8 ms·

How ‘Am I the Asshole?’ became the internet’s most profound query

53 points by starpilot 7y ago

namaemuta 7y ago
> Nunberg can see how scrolling through AITA might be a “stupendous timewaster,” but he believes the sub has the potential to do some good in the world I hardly believe so. Reddit is an echo chamber by itself and people's judgment there is way far from perfect. In this subreddit you can see a similar effect than the "fake news" one: present an emotional scenario in which you look like the victim, no matter what you do, and the majority will get on your side. That's why you need to hear all the parties involved in a conflict resolution, otherwise you can be easily manipulated.
- macspoofing 7y ago
  >no matter what you do, and the majority will get on your side. I think you're overstating it with regards to the specific subreddit, but I take your point in the general case. Most (if not all) recent internet outrage mobs are driven by only taking one side of the equation and sometimes taking the word of the singular individual as gospel, even though the vast majority of cases are more nuanced.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- sowbug 7y ago
  present an emotional scenario in which you look like the victim, no matter what you do, and the majority will get on your side That is in some ways the point of the subreddit. Many people are acting rationally, if not reasonably, from the facts and mental state available to them. And whoever was making them feel like a jerk and driving them to the site to get a second opinion either couldn't or didn't accept that second set of facts and mental state. But sometimes even if you tell the story from your own perspective, you're still an asshole. Witness the large number of YTA resolutions: those were people who told their own side of the story and still had the angry mob come after them. The subreddit can't resolve all disputes, but it can identify those cases.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - austincheney 7y ago
    > That is in some ways the point of the subreddit. Many people are acting rationally, if not reasonably I think you are mistaking commonality for rationality. That by no means sounds rational. It is this sort acceptance and worship of echo chamber nonsense that I deleted my Reddit account. If I enjoyed being called names or slapped in the face by ignorant fools I would go work in a child day care or with developers too scared to death to read code in their primary language.
    - azhu 7y ago
      He's saying that at times the point is to demonstrate to an opponent that your side of an emotional narrative makes sense to broad numbers of others. Just about everyone is rational according to their own systems of reasoning, and it's the reconciliation of those oftentimes implicit systems that the subreddit is about.
- prepend 7y ago
  Many years ago I was a fan of /r/personalfinance. To learn a bit but I also missed out on finance advice as a kid and wished that I had some good input, so figured I might be able to help. But the sub spiraled into emotional stories about why people were so bad off and looking for comfort. Not that that is a bad thing, but a very different content than people looking for finance advice. Since the stories were one sided, it became hard to get useful insight out of it other than just be thankful to be fortunate. I get the sense that some people are sympathy trolling for fake internet points, but it’s not really possible to tell one way or the other. So I just don’t read the sub any longer.
- onion2k 7y ago
  I don't think the point of AITA is conflict resolution. On most of the internet people aren't really looking for the answer to a problem. They're reaching out for emotional support, human connection, and a little encouragement that they're not doing everything wrong. Part of the problem with the way many 'technically-minded' people act online is that they don't realise other people are perfectly capable of Googling the answer to a problem but they don't actually want the answer; they want something else.
- lasagnaphil 7y ago
  At least with Reddit, you get to choose your own echo-chamber by subscribing to subreddits. For some other sites such as Facebook and Twitter, you aren't even sure what echo-chamber the all-mighty "algorithm" is guiding you. I think the best way to enjoy Reddit is to first unsubscribe to all the default ones (I did this with the exception of /r/Art), and then pick really niche subreddits that you want to be a part of, not the general big ones that usually has the shortcomings that you've mentioned.
austincheney 7y ago
Oh how I tire of profoundly sensitive people. There is something supremely adult about receiving negative (qualified) criticism well. As a senior developer this is perhaps most evident when trying to mentor a developer who cannot read code (or refuses to do so) and any suggestion along the lines of RTFC (read the fucking code) must immediately equal asshole. This is the bane of my career. This is what causes me to look for new employment and cry into my pillow at night.
