9mo ago

How do I cope with the Steam Community?

I go to Steam regularly to play my games, usually posting simple screenshots of my game sessions. But when I go to the communities I see Internet videos, GIFs, memes, and memetic everything and it's not really my thing. I even posted on Lemmy that I didn't like memes in general and what do they post on here? It feels like people are having fun by abusing their humanity in the process or like a Reddit subreddit, and I specifically came to Lemmy on the Fediverse to avoid all that. They post things that I'm uncomfortable with and typically I don't have fun by posting Internet memes for a living...that's just weird.

Does anyone agree or does everyone here do it anyway?

9 comments

I used to visit communities like you did, then I took an arrow in the knee.
But no, seriously, if you don't like the how people are talking, don't bother going there. I don't know people who use Steam's community hubs for actual community. I see them getting used for info/joke sharing about their given games, but not for social bonding. Personally, I like the guides. Sometimes I search the discussions for a piece of information on an issue that I'm hoping someone else has already encountered and worked around. That's about it.
That said, I generally don't mind that people make memes. If it makes them happy, then good for them! If other people get a chuckle, that's even better. For me -- and like my opening line -- any amusement quickly turns to eye rolls as the same things get repeated over and over and were never very funny from the start.
- It's also weird to think that you either have to cope with a community - or that the community must change because of your tastes. Just don't take part in the community - or join a different one or start your own community that's more to your speed. People enjoy different things, we don't all have to take part, and we can create our own groups

Maybe there is no need to cope in the sense that it’s just not a good fit for you. I use Steam to play my games, but I have no interest in the community features.

I enjoyed memes back in the forum days because they weren't frequent with it being more discussion base, so when they showed up it'd have a tendency to actually be funny. But, move towards generating meme content quickly diluted the experience of memes with forcing of memes.

I enjoy memes sometimes or whatever, but on steam I barely interact with community features other than occasional questions on the forums. I don't feel like I've lost anything not interacting there.
I think of memes as like internet smalltalk. It's a way of saying you exist so other people can be like 'I exist too!!' which loosens things up for deeper and more interesting conversation. It's not everyone's thing, though.
I don't follow communities that are just for memes on here so I mostly look at my subscriptions when I'm not in the mood. I think you should just avoid what you don't like and don't worry about it.

I'm also not a fan of memes, but I acknowledge that many other people are. The most I can do is block communities that are expressly for memes and shrug off the rest. There's plenty of other places for grouches like us.

Communities as in what exactly?
The Community Hubs for specific games or various groups that people made?
In either case, it's probably better to intentionally stay out of there, since you know that you generally dislike the content there.
Or, you could try to find a user group that has rules and moderates content in a way that you agree with.
But overall, Steam is platform for video games, which are generally considered to be fun, so it is to be expected that other variations of "fun" will be present there as well.

Find a group you like to hangout with and ignore their memes. Join the discord and only do voice chat.

I completely agree with you. People with even post artwork that is not their own, and post screenshots to the art section of communities. I think it's better to find a different hub to scroll through, like your subscribed feed on lemmy.

9 comments