Today has been especially bad, and was inspired sadly by about 6 straight posts of only negativity here.

I want to say that being negative towards something is not a bad thing, it’s very valid to critique things. However, a community becomes toxic when the majority of it’s content is negative.

Gaming is an obvious one. It’s very obvious all around the internet that gaming communities are negative generally, and Lemmy certainly takes the cake. In the case of GTA 6 coming out this month we can (and have) had multiple stories about Rockstar’s unethical practices, the pricing, ownership, and to be clear I agree with all of it. However, there is also valid positive things that people want to discuss but are immediately downvoted to hell, or have comments brigaded on with responses like “Don’t you know about X, Y, or Z??”

I’ve been in comment threads where people have told me that they are afraid to post here because of the responses they might get. Now this is absolutely true everywhere, and we will often respond “You just have to tune them out” but the scales are shifting to the majority of responses are negative.

New users will not simply block/tune out the majority of commenters. New users will see that a community is toxic and turn around and go back to where they felt it was better.

This is the root of my frustration - that Lemmy is no longer a geeky place where people can talk about Star Trek and Linux - but that it’s becoming a toxic place where if you aren’t talking about why Star Trek and Linux are the only good things on the planet that it should be called out over and over.

Worse is that the scales a tipping to simply being “If it is popular, it is not good” which is a huge red flag for toxic community. To be clear it does not mean that if something is popular that it must be good, but instead we are falling for the same trap that is on corporate social media.

Anger and toxicity are fun, they are dopamine hits. So when there’s a huge post about <<popular thing>> and everyone dogpiles, everyone has that dopamine hit and it spreads, and it makes people want to dogpile more. Unfortunately I think this has left individual posts, and this is now driving a large part of our comment sections, that people feel included when they are all dogpiling on a popular thing. It’s addictive.

It’s incessant and exhausting being here some days.

Some examples to think on:

  • Harry Potter fans (who have already said they will not buy anything from Rowling again and are aware) who still want to enjoy the books/movies they already own, but are shouted down and downvoted
  • Sports fans posting about football, to have jokes about “sportsball” made to them.
    • (Is that really any different from nerds being made fun of by jocks in highschool, only this is in reverse and worse yet, we’re supposedly more mature now?)
  • Freaking pumpkin spice. The world is on fire and people get a tiny bit of joy out of cinnamon and allspice, can we let them just enjoy that?!

I think that sums it all up, I wish people could just enjoy things here without having the majority of comments be about why they shouldn’t enjoy it. I think this attitude has already lost of a good chunk of users who could be adding to the fediverse, instead now back on corporate social media.

It’s anecdotal but I’ve shown the fediverse to 3 other people who are trekkie nerds like me. They gave up in less than a week not because the fediverse was complicated, but because they felt like they weren’t wanted here.

Be the positive change, be encouraging. Don’t belittle for someone for liking a popular thing if you like something more obscure, instead post about obscure thing and why you like it and share it! Inform users of things like Rowlings insane shit-headery, but don’t demean them for still enjoying the books. If you don’t like sports that’s cool, but let them cheer on their team.

Thanks for listening. I’m going to have a pumpkin spice latte now.

  • Deebster@infosec.pubEnglish
    3·
    1 day ago

    I recently posted an article I’d enjoyed to a linguistics community. I checked if it was paywalled (it was, I linked to an archive version), I wrote a bit about what the essay covered, and I double checked the sub rules before posting.

    Despite getting decent engagement, a third of the votes are downvotes, with no reasons given. If it’s going to be buried by anonymous downvoters, why should I bother? My time and effort could have been spent doing something else.

  • Sanctus@anarchist.nexusEnglish
    1835·
    6 days ago

    I saw 3 posts in a row today saying hope is evil and stupid. Ya’ll sound like fucken Morgoth shut up. Would Gandalf have said that!? OR DID HE SAY THE LITTLE THINGS KEEPS THE DARKNESS AT BAY

  • Ace T'Ken@lemmy.caEnglish
    9·
    4 days ago

    It seems like the worst migrated here because they got banned from Reddit for having an extreme stance and, instead of talking and discussing things like a normal person, they would just immediately have a toddler-level freak out on everyone who didn’t share their view.

