This is a theory that’s previously been stated in log/39-normie-hypothesis.gmi, but I think it’s worth expanding on as it’s become very relevant with the recent Reddit shit-show actualizing just how bad that website has gotten along with social media in general. I think the model demonstrate how the ’enshittification’ process is an inevitability with any social media that is run on a venture capital model. An online community can be like a village, where you have familiar faces, collective experiences, shared values and so forth.

Great writing on the current Reddit saga. The author put down in words a lot of things in my mind I couldn’t find the right words.

  • Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    0·
    2 years ago

    I must say, I was always a stranger on Reddit and everyone was a stranger to me. I was there for the interesting links and discussions, but never for the people or the community.

    Being a jerk wasn’t the norm, so it wasn’t as bad as portrayed in the article, but it certainly wasn’t a village at any point. Sure, I visited many small subs all the time, so those places could have been villages, but I was always a traveler, constantly on the move. If I noticed a particular username, I was nearly guaranteed never to see that name again, so I never really paid much attention to the thousands of names I would inevitably forget.

    • alehel@beehaw.orgEnglish
      0·
      2 years ago

      I hear a lot of people talk about how Reddit was full of terrible people. I very rarely saw these people though. Not sure if their voices got down-voted, or maybe I simply stayed away from the communities they gravitated to. Personally I never really browsed Reddit home screen, I just bookmarked the communities I liked and went directly to their pages. So maybe that’s how I missed out on a lot of it.

      That said, I did se quite a bit of nonsense when browsing gaming forums. PC gamers hating console gamers, xbox gamers mocking ps gamers and vice-versa. Never did understand peoples need to be superior in the gaming world. These are all just methods of enjoying the same hobby!

      • jherazob@beehaw.orgEnglish
        1·
        2 years ago

        As long as you stayed in small, well moderated subreddits you did find what the OP describes as a community, i for one tended to shy away from the big ones and specially the default biggest

        • mobyduck648@beehaw.orgEnglish
          2·
          2 years ago

          The problem is that smaller subs could be Eternal Septembered almost overnight by getting onto /r/all and being swamped by people with no interest in following the established norms. The UK politics sub after Brexit for example was never the same again.

          • realslef@fedia.io
            1·
            2 years ago

            UK politics after brexit hasn’t been the same. The penalties for lying in that vote campaign were too weak and the offenders are only now starting to suffer the consequences of continuing in that manner.