No Stupid Questions

Places would change up and down in tone and attitude since the days of Usenet, BBSes, and FidoNet. It's not the platform, it's the people. How the world is in RL affects how people talk online, and the world changes over time.

The simpler answer may be that your feed has changed some since you started and you're pulling in discussions that have a different vibe than when you started. Just as you can grow your feed by browsing around, you can cull certain places that tend to be darker by blocking people or instances.

Blame reddit. Lemmy is the home for us, the permabanned.

This place (old.lemmy.zip) is downright chill. Then again, I just came off Reddit (after 14 years there..) and that is in full rage-bait algorithm-driven meltdown. Feels like Reddit in 2010 here. Just lovely..

Yes its more negative. Comes with more users who want to play keyboard warriors over things they feel strongly about.

As a platform grows, you tend to get more diversity of voices. As voices become diverse, conflict becomes inevitable.

I’ve seen a lot of hard exclusionary leftists making noise outside of the triad.

Fuck off /s

Idk, world events got me raging nonstop and I'm sure I'm not the only one. But I'm trying to reset.

I haven’t noticed it lately, but I’ve experienced what you’re talking about. As far as I can tell, it ebbs and flows.

You suck! (im sorry im just kidding)

Yup, lost of people here accusing others of being "genocide apologists" for expressing even the slightest approval or agreement with Harris or Biden on anything. Yet, somehow, they don't seem to want to criticize the current administration, blaming everything on the liberals as if they're the ones solely responsible for this mess. Curious, isn't it.

There's a facet of internet culture that revolves around ridicule. I'm not sure but I think it stems from the streamer world. It's like a modern form of celebrity gossip (read: harassment) that got commoditized into social media. So it's not just gossiping about celebrities like in the past era of media.

Harassment used to be driven by publishers. In this era of social media anyone and everyone is a content publisher. People trawl the internet for things they think can be made spectacle. Right down to a random internet comment 100 replies deep in a thread. If for whatever reason they think this person is to be made a fool of then they proceed to reply with such belligerence.

They engage as if they are an outside observer. As if they've an audience like it's Jerry Springer or something. As if they are the only human being. They don't see others as human. Everyone else are caged animals for them taunt. To throw objects at through the cage bars or to tap on the glass. They think they are the main character.

I think there's some psychological effect where their parasocial relationship with their favorite streamers and the herd of loyal viewers gives them a false sense of power based on the crowd effect or something. They can't see it from the perspective that they are a lone poster being deranged.

I think the vote/like/share model gives them a false sense of power. When they see the uplikes number go up, they think they have a herd of supporters behind them. A simple little number on a screen emboldens them.

Nobody seems to see anything out of the ordinary with this. Such is the nature of this era of internet and the hostility. It's normalized. They don't know of any way of being.

You're not a streamer with a herd of followers. You're just a sole internet user. You have no crowd behind you. It's like you think you do. It's bizarre. From observers outside your perspective, you're like an unstable person wandering the city streets. Pedestrians avoid you. They don't want to aggravate you. You're seen as someone possibly having a mental break. Or is it drugs or some kind of substance abuse.

On the internet now it's unavoidable. These crazies are out here. They're aggravated. They jump down anyones throat. On much of social media it's the only way they know how to be. Just belligerence against belligerence all the time. Nobody talks like a normal human being. It's like they're derealized. Dissociated.

A basic fact that internet has no moderators anymore. They're moderators in name only. The definition of the word is lost. To "moderate". To preside over a discussion. Nobody does this anymore. The crazies are allowed to run amok. There's some hints of actual moderation on Lemmy instances. The extremists have been grinding away at wearing this down though. In general this kind of thing is completely absent on social media anymore.

The only time I see it anymore comes from people from the older eras of internet. Those to came about in the modern internet have no concept of civility.

Yeah. I've enjoyed Lemmy casually for years, but this last year has really killed my desire to read or post here.

Excuse me?! Are you saying I'm negative?! Are you trying to start a fight with me, bro?! I am THE, I mean THE most positive, fun and likeable person on THE internet, bro. THE.

Welcome back, I've been here the whole time and currently it seems a bit more toxic and hostile than when RIF shut down, I feel there are a couple more contrarians now than before but it hasn't been a steady decline. There has always been the odd jerk and troll on this site. I would say the time Lemmy was most wholesome when !cat@lemmy.world flooded the front page with black cats, it was such a cute problem for us to have. Anyone else remember that?

Like others I'd say it's cyclical month to month. This year there's daily doom in the news with US politics. If you want to avoid that then block !news@lemmy.world, !politics@lemmy.world, !usa@midwest.social, and other news and politics if it fills up with Trump posts. 2024 was a lot more hopeful and I think that reflected in the average user's demeanor even if there was bothsidesism, Gaza stuff, Ukraine stuff and Trumpism stuff. You'll be informed of important developments as Trump stuff leaks out on occasion but you don't need to be constantly engaged. Also if you do curate your All/Local feed then maybe some new communities sprung up that need pruning to fit your desired vibe.

Also: If you see a crapton of comments on a post with low votes then you know best to turn and run from the thread where most of the comments are.

No, just an uptick in complaints about it.

Makes me pretty proud if my subscription list, honestly.

The world is kind of a shitty place right now. And to be honest, I'd be surprised if it wasn't, at least to some degree, affecting everyone's calm.

Filter your content to get the vibe you want.

Blocking the porn and impotently hostile makes it quite the chill platform.

I've not noticed that in particular yet. but it might be because I block accounts that don't add constructively to the comments, so maybe I'm not seeing a lot of the worst behaviour.

I also noticed how every post just has 5-10 random down votes. Like perfectly fine post in the correct community, not controversial, no rules broken, -10 down votes.

No. Why? Are you accusing me of something? Are you threatening me??

/s