Is it me or does everyone on reddit seem absolutely miserable

The same is true of Twitter, Bluesky, Mastodon, and Lemmy. There are pockets of shitty users everywhere. I don’t think it’s endemic to Reddit. I do think their moderation fuckery and homogenization of the top subreddits has made it much more obvious there.

I think it's really obvious when you break it down, the people who post the most on these platforms are the ones who are online the most. It's also been proven that those people who are online the most are the least mentally healthy.
- Bad mental health doesn’t necessarily mean scumbag on the internet 🙃
Misery loves company. We humans love being cynical edgelords sometimes.
Honestly Mastodon is pretty nice compared to Reddit or Lemmy. It's like mostly a bunch of gay and trans ppl posting pics of their cats or gardens and saying they are "eepy" all the time then writing out long technical posts about the Linux kernel or group theory or something.

I'm pretty sure the tone of this place would go up a few ticks if every other post had a blob fox emoji.
I’d agree with this.

I also kind of think it doesn’t help that every joke or meme — seemingly — we get now has the punchline as being like “…I guess I’ll die.” There always seems like there’s a negative bend to the joke, and even if we understand that it’s a joke (“Missed the bus; guess I’ll die”), seeing that over and over again all over the place can start to taint your perception some.

Or at least it can for me.
I had some hope for Bluesky. I thought it was going to be the mid term between Twitter and Mastodon, but I got disappointed.

Is it me or does everyone ~~on Reddit~~ seem absolutely miserable?

FTFY

It's just kids and the terminally online. A lot of people are doing alright.

One of the trickiest things about Reddit (and social media in general) for me is the homogenization of tone. Each comment is an individual person, a unique voice & perspective, accents from around the world, but the medium of text, combined with the listing of comments leading to consumption of dozens/hundreds/thousands of viewpoints, leads to a blurring and obscuring of the uniqueness of each commenter.

These comments, they feel like a consistent person - I think that’s part of what people are talking about when they refer to the “hive mind”. These highly upvoted expert opinions, they begin to slot into the “trusted authoritative voice” in your mental categorization, regardless of whether they’re actually experts or not. The wisdom of the crowd, the inclination to trust the source of those upvotes, it’s pernicious.

I didn’t think I could last without Reddit after July 1st, but the truth is I’m fucking thriving. I really only ever lurked on Reddit, wasn’t much of an active commenter, and the continual absorption of fairly minor amounts of toxicity and negativity was exhausting. Relying on my own voice, my own perspective, it’s important. When the power goes out and your phone dies, when the world turns mad around you, when all seems hopeless, there you are. No matter where you go, there you are. Yes, it might be true that everyone on Reddit seems to be miserable. That’s their choice, it doesn’t have to be yours

I didn’t think I could last without Reddit after July 1st, but the truth is I’m fucking thriving

This new, more decentralized space called the Fediverse took a little getting used to, more so considering how we stampeded into this place with the wiring and tubing still exposed, the drywall not installed yet.

Now, it gives me the sense of contact with a community I need, but without The Algorithm, so my mind feels freer to roam elsewhere, and in my case it's been watching YouTube videos of cosmology and physics, mathematics, ancient history, etc.

I even re-took the habit of doing the NYT Crossword, a couple of months ago.

With no Reddit (nor Twitter nor TikTok etcetera) in sight, I like what I see.

Not only miserable but also way more toxic than they used to be

Brain drain to Lemmy, probably.
- I would say that but too me it's been apparent since long before lemmy was set up
That's been my experience as well. I have started blocking the really aggravating people. It seems like there has been a bit of an uptick in those types in recent months.

I started lurking on a couple of my old favorite subs back when Lemmy (0.19 and 0.19.1) broke federation, and I eventually gave up.

One is the local sub for my small city. It used to be the best way (other than face-to-face) to discuss local news and issues with peers. I don't know if I had rose colored glasses on then or if it's just turned vile, but the sub has an undercurrent of hate and xenophobia now. It's like Nextdoor but without the geofencing.

There's actually been a concerted effort to turn city subs into vile, toxic, right-wing spaces. Especially the more liberal cities like San Francisco and Chicago. The members of the sub are not representative of the members of the city. It's mostly right wing brigading.
Here's what I think has happened/is happening:

When the Internet was new, it was mostly the younger, chiller people.

The Internet started going mainstream in the 90s, and now you have all the older people online who are retired and have nothing better to do that shit their racism and misogyny and bile out into a forum where they will get a couple thumbs up and that, to them, is huge validation.

They told us forever that the Internet was a bad and scary place, and when they realized that wasn't true, they showed up to make it one.
- Heheh....I hate to break it to you, but it's not just old people who have nothing better to do than shit out racism misogyny and bile.
  
  And I think this is how every new tech goes. I mean, the community here still seems much more civil because we're smaller in number.
- In your frame of experience that's probably how you see it, but the early Internet users were all highly educated, technically-savvy employed intellectuals.
  
  Every year would bring a new wave of behavioral morons in the form of young students and that was okay because they were morons but at least they were learning.
  
  It all went to trash when it became available to the commoners.

Compared to here? Reddit is a theme park!

Agreed. Lemmy is much worse.

I think everyone has ptsd of sorts from 2020.

I'm not sure it's just on Reddit...

Yeah, it's a social media thing not just a Reddit thing. Hasn't been as common here yet but I've certainly encountered some miserable people here.
- Nah it’s everywhere. People every where are miserable. It’s a miserable world.

The only 2 subreddits ive been viewing is palworld, and everyone seems to be happy there. And conservative to see what the weekly rage is about, i live with a trump supporter 🤮, it helps to know what kinda bullshit he might spew.

Permanently Deleted

I last about 5 minutes when I go on there before the negativity starts hurting my head. That and I'm always under the impression it's a bunch of bots.

For instance, someone will ask a stupid question like "isn't that illegal?" and then a reply will follow stating the obvious but with an extremely negative tone. It's just weird there. I'm pretty sure it's mostly bots.

No idea, as I left in July and just use lemmy

I haven't noticed anything

I'm too afraid to look.

What's reddit

Half of Reddit is depressed and the other half likes that the first half are depressed. Reddit is a wretched hive of scum and villainy, and not in a good way.

Yes.

Is Reddit the new 4chan?

Yeah, and I know why through extrapolation.

Any time I encouraged gratitude, or maybe taking a break from bitterness and resentment and plotting to kill the rich, I was called a nazi. This led to me getting banned from an accelerating pile of subreddits.

So basically, on reddit, anything other than wallowing is misery is considered:

nazi
therefore disruptive
therefore bannable

And the positive people got kicked out

You sure you weren't just acting like a nazi? That's a fairly specific insult for you to receive it multiple times in unrelated communities.
- To play devil's advocate, some mods lurk on other subreddits to preemptively ban people they don't like. It could be that they're talking about a mod like u/awkwardtheturtle who modded like half the site.

Misery loves company.

I'm not :(

I'm there for anyone who is, though. I'm MozartWasARed on there.

Lost sheep without a shepard. But honestly I think it's momentum. Soon they may see the light and flock to Lemmy.