    Then they’d make a “safe space” community here where even mild disagreement / someone fact-finding / an errant downvote while browsing /All would result in a ban, thus creating a completely worthless echo chamber and causing them to become even more extremist.

    As a litmus test, if your community has custom words they use for normal people, you may be in an extremist echo chamber.

  • CoconutLove@lemmy.todayEnglish
    131·
    4 days ago

    Agree 100%, you really notice it when you start creating posts regularly and like 80% of the comments are some variation of a complaint.

  • FukOui@lemmy.zipEnglish
    203·
    4 days ago

    I dunno. I find this better than being in an echo chamber of positivity

  • Cethin@lemmy.zipEnglish
    458·
    5 days ago

    Here’s a key thing I think you’re missing about Lemmy: Lemmy is anti-corporate and anti-capitalist by nature. That is the single thing that pretty much all Lemmy users hold true. That’s why we’re here. It’s not all negative. It’s negative when you’re trying to push a product, especially when it’s made clear it hurts other people.

    Try discussing an indie game, especially one with a good track record of treating employees well, or one owned by a cooperative. You will almost always see positive responses. Lemmy users are happy to support good things. They’re also skeptical of corporations (for good reason) and are quick to turn against them when it turns out they’re run by bad people.

    I’ll give you an example: Anyone who sees this, what is your favorite indie game, and what about it is special to you? Mine is probably the incredibly standard response of The Outer Wilds. It has so much soul and understanding for the human experience, and it gives you the freedom to discover it for yourself.

  • WhyDoYouThinkThat@lemmy.worldEnglish
    91·
    4 days ago

    I found a small private forum and haven’t come back to lemmy in months.

    This population is jaded, angry and brittle. It’s like being bullied in school again. Why would anyone want to stay here?

  • Jomega@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5·
    4 days ago

    I’ll be honest, I’m starting to fall out of love for Lemmy because of this shit. Recently I’ve taken up Bluesky to contact a friend of mine, and when I decide which app I want to use when I zone out, Bluesky usually wins. I know a lot of you hate it because it’s corporate owned, but God damn it, the vibes are much better there.

    Also I’ll say this flat out: at least when I go there I’m never bombarded by “voting and protesting are both stupid and you’re an idiot for thinking you can ever make the world a better place within legal methods” propaganda, like I do from a certain instance.

  • Clambake0351@piefed.zipEnglish
    691·
    6 days ago

    I post climate articles I find interesting rather indiscriminately probably 70/30 downer/upper, but the engagement I see in terms of upvotes/comments is probably 90/10 downer/upper.

    I’m saying this because I dont think there’s a dirth of positive content, it’s just not being encouraged to flourish.

    Be the change you want to see in the world and upvote/comment on positive content. Even silly affirmations help things float up the algowall.

    If you want to take things further, post positive and organic content! Adopt a community and make it your goal to add something to it every week - start growing the positive culture you want. It’ll feel rough to start because you likely won’t get any engagement, but keep at it so folks know its okay for them to share as well.

    • Sir. Haxalot@nord.pubEnglish
      32·
      5 days ago

      To add on to this with another probably unpopular opinion: The Fediverse proves that the main problem with social media isn’t algorithms, it’s people.

      • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
        111·
        5 days ago

        it’s human psychology. people love drama and they love lowest common denominator content. they will seek it out and where they can’t find it they will seek to generate it.

        Lemmy users love to pretend eveyone they don’t like or disagree with is secretly a nazi, for example, because it makes the interaction a moral absolute rather than a petty disagreement. And it justifies rage and anger and hostility, which is empowering to feel.

        but anytime i bring that up and show cites on it, people refuse to believe me here, insult me, and tell me I’m a nazi… which anecdotally proves the original point i am trying to make with the stuff I posted…

      • frostedtrailblazer@lemmy.zipEnglish
        3·
        5 days ago

        I would tack on to say there is some degree of outside pressure. What killed Reddit in many ways for me was that the culture. I think bots and bad actors push for a more doomed content. Some people’s outlook are problematic for fostering a positive, growth mindset community, but the well is actively being targeted everywhere on the internet these days.

