OC. (as always, feel free to steal any meme I post!)
Yeah i opened reddit recently and was immediately hit with those fake AITA stories that somehow i once kinda believed, and now, after being in more sane communities, those stories just look fabricated for maximum interaction.
It baffles me how i never realised reddit, twitter and other socials leveraged the outrage machine so much until i joined lemmy.
I went back and got irrationally angry… immediately realized Reddit was pure cancer.
Twitter is bad too. On top of the outrage bait, there’s a ton of garbage posts that are just designed to farm engagement: “Which of these 12 movies from the 1990s is your favorite?” - and the post is just 12 numbered movie covers.
I don’t mean to bitch or anything, but this kind of post (other social platforms are bad) is a pretty decent engagement farm as well.
I think this post is likely to get people talking, but the intent was just to make something funny.
The stuff I’m referring to on twitter is this kind of (borderline phishing in this case) nonsense:
What’s wild is there is a total side business that feeds on those posts. There are at least a dozen podcasts centered solely around AITA posts.
I was surprised to see so many “AITA for cutting out certain foods? Yes, buy Weight Watchers, asshole!” ads disguised as posts. I’m sure they’re not new, but using a third party app meant I never had to see them.
I’m pretty sure the stories themselves are fake but a lot of the situations are plausible that I can kind of see happening some time. The comments sometimes have a lot of useful guidance for navigating complicated social situations. But yeah I do agree with you overall.
There still a little of outrage nonsense here, but it’s mostly Tankies and other political nonsense.
Also, if you look at the bigger picture, Reddit is nothing more then a psyop with a bunch of extreme activists trying to steer people to support thier cause.
Yesterday I witnessed outrage against someone who dared to suggest that getting some sun everyday was good for you. People berated him as if you could get cancer just by being exposed like we were fucking vampires.
Lol, there’s no subtle nuances to anything over there. Take sex work for instance, according to Reddit if you’re in that profession, you’re either trafficked or groomed and that’s it.
It would be absolutely crazy to think that someone would be willing to perform sex acts for six figures and minimal work time. No fucking way🙄
six figures
Shit, here I am giving it away like a chump. Imma write up an invoice for my wife.
I told my wife that if she wants to wack off on the internet for cash, that’s fine by me. 🤣
Not really sure lemmy is all that much better from an outrage addict perspective, at least looking at All. Sure things are better if you curate your feed a bit, but that’s true on the other platforms as well.
From looking at All I definitely agree. Feed curation seems like the answer, but I haven’t found enough active communities for the kind of variety I want, and All feels like the right place to look for more.
Fortunately the Star Trek memes here are hot enough to melt dilithium crystals, and that’s all I really need!
Reddit keeps suggesting outrage bait when I check back in on college football game threads (which seemingly does not exist on Lemmy). Lemmy is never going to “because you once looked at a thread in this community”
the glaring lack of college football content on lemmy has been the biggest disappointment I have had. When I left twitter, I couldnt get real time sports news updates, /r/cfb filled that void. There is no comparable community yet in lemmy, or if there is, I havent found it
The biggest opinions get the most attention
First time I heard the term “Outrage addict” that seems to fit pretty well.
If you didn’t know already, it’s really worth knowing that anger is addictive and acts on dopamine pathways.
That’s the same mechanism which cocaine works through.
Anything more than very occasional anger is dangerously unhealthy, if you value not being an arsehole for the rest of your life
(I might be slightly dramatising, but really everyone chill the fuck out, there’s much better ways to get your dopamine)
Thanks, I wasn’t aware that anger triggered a dopamine response, but makes sense. I am pretty laid back, so it’s hard for me to understand people that are angry all the time
I truly think that’s what has been happening. People seek out stuff to be angry about for the rush, and the algorithm translates that into serving up the most extreme takes on literally every issue.
I’m right and that asshole is wrong. Everything would be great if we just beat the crap out of that guy. I just solved all of our problems. Feels great being right doesn’t it? Damn I’m awesome. Better than railing a fat line of blow.
I read once that it’s a social evolution thing. Humans are more likely to survive if we work together, and part of working together means following the rules and a little bit of self sacrifice. We get a little shot of dopamine when we call someone out for breaking the rules because it makes the tribe stronger. The problem is that we figured out that psychological hack and it’s being exploited now to insane levels. We are wired to stop the guy next to us from eating twice his share of the crop or whatever, not for seeing every little assholeish thing some random politician said on the other side of the country, or every person a cop beats up, or every time a Karen is rude to a cashier, and so on. I don’t know how accurate that is but it sure sounds right.
Bam!
Kick it up a notch!
Hit it with your spice weasel
Ok, against my better judgement, I’m going to kick it up another notch. BAM!
Sort by top/hour, and you’ll see 3 pages of crypto scam. I’d post a pic, but it doesn’t seem to upload here.
Gross. You know, I don’t think I’ve read anything about crypto since joining Lemmy. That’s really nice.
I didnt visit my tumblr for a week and acquired 30 new pornbot followers.
Tumblr Live and all the new algorithm fuckery is really messing up the site : (I’ve been out of the loop for a while, but didn’t tumblr remove their porn? I guess they brought it back?
Eh they cracked down hard on all queer and trans stuff to the point of banning users over posting fully clothed selfies, but hetro cis stuff is still everywhere.
The pornbots have been around for years but they’ve ramped up big time since Tumblr Live came online.
Like the other user said. It’s really up to personal preference. I didn’t need porn clogging up my internets tubes. Trying to keep that wide open for those gambling horses. Nothing against those communities, it’s just not my thing or what I come here for.
A particularly good meme captain
Thank you, Lieutenant “Pickle” Casmael.
Ah yes, also I a fellow American agree that there is definitely no astroturfing going on here
What if instead of sarcastic comments you just provided evidence or reasoning to bolster your claim so we can stop breeding more fucking dumb asses who take whatever you say on the surface as gospel?
Isn’t that why astroturfing works?
It’s not leaving social media if you can go back. Delete that shit and never look back
A concoction so vial it makes people leave. …“we could make a religion out of this…”
I still use Facebook (mainly for Simpsons memes and Marketplace), but the X and Reddit ones OOF, they’re totally true.
Every time I visit twitter I have a bunch of notifications of just post recommendations. To be clear I never got these when I used it regularly, it’s just trying to get me back