- Zhenya 7y ago
  >>Oh how I tire of profoundly sensitive people >>cry into my pillow at night People management is a job as much as writing code; arguable harder since there is usually no right answer.
  - austincheney 7y ago
    I am aware. I am in management, possibly longer than you have held your career.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - sgentle 7y ago
      From observing this interaction, it seems to me that your quickness to assert superiority is a likely explanation for your criticism being taken badly. Constructive criticism makes the other person better. Do you want them to be better? Or do you want to be better than them?
      - austincheney 7y ago
        I do not assert superiority and I also don't make baseless assumptions about strangers on the internet. > Constructive criticism makes the other person better. I agree.
        7y ago
meddlepal 7y ago
One of the (many) problems with AITA is that given Reddits demographics you get an enormous amount of responses from teenagers to late 20s and they have a much shorter perspective to judge. Further, at least with teenagers they are not exactly known for emotional maturity. The definition of an asshole isn't universal, if it was, nobody would need to ask the question. But biasing your answers from a largely 16 to 30 male population is going to guarantee a certain type of response in many cases.
- StavrosK 7y ago
  This is especially obvious in "relationship advice" subreddits, where the answer to anything is "dump him/her".
  - hombre_fatal 7y ago
    I knew I'd become too old for Reddit when I saw a r/relationship_advice thread where the top comment was grossed out that a 30yo man was dating OP, a 24yo woman. That with an age gap like that, of course the guy was a bad egg. And everyone chimed in with how creepy it was.
    - delinka 7y ago
      yeah ... that's well within the 24yo's consent, and well within the anti-creepiness formula.
      - stringyham 7y ago
        Has the creepiness formula been somewhat accepted officially? I often see people using it to define the creepiness of a relationship, something I find very weird.
        StavrosK 7y ago
        I can't answer your question, but if consenting adults are dating, how about we stay out of their business? How is it different to say "oh my God he's 40 and she's 22" than to say "oh my God, they're the same sex"? If they can consent and did, it's nobody else's business.
dandersh 7y ago
In my admittedly limited perusing of the sub I've found that often the exact opposite result occurs: the OP is called out for their behavior and then actively defends themselves in the comments or is completely oblivious to why they're seen that way.
delinka 7y ago
> He says the criticism he received was harsh, congruous with some of the other feedback he’s seen on the site where people are eager to pass judgment and diagnose others, armed with only 3,000 characters of information. Is this about someone learning the harshness of internet judgement for the first time? If you've been on the 'tubes for any amount of time, you understand that forum mobs are fickle and you probably don't want to invite attention to your psyche (even through an anonymous throwaway) without presenting all the facts and angles. And then you get to the demographic nature of the particular forum (as sibling comments point out, those with little life experience.)
- s1artibartfast 7y ago
  I think what I found fascinating and disturbing is how frequently posters will completely disregard the facts presented and construct an imaginary narrative for events. Depending on the group identification of the poster, this counterfactual narrative is either extremely exculpatory or damming. The whole experience gives me a lot more sympathy for those who are judged a jury of their "peers"
ecmascript 7y ago
Although the number of 'white knights' on that subreddit is very high which leads to very skewed opinions on who is the asshole for relationship advice. Pretty much the same as /r/relationshipadvice. I would advice everyone not to listen to __strangers__ opinions on the __internet__ on behavioral subjects based on a short description.
andybak 7y ago
Reddit often gets criticised for it's toxicity but I wonder if it's worthy of note for the number of places that it avoids toxicity. It's a huge petri dish of different communities with different moderation rules and community norms. If a subreddit is failing you then start another one.
- ddingus 7y ago
  This is why I love Reddit. People like to fixate on the toxic, and that's often because, drams. Every so often, a bunch of them get together and start some non-toxic. And that's great. More please.
