It hits for me when I’m typing it out and I can already read the braindead response they’re going to type and I don’t want to spend another 2 paragraphs preempting the obvious response and I definitely don’t want to wait a few hours/days to explain why they’re still wrong.
That’s because Reddit sells anger quite well. Their bots and human instigators work overtime to get you to comment like that. I think all of us Reddit refugees have fallen for this shit.
We’re not doing great on deprogramming ourselves either. The news outlets not only manufacture consent, they also manufacture outrage. This isn’t a new problem either. It’s been going on since at least the Spanish-American war, probably earlier (see also William Randolph Hurst , Joseph Pulitzer).
Someone gave some advice on a forum or a blog or something a long time ago that really stuck with me and completely altered my outlook about social media and interacting with people via the internet in general:
Before you hit “send”, ask yourself whether this is for your benefit, or that of those who will see it.
I basically stopped using socials after that, because I seldom thought of anything that followed this rule, and my feed was so full of garbage from people who also didn’t, but saw fit to post it anyway. The internet has given society an ego masturbation problem.
I have to remind myself engaging is mostly useless.
Yep. Me sometimes. Like you know the answer. It’s simple and logical. The other person is obviously wrong and defending their position badly… But then you realise it’s stupid to try and waste your time on a subject you don’t even care about, to a person who cannot be educated.
deletes his own comment without posting it after realizing he was wrong after defending what he now no longer believes in, for seven paragraphs
Happens on this platform too
I’ve written paragraphs and paragraphs about how calling someone stupid is not ad hominem. I’ve gone 20 comments into a thread trying to explain how analogies work. I’m currently in several arguments about the fact that water is, indeed, wet.
I am slightly concerned that I recognized the anime source from that one frame 😅 To be fair it is a fantastic series! Check out Paranoia Agent if you can 🍿
Literally just finished watching it. Incredibly series from the GOAT Satoshi Kon. But… I will admit when I first saw it, my brain went to

I have a plushie! :)

I bookmark subreddits and read them without logging in. Every time I feel the urge, I’ve got a hurdle to cross before I can type anything. Then it’s immediately a “fuck it” moment and move on
The Reddit interface is so fucking obnoxious when you’re not logged in, I’ve just given up on the community entirely. Days of casually browsing have been ruined by the constant gating and engagement baiting and GUI hell they’ve injected into the site.
When you’re 20 minutes into an argument on reddit and suddenly get permanently IP banned for saying something that didn’t even break rules
Yep.
Flippant, mildly humorous comment, one sentence: (2,345 👍) (123💬)
Well thought out, reliably sourced reply of one to two small paragraphs: (3👍) (0 💬)
Lemmy is actually better on this. I get a lot of upvotes for well thought-out long posts and comments here as well as humorous one-liners. I’ve been pleasantly surprised that people actually take the time to read out my longer posts. On reddit it’d probably just get lost and be another 1 thumber that never got read.
The key is also to make your story interesting. Something that pulls your reader in. Be personal and amicable. Realize you’re talking to real people and speak to those people in your writing. I’m more of a creative writing buff. I managed to eek out 98th percentile for creative writing in my SATs. I love writing. Its my favorite thing to do. I want to be an author. I fucking hate my ADHD. I’ve started a hundred books at least and either bore myself or tell myself its a stupid plot, even though I have friends and family begging for me to finish something.
My early books were written in small notebooks. The old ones that sorta looked like they had cowprint covers with a title on them. They’d get passed around the school for weeks. I’d get them back and people would keep asking me to continue. I never did. Fuck me, I hate ADHD sometimes. But your words are alive. They can heal, hurt, cause laughter and tears, and, above all, words can influence anything. Words are power and, as long as you are careful of that power, you can write any damn length you want.
Honestly, my fear now is AI. I like AI, but I don’t want to write a book and have people claim its AI or AI assisted. I’m regretting not writing one earlier now.
tl;dr: Is k. Writ stuf.
Sorry your comment was too long I got bored halfway through
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