I’ve been starting to reduce my “internet footprint” especially on large media sites. (twitter, reddit, youtube, etc). I’ve been deleting a lot of my posts that dont have important info, and reducing my time spent on them. I’m doing it to improve my mental health. hopefully.

why are we so shitty to each other?

I am honestly pissed off on the fact people can’t give feedback without being pricks or “gamers” just shitting on developers because they are Starfield stans

Painting with such broad strokes about opinions you don’t like and writing them all collectively off as “pricks” and “starfield Stans” is contributing to the current state of discourse that you are lamenting.

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I think most people aren’t toxic, but the toxic ones always stick out. If you get 20 normal comment replies and one that was rude, you’ll probably remember that rude one more.

Same goes for anything that people have strong opinions about online - especially politics. The most extreme, hostile, and bizarre takes get a lot of attention and float to the top, which makes it seem like the majority opinion, when most people aren’t like that.

In the german reddit and lemmy we circle jerk about the forums of old, because of their toxic culture. E.g. things like “use the search function, this has been answered a thousand times” “just google it” “you didn’t provide the exact specs of your computer, even if it is just a software issue” and so on.

I think it was easier back then, because we did not have the huge networks like facebook or youtube, where there is no sense of community. But you still had to finde the nice communities and the vileness was always there. It was just easier to steer clear from

It made interactions easily available and there is no “need” to preserve etiquette, because there is no accountability to the community. I also have the feeling that the modern internet, smartphones and strong hardware made people too entitled to things just working and being available at every moment. So we develop back to being toddlers that are quicker to throw a tantrum.

IMO, there’s a lot of factor playing part in this. (Copying from my fedi personal fedi acc!)

1. A lot of people lack control of the real world situation that happen to them and some are desperate for the feel of being in control enough to harm other people just to feel like ‘I’m in control’

2. A lot of people do not have a way to properly deal with their anger and frustration. They only teach to ‘hold or suppress it’ and there’s such also consequence in showing negative emotion IRL, so online is almost having no consequence for it.

3. Online people are separate by screen. People know that there’s people behind it, but they don’t feel it. In online, we don’t get in your face ‘feedback’ from body language or facial expression from other people. IRL, you mess around and pretty much find out instantly.

4. Social media reward people with engagement and fav/like, which is easy dopamine for people like it’s just a tip away from their body. And SOMEHOW I feel like social media normalized people being mean to each other as ‘Playful witty funny hahaha’ so they get rewarded by that. And yeah these things are addictive, so you can crave more, making you do more ‘extreme’ thing to get them. And yes you can get addicted to being angry too.

5. And then there is also peer pressure and ‘us vs them’ mentality that is so strong in social media. I mean yeah, if we look at it, being ‘mean’ together with your group it’s sort of activity that you can bound together and also reward you as well. It just not a good one and come at a cost of another people.

Now add all of them together, you get the platform that reward toxic interaction and also extremely addictive. You get reward from like/fav. You get reward by ‘Peer approval’ (because today we forbid other people having neutral opinion on a thing, but it could be just my experience.), You get reward by your own brain. Not counting other thing like politic, moral compass, religion because it adds entirely another layer on this.

There is hope.

https://theindieweb.com/

The loudest voices usually aren’t the most representative ones. I like Hank Green’s take in a recent video. It’s easier to dismiss the really out there opinions when you realize that it’s not what everyone thinks.

I agree and thats why I end up in Beehaw. There is still some hostility but compared to the world wide web out there, its much better.

Now I just reduce my time online and try to find friends who share an interest.

Get off the internet. I’ve been trying to have a social event on every weekday so that I’m not sitting bored at home. You forget about politics. I also have one room in my house I’ve dedicated as internet-free, where I go to do stuff like drawing.

I believe a lot of the posts and replies that rile an individual up, on social media, are put there by bots. Intentionally to rile people up.

I think social unrest is desired by certain groups and factions.

One thing you really have to learn in this world is how to disregard the feelings of other people. Other people’s feelings are only rooted in their own self-interest and they will take advantage of your feelings and manipulate you to get what they want. They’re not even aware they’re even doing it half the time. It is the perennial human condition.

Most people are ugly-spirited, mean, cruel assholes.

You’re better off either just insulating yourself from them or hardening your spirit to better tolerate their presence.

Why are we so shitty to each other? I’m so tired.

That’s our nature. We always have been and always will be. The only difference is that now it’s way more convenient.

With that said, I deleted my twitter a year ago. I deleted facebook three months ago, and left reddit for lemmy two months ago. It’s actually been really great for my mental health to not know what everyone I know is thinking all of the time, and I still have messenger if they need to to get in touch with me. Do I miss an event here and there? Yes, but it’s worth it for the amount of stuff I don’t have to see anymore.

That’s true especially in gaming circles.

There are big misconceptions about game development jobs. People tend to think that implementing X or Y feature “surely can’t be that hard”. They have absolutely zero experience in game design or game programming and yet they take on such a condescending level when you read their posts.

Programming is hard. Balancing is hard. Developing a game while you have a whole player base against you is hard. The game industry is most infamously known for its crunch times and high turnover rates. And yet players do not respect that.

Whenever a game gets released at all, it’s such a ton of work that have been done. Even if the game turns out to be not as fun as people wanted. Or even if there are bugs. In fact, i am sure that half of the people that complain aggressively will never do something that impressive in their life, ever.

We should be in awe and respect our fellow devs because this job is one of pure passion.

I and three others had a pvp Minecraft server and we had to shut it down because people were getting into stupid toxic arguments to the point we had two sides, one wanted the other banned on threat of them leaving because one of their members had an argument several months ago with them and brought it up again. I spent all nighters on the Minecraft server and the owner spent €50 every month. To be treated like this was heartbreaking. So the four of us agreed to shut it down. It hurt and I feel bad and the underlying concept was enjoyable to many people, but we couldn’t have it because people were just trying to figure out ways to break it and weren’t actually playing the game we tirelessly were maintaining for them. Shutting it down was heartbreaking but I feel so much better for it.