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And checking to see if your comment stays near the top, how many up votes, reading the replies to see if you're a smart person or not.

philangist 5y ago
I'm not the only person who never feels like they're one of the "smart people" in these threads, right? After close to a decade on this forum I've just learned not to fight that feeling and instead to find the humor in it.
bee_rider 5y ago
This is what made me delete my Reddit account. I realized I was putting an inappropriate amount of effort into impressing people I'd never meet. Not sure if that treadmill is just built into my personality or if it was specifically caused by the site. I don't feel it here as much, although it could just be that the account there was older, so it felt like it'd developed more of an 'identity' (silly as that is).
- tomjen3 5y ago
  I have a couple Reddit accounts and that is a game you can get caught up in. The trick is that you can always score more points by making a stupid in-group comment on /r/politics or /r/funny than you can being smart. Once you know this the number matters a lot less (at least to me).
  - bee_rider 5y ago
    My best comment was a dumb in-joke for quite a while. But eventually I beat it with a comment was reassuring people who didn't excel as much as they'd expected during the pandemic. I actually feel pretty good about the comment itself, there were some people who followed up that really did seem to be relieved by the sentiment. But it still is, essentially, this bizarre fleeting interaction where we just see one comment from each other, and no real attachment is made. Then then afterwards, it is like, "am I playing some weird gamified thing where expressing actual human empathy is how you get a high score" which didn't feel good really.
xyzzy21 5y ago
Hmm. I've never cared about that. For whatever reason. I generally don't care what other people think - especially after I read Feynman's book of the same name decades ago.
- marbletimes 5y ago
  Feynman certainly cared a great deal about what others thought of him, and he has been known to embellish many stories to appear as the common genius in the situation. In short, he was a genius, but he also wanted it to be known very well by others.

philangist 5y ago

I'm not the only person who never feels like they're one of the "smart people" in these threads, right? After close to a decade on this forum I've just learned not to fight that feeling and instead to find the humor in it.

bee_rider 5y ago

This is what made me delete my Reddit account. I realized I was putting an inappropriate amount of effort into impressing people I'd never meet. Not sure if that treadmill is just built into my personality or if it was specifically caused by the site. I don't feel it here as much, although it could just be that the account there was older, so it felt like it'd developed more of an 'identity' (silly as that is).

tomjen3 5y ago
I have a couple Reddit accounts and that is a game you can get caught up in. The trick is that you can always score more points by making a stupid in-group comment on /r/politics or /r/funny than you can being smart. Once you know this the number matters a lot less (at least to me).
- bee_rider 5y ago
  My best comment was a dumb in-joke for quite a while. But eventually I beat it with a comment was reassuring people who didn't excel as much as they'd expected during the pandemic. I actually feel pretty good about the comment itself, there were some people who followed up that really did seem to be relieved by the sentiment. But it still is, essentially, this bizarre fleeting interaction where we just see one comment from each other, and no real attachment is made. Then then afterwards, it is like, "am I playing some weird gamified thing where expressing actual human empathy is how you get a high score" which didn't feel good really.

xyzzy21 5y ago

Hmm. I've never cared about that. For whatever reason. I generally don't care what other people think - especially after I read Feynman's book of the same name decades ago.

marbletimes 5y ago
Feynman certainly cared a great deal about what others thought of him, and he has been known to embellish many stories to appear as the common genius in the situation. In short, he was a genius, but he also wanted it to be known very well by others.