  - azhu 7y ago
    Totally agreed. As I look back at my reddit usage over the years is that reddit provides a structured view into shifting social sentiment. Any sufficiently massive, long-lived, and topically comprehensive discussion community will give you the same thing, but I have yet to find one that gives as much of an overall view into what everyone else is thinking than does reddit, mostly for the simple fact that you are shown all the content by default. I know that it inadvertently helped me learn a lot about what factors can make people feel the way they do and behave the way they do. As I follow juicy comment threads and such, I also see this happening for others. That is indeed cool as fuck.
    - ddingus 7y ago
      Yes it is. Well said.
IceDane 7y ago
Most profound? Is this for real? You don't need to spend very long on that subreddit to see that it's just as susceptible to the typical narrow-minded, black and white Reddit justice as every other subreddit. When it's not crystal clear whether the OP is asshole, there is little room for any kind of nuance and people pile on. It's very similar to relationship_advice. Full of people who should be well aware that they don't have the whole story and that life can be complicated, but don't really care, since it's not their life, so it's easy to tell people they're an asshole or that they should break up with their partner of 5+ years or some such.
thrownaway954 7y ago
AITA subreddit is full of fake posts that people use to generate fake internet points. Seriously just go there and take a go look at some of the top so called stories right now: AITA for getting a friend kicked out of school? WIBTA for telling my boyfriend he probably can’t achieve his dream? AITA for peeing in places that are not the toilet? WIBTA if I record the audio of my neighbours having sex and play it back to them? Really... do you people need any more proof. Those that think ANY of these stories are real, are the same people who think Ancient Aliens is a documentary.
- trophycase 7y ago
  Another common one is posting a story where they clearly aren't the asshole to get positive reinforcement from the comments and votes.
  - thrownaway954 7y ago
    Exactly... it's all done so that the accounts get enough karma so that those account can be used to "vote up" actual content they want to get to the frontpage of reddit itself or to other subreddits. Go follow the accounts that post there and you'll see what I mean. Reddit at face value is a fun place to find things, but like any place, you have people that game the system for nefarious reasons.
- __s 7y ago
  I've peeed in places that are not the toilet before. Guess Ancient Aliens is a documentary The boyfriend one also seems a common case of someone who wants their boyfriend to be realistic
kpU8efre7r 7y ago
AITA? If you need validation from strangers by posting your problems online then yes!
ww520 7y ago
It's interesting for a while but got boring and repetitive real quick. The stories are similar. The comments are predictable.
- whoopdedo 7y ago
  Reddit in a nutshell. All subs with more than 100 subscribers are either (1) karma farms (2) egoposting no different than r/gonewild without the (explicit) nudity or (3) sports.
zck 7y ago
Weirdly, the reddit Android app sent me a push notification this morning suggesting I subscribe to r/AmItheAsshole. I've never seen a push notification from the reddit app before.
twhb 7y ago
It’s a respectable goal but a broken implementation. Only one side of the story is presented, without opposition, without fact-finding or evidence. A court that worked like that would be obviously broken. The consequences here are only validation, but the decisions are equally broken: virtually always, the poster is declared "not the asshole". And even if the story is presented even-handedly and thoroughly, Reddit's algorithm guts responses. It filters out thoughtful comments, nuanced stances, and minorities like experts and older people, it promotes split-second judgements, and over time it drives away people who resist those biases. Besides normalizing feedback, presenting only a single opinion instead of revealing that different types have different takes, the mentality it normalizes on is pretty immature. For example, tit-for-tat behavior is reliably supported (I've seen them OK destroying a man's life because he repeatedly spoke to the poster disrespectfully), and marriage is treasured only about as much as a second date ("other fish in the sea" comes out the moment somebody raises their voice).
ncmncm 7y ago
I had only one question coming in here: what was the verdict on the thermostat? Anybody? The only hint was "institutional misogyny", but that is not conclusive. If they overcame that bias, it ought to mean something. If not, I will have to look elsewhere for enlightenment.

