For context: I was a much more ignorant person back in 2014 than I am today. My views then do not reflect my views now (tw: Fatphobia, Sexism, Sinophobia, transphobia, Z-propaganda)

This isn’t my first rodeo dealing with a reddit migration. My first attempt to leave the site happened back in 2014 when several subs got banned, including several shaming subs when Ellen Pao was CEO of reddit.

Back then, there were a lot of unfounded rumors of the site being taken over by the Chinese government (cause Ellen was Chinese American), and being an ignorant person, I fell for it hook line and sinker.

So around that time, a few reddit alternatives started getting passed around, including a site called Voat. It was basically just like reddit, but the bandwidth and UI wasn’t nearly as sophisticated as reddits, thus the site constantly crashed. I spent a bit of time on there before heading back to reddit and never looking back. And the main reason I left was because the overall culture there was mean spirited, unhinged, and basically a reactionary version of reddit (which looking back makes sense considering this reddit migration was basically a reaction from trying to protect people)

Fast forward to now, and I’m starting to get de ja vu from the fediverse. At first I was on kbin, which seemed promising at first until I noticed that any article involving trans issues had a slew of transphobic comments that had a lot of traction. Realizing there was very little moderation being done there, I gave lemmyworld a try, but same issue, plus it seemed any article having to do with Ukraine had a lot of pro-Russian posts. And whenever I bring up this fact, I get a lot of pushback from users and mods. Part of the reason I ended up here is because one user told me “If you need a safe space, you should go over to beehaw with all the other snowflakes.”

At this point, I already have a fairly negative view of the fediverse. I hate what is happening to reddit right now, and yet it feels like the alternatives aren’t much better in providing a safe environment for its users.

Maybe my problem is with redditors, but at the very least reddit was equipped to keep the dumbest of dumbasses out of visibility. Here, even in supposedly more open minded communities and instances, such dumbassery has just as much weight as thoughtful, upvoted posts.

I don’t know. I can’t see myself staying involved with this project for long, if it’s just going to remain as unpleasant as it is now.

Also, sorry if this isn’t the right community to be posting this in. I’ll gladly move this where this needs to go if its the case.

Edit: riveting discussion example: @Cat_of_the_Round fuck philosophy. unless you reeeeelly care that much. your behind a kb for christ sake. Oh no. Someone had an opinion. I’m assuming you can in the very least ignore them. Othewise who the fuck cares?

yeah, I think I’m done here.

  • PlasticExistence@beehaw.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    1 year ago

    Are you a member of a group that is constantly marginalized in our society? If you are, then it shouldn’t surprise you that it gets incredibly exhausting just trying to live a normal life. If OP is also a member of such a group, then what they’re experiencing here is not only believable, but it is people like yourself - denying what they see is real - that make it worse by calling them names.

    Want to be nice? Then don’t make bullshit smooth brain comments like this. You were just fine until your second paragraph, at which point you became part of the problem.

    • Hyperi0n@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Thank you for your feedback, but I disagree. I feel you’re making a lot of assumptions. You’re assuming that OP is a part of a marginalized community which is quite possible but not confirmed, and you are also assuming that I am not a part of one myself, which I am.

      I have faced severe discrimination, emotional, and physical abuse simply for being the racial minority in school growing up, both by teachers and students based for the color of my skin. I’m also a member of the LGBTQIA+ community and an open bisexual in a regressive red state. I was literally just told I am unbiblical by my skills coach. I’m super worried about basic things like PDAs with my partner for fears we might be harassed in public. It shouldn’t surprise you that it gets incredibly exhausting just trying to live a normal life, you denying what I see is real - that makes it worse by calling me names.

      It is not my opinion that this person is a drama queen because of their sexual orientation, gender identity or political beliefs. I just believe they are very pessimistic and doom and gloom and I’m having a hard time confirming what they’ve said as real. I’m on Kbin a lot and have not ever seen anti-trans posts, or ones that weren’t met with absolute vitriol and down voted into oblivion to be shortly removed by the mods.

      In fact if you look at one of these comments, someone had a theory they weren’t actually on Kbin but on another site connected to Kbin? You should go look for that comment I can’t find it so please it with a grain of salt. Many other people are calling out OP for being severely negative and doom and gloom, and also saying that they’ve never seen this type of content before.

      And I think being a part of marginalized community or not would have no effect on whether it is seen. Bigots and hateful people want to spread their hate to every knook of the internet they find. And me and many other people (including LGBTQ and few trans folks in the comments) haven’t seen this stuff. Although there is apparently a Lemmygrad instance, so that pro-Russia which sucks. I am not denying it existed but I find it weird that they are seeing all of this bad, hateful stuff when me and other marginalized folk haven’t.

      Yes it was rude to call them a drama queen, but I’m not going to apologize for it anymore than I have. It is my opinion that they are. Just like it is yours that I am making bullshit smooth brain comments. I think we should just disagree and go our separate ways.

      • PlasticExistence@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        So because you haven’t personally experienced something they’re reporting, then it’s not real? That’s not intelligent at all, especially given what else you just said.

        Don’t pretend you’re trying to be nice while insulting people. That’s some pure reddit-style bullshit. We’ll go our separate ways, just know that I will call this sort of hostile garbage out each and every time. This is supposed to be a nicer place to be, but comments like yours aren’t making it one.