I deleted Reddit from my home screen when the mods did the fake strike and I've mostly kept off of it since then, but in the past few weeks I've opened it out of boredom and holy God is it just a truly awful place. My only explanation is that it's a window into the psyche of the American middle class email job worker and they're so fucking brain rotten that it hurts to even look at.

I thought I was misremembering or that reddit-logo was just a good meme, but that site really does represent the absolute worst of American liberalism. I don't even have anything specific to say, I just need to scrape out the festering mass that a 15 minute scroll session there created in my brain.

  • axont [she/her, comrade/them]
    ·
    9 months ago

    That part about who reddit represents is so true. I feel so alienated from those people unless it's a niche hobby topic. They overwhelming represent a cross-section of white middle class office workers who were all told they were gifted as kids. They're so smug and smarmy. They're all addicted to porn too.

    • UlyssesT [he/him]
      ·
      9 months ago

      They're all addicted to porn too.

      They tend to accuse feeeemales of "attention whoring" if they dare to exist on a picture of something but also expect sexual stimulation from the same feeeemale. awooga

      • MattsAlt [comrade/them]
        ·
        9 months ago

        "Already checked guys, no gw posts!" On anything where the poster indicates they might have breasts

        • UlyssesT [he/him]
          ·
          9 months ago

          "Thank you for checking for gw posts, good gentlesir. FOR SCIENCE!" so-true

    • SchillMenaker [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      9 months ago

      The part that's even more alienating about it for me is that I'm from the same stock as them. I was the smart kid in all the gifted classes, I never wanted for anything, my parents were a Republican booster dad and a Ralph Nader volunteer mom who my dad would pay to not vote every election. I came from exactly where they all do so the fact that they choose to see the world through the obviously and brutally false lense of meritocracy just kills me.

      I have poor and working class friends in real life and their politically incoherent views don't bother me because I can understand why they're losing the thread. On the other hand, I make a point of really digging into the comfortable liberals I know because they have no excuse for not seeing the world for what it really is. With the personal social aspect removed in a place like Reddit, those comfortable liberals are way too dug in to get them to engage in an ounce of self reflection and they can brush you off as an agent of misinformatzyion if you press them.

      I really fucking hate it there.

      • PM_ME_YOUR_FOUCAULTS [he/him, they/them]
        ·
        9 months ago

        my parents were a Republican booster dad and a Ralph Nader volunteer mom who my dad would pay to not vote every election

        Hold up, what's this now?

        • SchillMenaker [he/him]
          hexagon
          ·
          9 months ago

          Yeah my background is not boring. I'm very lucky that my dad was terrible with money or we would have had a whole lot of it.