldn't afford themselves. Meanwhile, Kbin and the Fediverse feels like a refreshing place to actually converse with people once you get past the clunk and figure it out.
I think Reddit may well have reached that main stream social media saturation point where it very objectively now sucks. It happened originally with the internet itself thanks to the rise of the smartphone and this is just another iteration of it. I feel like Spez might as well get that bag at this point because they've ruined what used to be the platform people went to for social media without the bullshit, without algorithms to drive "engagement" and to avoid the toxic culture that has prevailed.
Thanks for reading my rant.
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Its highly topic dependent:
On political things, speaking for myself, frankly, I learned a few hard lessons over the last 8ish years:
- Lots of people don't want to think and didn't think themselves into supporting what they support.
- Lots of people are dishonest about why they support/think what they do, even with themselves.
- Unless somebody is exceptionally rational, you're not going to change their opinion in a short online argument.
So off the bat my preference is for reasoned discussion, sure. But at the first use of the buzzword-of-the-week ("woke" most prominently right now) you pretty much need to throw all that out on the principal of "you can't win a chess game against a pigeon". You can just walk away, sure. But if you're going to continue to engage you need to be aware that you aren't actually arguing with the person, you're performing for an audience and trying to show that the other guys position makes him look stupid, and maybe make him feel stupid too... hopefully if that happens a lot he'll take a different position (but it'll be 100% based on feelings, not reason). And this isn't just online, this is in real life too. I realized that I'm too inclined to just walk away from a stupid argument, which these people view as a "win". Instead, now I more regularly rudely and publicly make my point and make things socially awkward for everybody. It sucks and I hate it, but they'll never shut up otherwise and that sucks too so it's like ripping a bandaid off.
Here's the thing: typically I'm not going into a discussion on social media with the aim to change people's opinions or even to argue with them.
But what ends up happening is that they immediately assume it's a bad high school debate and things quickly devolve into bad faith arguments, attempts to nitpick and just general toxicity.