        I can’t even play an MMO for instance without seeing a barrage of ads to offsite content by bots or people doomer posting to influence others to be disengaged and a doomer as well, so they don’t turn out to vote as an example. The networks that did this type of behavior used to operate at most a few months before elections and such, but many of them have been year round and all the time since around 2019 and onwards.

        • Sir. Haxalot@nord.pubEnglish
          5·
          5 days ago

          Maybe, but I also think people are too quick on blaming everything on bots in general. Not everyone who disagrees with you is a bot (Not you in particular, but people like to call opposition bots).

          I am certain that bots and malicious actors have played a big role in creating divisions on social media in the past decade, but must also remember that a lot of this is self sustaining from people who may have been influenced by bots in the first place.

          I also doubt that manipulative bots are that common on the Fediverse. It’s probably small enough that it’s not really worth the effort for malicious actors to target.

      • ChristerMLB@piefed.socialEnglish
        1·
        5 days ago

        Specifically people in ultra-short relationships without obligations. Bulletin boards were better in this way, since it meant people would get to know each other.

      • Clambake0351@piefed.zipEnglish
        91·
        5 days ago

        Just so you know - you inspired me. While I was doing my nightly read-up on my RSS feeds, I made the deliberate choice to pull mostly positive climate stories, and put them in my posting queue.

        They won’t pop up right away (I try to space things out), but now >50% of my queue for the week is highlighting positive news. That may shift as the week evolves and news breaks, but this is looking to be a more positive week from me :)

    • JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nlEnglish
      3·
      4 days ago

      It would be interesting to see the content scale split, because personally I believe perceived scale has a huge effect on pessemism or optimism.

      For example: if the articles that are downers are all “the world is going to end in 50 years”, “tens of thousands are dying from X”, “Scientists say there is no possibility of climate recovery”, “wildfires make kill 10k animals” etc…

      Then the “uppers” are something like: “scientists got a captive panda to breed”, “battery breakthrough #762 (that will be killed by scaling or investors)”, or “we have slowed bee death by 1% with this one simple trick”

      Then it is easy to be overwhelmed from the literal existential looming doom news that makes people think that having kids is going to be giving them horrible lives and the tiny “one good thing happened in one small place that has a barely perceivable effect” is going to get lost in the mix and not inspire positivity.

    • Caveman@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      4 days ago

      I pretty much only upvote. Downvoting feels petty and people need to be straight up wrong, post intentionally misleading articles or similar to receive a downvote. I don’t downvote for example if I disagree, disagreeing is normal and inevitably happens.

    • Foni@piefed.zipEnglish
      22·
      5 days ago

      It’s a good way to do it and also if you think there is a lack of a community with a proper focus on a topic (like the ones OP mentions), create it and moderate it properly.

      Nothing is stopping you from creating a Harry Potter community that focuses on the positive aspects of that world and blocks those who only put hate into the topic, nothing prevents you from doing it and working on developing it.

      You will surely find more support than you can imagine and you will help this corner of the internet become more like what you really would like it to be.

      • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
        33·
        5 days ago

        Except… you’ll get brigaded and harassed and possible doxxed by the anti JK Rowling nutjobs. They will probably also post CP to your community and report it to admins and get it banned.

        People are malicious actors sometimes, especially in light of a ‘social justice’ cause they think is supreme.

        • Foni@piefed.zipEnglish
          1·
          5 days ago

          I don’t think anyone will be banned for something like that, especially if you really do an adequate job of moderation, and in any case it would be something to try in a less stupid instance, even if you think it’s necessary you could create an exclusive profile to moderate the community, I don’t see a problem with that.