53 points by starpilot 7y ago

> Nunberg can see how scrolling through AITA might be a “stupendous timewaster,” but he believes the sub has the potential to do some good in the world I hardly believe so. Reddit is an echo chamber by itself and people's judgment there is way far from perfect. In this subreddit you can see a similar effect than the "fake news" one: present an emotional scenario in which you look like the victim, no matter what you do, and the majority will get on your side. That's why you need to hear all the parties involved in a conflict resolution, otherwise you can be easily manipulated.

macspoofing 7y ago
>no matter what you do, and the majority will get on your side. I think you're overstating it with regards to the specific subreddit, but I take your point in the general case. Most (if not all) recent internet outrage mobs are driven by only taking one side of the equation and sometimes taking the word of the singular individual as gospel, even though the vast majority of cases are more nuanced.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
sowbug 7y ago
present an emotional scenario in which you look like the victim, no matter what you do, and the majority will get on your side That is in some ways the point of the subreddit. Many people are acting rationally, if not reasonably, from the facts and mental state available to them. And whoever was making them feel like a jerk and driving them to the site to get a second opinion either couldn't or didn't accept that second set of facts and mental state. But sometimes even if you tell the story from your own perspective, you're still an asshole. Witness the large number of YTA resolutions: those were people who told their own side of the story and still had the angry mob come after them. The subreddit can't resolve all disputes, but it can identify those cases.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- austincheney 7y ago
  > That is in some ways the point of the subreddit. Many people are acting rationally, if not reasonably I think you are mistaking commonality for rationality. That by no means sounds rational. It is this sort acceptance and worship of echo chamber nonsense that I deleted my Reddit account. If I enjoyed being called names or slapped in the face by ignorant fools I would go work in a child day care or with developers too scared to death to read code in their primary language.
  - azhu 7y ago
    He's saying that at times the point is to demonstrate to an opponent that your side of an emotional narrative makes sense to broad numbers of others. Just about everyone is rational according to their own systems of reasoning, and it's the reconciliation of those oftentimes implicit systems that the subreddit is about.
prepend 7y ago
Many years ago I was a fan of /r/personalfinance. To learn a bit but I also missed out on finance advice as a kid and wished that I had some good input, so figured I might be able to help. But the sub spiraled into emotional stories about why people were so bad off and looking for comfort. Not that that is a bad thing, but a very different content than people looking for finance advice. Since the stories were one sided, it became hard to get useful insight out of it other than just be thankful to be fortunate. I get the sense that some people are sympathy trolling for fake internet points, but it’s not really possible to tell one way or the other. So I just don’t read the sub any longer.
onion2k 7y ago
I don't think the point of AITA is conflict resolution. On most of the internet people aren't really looking for the answer to a problem. They're reaching out for emotional support, human connection, and a little encouragement that they're not doing everything wrong. Part of the problem with the way many 'technically-minded' people act online is that they don't realise other people are perfectly capable of Googling the answer to a problem but they don't actually want the answer; they want something else.
lasagnaphil 7y ago
At least with Reddit, you get to choose your own echo-chamber by subscribing to subreddits. For some other sites such as Facebook and Twitter, you aren't even sure what echo-chamber the all-mighty "algorithm" is guiding you. I think the best way to enjoy Reddit is to first unsubscribe to all the default ones (I did this with the exception of /r/Art), and then pick really niche subreddits that you want to be a part of, not the general big ones that usually has the shortcomings that you've mentioned.

austincheney 7y ago

Oh how I tire of profoundly sensitive people. There is something supremely adult about receiving negative (qualified) criticism well. As a senior developer this is perhaps most evident when trying to mentor a developer who cannot read code (or refuses to do so) and any suggestion along the lines of RTFC (read the fucking code) must immediately equal asshole. This is the bane of my career. This is what causes me to look for new employment and cry into my pillow at night.

