4 ms·

Nowadays, any simple comment can be interpreted on any extreme and everything in between. Anecdotally, in my experience, this shift is really visible for 3-4 y

Nowadays, any simple comment can be interpreted on any extreme and everything in between. Anecdotally, in my experience, this shift is really visible for 3-4 years now. I don't know what changed in these recent years or what caused that shift to become so drastic (again, in my experience). Internet gave a stage to these interpretation even though they were there previously in low volume. But even on the internet, this wasn't the case until 5-6 years ago, at least not to this level (or so I think).

tjs8rj 5y ago
My pet theory that fits the timeline pretty well is that when Tumblr died and they migrated to Twitter, what was incubated and contained on Tumblr dramatically changed the demographics of twitter and became more mainstream. Most of the last few years of change have been commonplace on tumblr up to that point, but we just kind of laughed and pointed out how ridiculous it was. Now it’s the mainstream
- Xplune13 5y ago
  It might be. Personally I never had a Tumblr account, never even visited their website. It was just a name I'd heard. Tumblr was so far out of my life that I didn't even notice that Tumblr died.
InitialLastName 5y ago
There's a feedback loop between: a) systems like Twitter giving people dopamine bumps and internet points for strong emotional responses to the most extreme interpretation of anything anyone says and b) peoples training their brains to have strong emotional responses to the most extreme interpretation of anything anyone says
- Xplune13 5y ago
  Yes, but I don't remember all this being so extreme even until 4-5 years ago on Twitter. From my experience, something changed around 2017 and now Twitter is a war zone.
  - vimy 5y ago
    The start of the Trump era. Trump made the left blind for the extremists on their side. Because criticizing them would mean siding with Trump. Not true of course but that’s what you get when people start to think in absolutes. “You’re either with us or part of the problem.“
    - inglor_cz 5y ago
      I think a lot of the public space toxicity that we now witness is an extreme reaction to Trump. An autoimmune disease of sorts, but in a social context instead of biological one.

tjs8rj 5y ago

My pet theory that fits the timeline pretty well is that when Tumblr died and they migrated to Twitter, what was incubated and contained on Tumblr dramatically changed the demographics of twitter and became more mainstream. Most of the last few years of change have been commonplace on tumblr up to that point, but we just kind of laughed and pointed out how ridiculous it was. Now it’s the mainstream

Xplune13 5y ago
It might be. Personally I never had a Tumblr account, never even visited their website. It was just a name I'd heard. Tumblr was so far out of my life that I didn't even notice that Tumblr died.

InitialLastName 5y ago

There's a feedback loop between: a) systems like Twitter giving people dopamine bumps and internet points for strong emotional responses to the most extreme interpretation of anything anyone says and b) peoples training their brains to have strong emotional responses to the most extreme interpretation of anything anyone says

Xplune13 5y ago
Yes, but I don't remember all this being so extreme even until 4-5 years ago on Twitter. From my experience, something changed around 2017 and now Twitter is a war zone.
- vimy 5y ago
  The start of the Trump era. Trump made the left blind for the extremists on their side. Because criticizing them would mean siding with Trump. Not true of course but that’s what you get when people start to think in absolutes. “You’re either with us or part of the problem.“
  - inglor_cz 5y ago
    I think a lot of the public space toxicity that we now witness is an extreme reaction to Trump. An autoimmune disease of sorts, but in a social context instead of biological one.