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I remember when The_Donald first came around in the very early days in the run up to the '16 election. I actually subscribed and thought it was hilarious, becau
by rland 7y ago
I remember when The_Donald first came around in the very early days in the run up to the '16 election. I actually subscribed and thought it was hilarious, because I think Donald Trump is pathetic (and I thought he was insignificant at that point).
I suspect that most subscribers were like me, at first. At some point, the tone of the sub reddit took a dramatic shift. It's hard to explain -- it became so serious and so vitriolic. It went from being a joke, to being "wait... we are joking, right?" to being "oh my god these people are serious," within the span of about 1 month.
I would say, for me, that's when the sort of surrealism of our current politics started.
I think this type of joking around is dangerous for that reason, and it really soured me on the concept of 4ch style "ironic" joking. You're flicking the lighter over and over again, and at some point you might find yourself near gasoline.
- mindcandy 7y ago"Any community that gets its laughs by pretending to be idiots will eventually be flooded by actual idiots who mistakenly believe that they're in good company." DarkShikari, Hacker News, 2009, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1011498 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1011498
- ethbro 7y agoWonder if that's the DarkShikari of Eve Online... Regardless, it's a good quip about the consequences of normalizing the devaluing of intellect.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- jacquesm 7y agoI wonder what happened to Jason, haven't seen him here or heard from him in ages.
- potatoyogurt 7y agoI wonder as well. I did a project with him when I was a teenager and we didn't entirely get along. He was a very talented guy, though, and I wasn't entirely fair to him. I hope he's doing all right.
- Mirioron 7y agoEven though I didn't know the context of the quote before clicking on the link I knew it had to be about 4chan. It's "fake it till you make it" but towards the negative side.
- libraryatnight 7y agoYou see this problem with the 'edge lord' thing, they supposedly don't mean the things they say or the usernames they choose, but it ends up enabling and empowering people who do actually mean those things. It was supposedly all for the lulz, but now it's the actual world we live in.
- LifeLiverTransp 7y agoThen there are the constant pushere for social controll, who claim to do it for for decency and human kindness, but when the situation boils down the ingredients, you find its mostly because controlling other peoples lives, resources and creations is what they really want. The radicalisation on 4chan, was produced by all those external echo chamber snuffing out that little speakers corner for weirdos. Reddit, Tumblr, all that comercial ilk, you serve so gladly, which aggregates people by doing the equivalent of a medieval mob ralley - created this nightmare. Say it with me: "Its very cost effective, to be a radical in a attention economy. I brought this on society to earn a livelihood, and now want to shift the blame towards those places where the polarization i created, becomes most visible, be it a tavern or a brothel. Im a monster and should be hunted down by the monsters i created if there was justice to this world." Of course if you would ever admit that, all those "nice, constructive people, wanting only the best for people" while blindly shoving there ideology forwards, no matter what the consequences, would become all edgy.
- KirinDave 7y ago> Then there are the constant pushere for social controll, who claim to do it for for decency and human kindness, but when the situation boils down the ingredients, you find its mostly because controlling other peoples lives, resources and creations is what they really want. Yeah, with their things like, "Women get bodily autonomy because it's part of the full spectrum of human rights" and "you can't just fire gay people or say they can't be married because you think it's gross" or "maybe inviting someone who openly says women can't contribute to science because they're better off breeding is a bad look for a science conference." Boy do they sound unreasonable and controlling. They just want your money, clearly. > The radicalisation on 4chan, was produced by all those external echo chamber snuffing out that little speakers corner for weirdos. Reddit, Tumblr, all that comercial ilk, you serve so gladly, which aggregates people by doing the equivalent of a medieval mob ralley - created this nightmare. "Mean liberals and corporations radicalized me," is not really that compelling an argument. If we looked at your youtube play history I suspect we'd find a plurality (if not an outright majority) of your time spent is watching lie-merchant radicalizers like Crowder or "skeptical" material. > Of course if you would ever admit that, all those "nice, constructive people, wanting only the best for people" while blindly shoving there ideology forwards, no matter what the consequences, would become all edgy. It's not "blindly", the attempt to de-normalize this behavior by shunning it is pretty tactical. It's the least violent way to proceed. It involves saying, "You're not welcome in my house, you're not welcome at my events, and I'm going to do my best within the bounds of the law to see to it you don't profit from my work." The fact that this is interpreted as folks losing their careers or having their lives ruined is pretty interesting to me. The shoe is on the other foot now, and suddenly people realize that maybe words and ideas can hurt. Suddenly "free speech" (which is a code for, "forbidding social consequences for bad or unfriendly behavior") is very important to folks, many of which not so long ago said that Occupy was unlawfully assembling on public spaces and weren't worth listening to.
- luckydata 7y agoWell, a coordinated effort by Russian disinformation agents might have had something to do with that sudden shift.
- assblaster 7y agoDo you actually believe that conspiracy theory? The Mueller report was pretty clear that the disinformation was on both political sides, and Reddit was not a part of any of the activity.
- 52-6F-62 7y agoAFAIU Muller didn’t even investigate that. His investigation was solely based around the campaign.
- cloakandswagger 7y agoNearly half of his 300 page report was on "Russian interference" in the Presidential race.
- sickcodebruh 7y agoThere’s nothing theoretical about the Russian disinformation conspiracy. The likelihood that they weren’t involved with what happened on Reddit seems extremely low. https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/18/mueller-report-ira-internet-research-agency/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/04/18/mueller-report-ira-interne...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- luckydata 7y agoyes Assblaster, I do believe so. The Mueller report was clear but not to you. You should try reading it again to understand what it says.
- jeltz 7y agoAgreed, I too used to enjoy this kind of humor but after seeing what /r/The_Donald turned into it is much harder for me to laugh.
- hadrien01 7y agoNot only was it funny, but it was also distracting from all the Bernie Sanders circlejerk that topped most of /r/all at the time and that finally went away when Clinton won the primary. Visiting Reddit in 2015 was awful.
- ddffre 7y agoIt's called democracy man, even when a lot of people disagree with Trump, there are others who agree with him.
- AJ007 7y agoYou could imagine Stephen Colbert (a long time ago on his other show), where everything was just written. Some part of the readers would understand what was going on and others just would not. It would be dependent on the reader’s own contexts and what they think is going on.
- itomato 7y agoGlenn Beck used to host Radio before he was on TV and one of his gimmicks was a thing he called "The Schlub Club". His show spanned the afternoon and evening hours, so on some days he would announce a preposterous thing and say to the listeners they should call in with comments in support of this thing and goad those who were not in on the joke to take a stand against this preposterous notion that nobody was ever really for. Those people who got out work and turned on the radio sure we're in for a surprise. Tampa Bay market ca. 2001. Check WFLA archives if you're curious about this "shtick".
- yrro 7y ago"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."