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Teenagers are complicated creatures. Admittedly, this stuff seems impossibly extreme? Maybe I am indeed rather naive. I must have frequented much more harmless
by throwaway77384 6y ago
Teenagers are complicated creatures. Admittedly, this stuff seems impossibly extreme? Maybe I am indeed rather naive. I must have frequented much more harmless online communities. I never understood the appeal of SA or 4Chan.
At the same time I can see how, as teenagers, people can get sucked into these communities, where edginess lures one in with some kind of false promise of 'freedom' from the rules of a society that appears to have rejected oneself. Even if that rejection may be self-imposed.
At some point it's just a competition for who can say the most horrific things. I don't know how one would counteract this.
The funny thing is, I also cringe at what I wrote online as a teenager, but I never took it to these extremes.
However, recognising it (and 'hating' oneself for it) is a first step in fixing the problem, hopefully.
- dencodev 6y agoI can't absolve the entirety of my behavior by the online communities I was a part of, but they definitely worsened and encouraged it. I wish I had better role models as a teen and maybe I wouldn't have acted that way. Unfortunately my parents weren't very involved in my life and I spent every moment I could on the internet to escape other problems in my life. I think I had a lot of anger and frustration and places like 4chan were an outlet for that. Clearly growing up with 4chan being your main cultural influence is not going to lead to a well adjusted young adult.