Zhenya 7y ago
>>Oh how I tire of profoundly sensitive people >>cry into my pillow at night People management is a job as much as writing code; arguable harder since there is usually no right answer.
- austincheney 7y ago
  I am aware. I am in management, possibly longer than you have held your career.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - sgentle 7y ago
    From observing this interaction, it seems to me that your quickness to assert superiority is a likely explanation for your criticism being taken badly. Constructive criticism makes the other person better. Do you want them to be better? Or do you want to be better than them?
    - austincheney 7y ago
      I do not assert superiority and I also don't make baseless assumptions about strangers on the internet. > Constructive criticism makes the other person better. I agree.
      - 7y ago

meddlepal 7y ago

One of the (many) problems with AITA is that given Reddits demographics you get an enormous amount of responses from teenagers to late 20s and they have a much shorter perspective to judge. Further, at least with teenagers they are not exactly known for emotional maturity. The definition of an asshole isn't universal, if it was, nobody would need to ask the question. But biasing your answers from a largely 16 to 30 male population is going to guarantee a certain type of response in many cases.

StavrosK 7y ago
This is especially obvious in "relationship advice" subreddits, where the answer to anything is "dump him/her".
- hombre_fatal 7y ago
  I knew I'd become too old for Reddit when I saw a r/relationship_advice thread where the top comment was grossed out that a 30yo man was dating OP, a 24yo woman. That with an age gap like that, of course the guy was a bad egg. And everyone chimed in with how creepy it was.
  - delinka 7y ago
    yeah ... that's well within the 24yo's consent, and well within the anti-creepiness formula.
    - stringyham 7y ago
      Has the creepiness formula been somewhat accepted officially? I often see people using it to define the creepiness of a relationship, something I find very weird.
      - StavrosK 7y ago
        I can't answer your question, but if consenting adults are dating, how about we stay out of their business? How is it different to say "oh my God he's 40 and she's 22" than to say "oh my God, they're the same sex"? If they can consent and did, it's nobody else's business.

dandersh 7y ago

In my admittedly limited perusing of the sub I've found that often the exact opposite result occurs: the OP is called out for their behavior and then actively defends themselves in the comments or is completely oblivious to why they're seen that way.

delinka 7y ago

> He says the criticism he received was harsh, congruous with some of the other feedback he’s seen on the site where people are eager to pass judgment and diagnose others, armed with only 3,000 characters of information. Is this about someone learning the harshness of internet judgement for the first time? If you've been on the 'tubes for any amount of time, you understand that forum mobs are fickle and you probably don't want to invite attention to your psyche (even through an anonymous throwaway) without presenting all the facts and angles. And then you get to the demographic nature of the particular forum (as sibling comments point out, those with little life experience.)

s1artibartfast 7y ago
I think what I found fascinating and disturbing is how frequently posters will completely disregard the facts presented and construct an imaginary narrative for events. Depending on the group identification of the poster, this counterfactual narrative is either extremely exculpatory or damming. The whole experience gives me a lot more sympathy for those who are judged a jury of their "peers"

ecmascript 7y ago

Although the number of 'white knights' on that subreddit is very high which leads to very skewed opinions on who is the asshole for relationship advice. Pretty much the same as /r/relationshipadvice. I would advice everyone not to listen to __strangers__ opinions on the __internet__ on behavioral subjects based on a short description.

andybak 7y ago

Reddit often gets criticised for it's toxicity but I wonder if it's worthy of note for the number of places that it avoids toxicity. It's a huge petri dish of different communities with different moderation rules and community norms. If a subreddit is failing you then start another one.

ddingus 7y ago
This is why I love Reddit. People like to fixate on the toxic, and that's often because, drams. Every so often, a bunch of them get together and start some non-toxic. And that's great. More please.
- azhu 7y ago
  Totally agreed. As I look back at my reddit usage over the years is that reddit provides a structured view into shifting social sentiment. Any sufficiently massive, long-lived, and topically comprehensive discussion community will give you the same thing, but I have yet to find one that gives as much of an overall view into what everyone else is thinking than does reddit, mostly for the simple fact that you are shown all the content by default. I know that it inadvertently helped me learn a lot about what factors can make people feel the way they do and behave the way they do. As I follow juicy comment threads and such, I also see this happening for others. That is indeed cool as fuck.
  - ddingus 7y ago
    Yes it is. Well said.