          Let the haters hate and move forward with what makes you happy

          • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            4 days ago

            you can think that all you want. it happens all the time.

            people also will comment on someone’s comment trying to reframe it and then report it to get them banned. i have seen this happen countless times on lemmy. i have seen wonderful discussions completely detailed and re-framed as ‘hate speech’ by extremists who self-appointedly think their role is to terminate any all discussion of a topic, and the quickest way to do that is to start insulting, harassing, and screaming at folks to intimate them into silence or re-frame their views as ‘hateful’.

            You can stick your head in the sand, online, or IRL. But that doesn’t mean those types of ‘chilling’ behaviors don’t impact your experience here, or in life in general. Especially when those types of actions occur at educational institutions, as they have been the past decade.

            When I went to school people were able to protest or disagree with things without going into a lecture hall and shouting and harassing the lecturer and suing the school for allowing them to speak. Heck, often times, they would go to the lecture and politely make their point with the lecturer an the lecturer would say ‘that is an excellent point, you are right, i may have to do more research and consider that viewpoint in my work’…

  • moendopi@lemmy.worldEnglish
    6·
    4 days ago

    Welp, you’ve summed up what I’ve been thinking for a while. I don’t know if it is really a Lemmy thing, pessimistically informed folks, or just the Internet. It’s probably all of them. I know pretty much exactly what OP is referring and have no answers.

    Edit: strike through; and on further thought, this is basically more or less the same complaint I had about imgur. They’re seem/seemed pretty insular and quite an echo chamber. It seemed to me that if your weren’t one of the annointed ones, you were a dirty peasant whose posts would never leave user sub, a place only visited by those who hate themselves. And there is a lot of nonsense in there. But comments wise, it’s basically the same. “Oh, you liked that video of a cat/dog/animal? How dare you, did you know x, y , z? No? Well now you do do you can feel bad about it.”

    And the politics is similar. I remember seeing posts about the 2020 election and how the Marrieta, GA voting was very slow, i.e., the lines were very long and some folks waited 8+ hours. And of course the majority of comments were about how “this is voter suppression!!1!!”. Except I was there. It was just a really big turn out. Really big turn out. But, sure, it’s was voter suppression . Didn’t matter that I was there.

    So, yeah, to whoever way up at the top that mentioned it’s really not just algorithms, but people using these things/social media in general: totally agree.

    Also, if you happen to be reading this, what are you doing? Why are you down this far? Don’t you know you’re only supposed to read the top 3 comments and form.your opinion from there? And, if you read OP’s post and somehow are reading this, what are you even doing? You’re not supposed to read the whole thing! Headline, first comment, echo dissent, move on.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.worldEnglish
    212·
    5 days ago

    I hate to be a negative response about negativity (and please don’t think I’m unaware of any irony here) but you kinda already answered your own question.

    This is how the internet works.

    You can be right, and make a true statement, and yet: someone will manufacture an exception to prove you wrong. Someone will add additional information to act like you didn’t know what you were talking about. Someone will exploit a technicality to make you wrong. Someone will ignore the spirit of your argument and quibble over the literal words you wrote.

    Steam made steam linux and a gaming system yay; steam sucks, the system is too expensive, and steam is an effective monopoly.

    USA anything decent; USA imperialist killers

    Discuss any other nations’ unfortunate events or bad moves; USA imperialist killers

    Democrats anything positive: democrats spineless corportate neoliberals

    Linux thing; linux users shitting on windows

    I want to play the new AAA multiplayer game on windoze on my custom PC ; you loser you should play 5 year old singleplayer on linux because anticheat sucks and why’d you spend that much on a botique build and why spend money on a new AAA PC game…

    I wouldn’t care so much it’s just that every post winds up with the same criticisms when it comes to these subjects.

    The only solution really is subscriptions to the /c/ you like and avoid /all or as you suggested…ignore the stuff that drags you down. I wind up in the same spot, I’ll open a post and within a couple comments if it devolves into trash talking some aspect of it I close the post and move on.