IceDane 7y ago

Most profound? Is this for real? You don't need to spend very long on that subreddit to see that it's just as susceptible to the typical narrow-minded, black and white Reddit justice as every other subreddit. When it's not crystal clear whether the OP is asshole, there is little room for any kind of nuance and people pile on. It's very similar to relationship_advice. Full of people who should be well aware that they don't have the whole story and that life can be complicated, but don't really care, since it's not their life, so it's easy to tell people they're an asshole or that they should break up with their partner of 5+ years or some such.

thrownaway954 7y ago

AITA subreddit is full of fake posts that people use to generate fake internet points. Seriously just go there and take a go look at some of the top so called stories right now: AITA for getting a friend kicked out of school? WIBTA for telling my boyfriend he probably can’t achieve his dream? AITA for peeing in places that are not the toilet? WIBTA if I record the audio of my neighbours having sex and play it back to them? Really... do you people need any more proof. Those that think ANY of these stories are real, are the same people who think Ancient Aliens is a documentary.

trophycase 7y ago
Another common one is posting a story where they clearly aren't the asshole to get positive reinforcement from the comments and votes.
- thrownaway954 7y ago
  Exactly... it's all done so that the accounts get enough karma so that those account can be used to "vote up" actual content they want to get to the frontpage of reddit itself or to other subreddits. Go follow the accounts that post there and you'll see what I mean. Reddit at face value is a fun place to find things, but like any place, you have people that game the system for nefarious reasons.
__s 7y ago
I've peeed in places that are not the toilet before. Guess Ancient Aliens is a documentary The boyfriend one also seems a common case of someone who wants their boyfriend to be realistic

kpU8efre7r 7y ago

AITA? If you need validation from strangers by posting your problems online then yes!

ww520 7y ago

It's interesting for a while but got boring and repetitive real quick. The stories are similar. The comments are predictable.

whoopdedo 7y ago
Reddit in a nutshell. All subs with more than 100 subscribers are either (1) karma farms (2) egoposting no different than r/gonewild without the (explicit) nudity or (3) sports.

zck 7y ago

Weirdly, the reddit Android app sent me a push notification this morning suggesting I subscribe to r/AmItheAsshole. I've never seen a push notification from the reddit app before.

twhb 7y ago

It’s a respectable goal but a broken implementation. Only one side of the story is presented, without opposition, without fact-finding or evidence. A court that worked like that would be obviously broken. The consequences here are only validation, but the decisions are equally broken: virtually always, the poster is declared "not the asshole". And even if the story is presented even-handedly and thoroughly, Reddit's algorithm guts responses. It filters out thoughtful comments, nuanced stances, and minorities like experts and older people, it promotes split-second judgements, and over time it drives away people who resist those biases. Besides normalizing feedback, presenting only a single opinion instead of revealing that different types have different takes, the mentality it normalizes on is pretty immature. For example, tit-for-tat behavior is reliably supported (I've seen them OK destroying a man's life because he repeatedly spoke to the poster disrespectfully), and marriage is treasured only about as much as a second date ("other fish in the sea" comes out the moment somebody raises their voice).

ncmncm 7y ago

I had only one question coming in here: what was the verdict on the thermostat? Anybody? The only hint was "institutional misogyny", but that is not conclusive. If they overcame that bias, it ought to mean something. If not, I will have to look elsewhere for enlightenment.