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Let's not sugar-coat things, r/HermanCainAward is a subreddit designed around schadenfreude and a sense of comeuppance. I am entirely serious when I say that I

Let's not sugar-coat things, r/HermanCainAward is a subreddit designed around schadenfreude and a sense of comeuppance. I am entirely serious when I say that I believe it is designed to make users internalize the idea that those people deserved to die.

ianleeclark 5y ago
> I am entirely serious when I say that I believe it is designed This is entirely conspiratorial. Subscribers are subscribed to this not through some advertising campaign, but because they already believed those people deserved to die.
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  I don't sense what is so conspiratorial about it. Just spend some time observing the kind of material that gets posted there and the tone of the comments. It creates an atmosphere that reinforces the idea that these people "had it coming" so to speak. There is no shortage of mockery and contempt. I think if you spend enough time there, you really do start to internalize these feelings. Why wouldn't someone? >"Subscribers are subscribed to this not through some advertising campaign" Perhaps the subreddit grew entirely organically, but it does show up on r/Popular and r/All. It is entirely reasonable to think that a significant number of redditors saw it, wound up subscribing, and after being there for a while they have learned to dehumanize the people that get showcased there. Whereas before they were probably anti-anti-vaxxer but probably not giddy about seeing them suffer because of it.
  - ianleeclark 5y ago
    > I don't sense what is so conspiratorial about it. You're attempting to insert agency to account for natural repercussions of how we live our lives and the nearly 750k deaths we've already seen. That's what is conspiratorial. > It creates an atmosphere that reinforces the idea that these people "had it coming" so to speak. People are just posting what they believe. They believe that death after spamming facebook about the so-called danger is come-uppance. > after being there for a while they have learned to dehumanize the people that get showcased there I'm sorry, but I face an almost impenetrably large barrier to the belief that your average American (judging based on Reddit demographics and content of the sub) has to go through a process of dehumanization. Most people get up, try to avoid eye contact with the massive homeless population, ignore news about our empire droning children, grab some lunch, try not to think about us having the largest prison population in the world, and then call it a day. The single defining political moment of my, and many other Americans lives, has been 9/11. The bloodthirst in the aftermath is that only political consensus I've ever seen. How does one reconcile higher covid mortality rates than 9/11 with calls to reopen Fuddruckers regardless of the outcomes? It appears this subreddit is one of many answers.
ryandrake 5y ago
I think an important difference is that the subreddit doesn't post any random person who dies of COVID. They limit posts specifically to people who also used the last 6-12 months of their lives to obnoxiously post to their social media anti-mask and anti-vax messages, COVID denial, conspiracies, persecution victimhood, complaints about tyranny, etc. and then ironically died of the disease they were mocking. Big difference. Just like Darwin awards don't just mock the dead in general, they mock people dying doing crazy dangerous things that they should know will kill them.

ianleeclark 5y ago

> I am entirely serious when I say that I believe it is designed This is entirely conspiratorial. Subscribers are subscribed to this not through some advertising campaign, but because they already believed those people deserved to die.

BitwiseFool 5y ago
I don't sense what is so conspiratorial about it. Just spend some time observing the kind of material that gets posted there and the tone of the comments. It creates an atmosphere that reinforces the idea that these people "had it coming" so to speak. There is no shortage of mockery and contempt. I think if you spend enough time there, you really do start to internalize these feelings. Why wouldn't someone? >"Subscribers are subscribed to this not through some advertising campaign" Perhaps the subreddit grew entirely organically, but it does show up on r/Popular and r/All. It is entirely reasonable to think that a significant number of redditors saw it, wound up subscribing, and after being there for a while they have learned to dehumanize the people that get showcased there. Whereas before they were probably anti-anti-vaxxer but probably not giddy about seeing them suffer because of it.
- ianleeclark 5y ago
  > I don't sense what is so conspiratorial about it. You're attempting to insert agency to account for natural repercussions of how we live our lives and the nearly 750k deaths we've already seen. That's what is conspiratorial. > It creates an atmosphere that reinforces the idea that these people "had it coming" so to speak. People are just posting what they believe. They believe that death after spamming facebook about the so-called danger is come-uppance. > after being there for a while they have learned to dehumanize the people that get showcased there I'm sorry, but I face an almost impenetrably large barrier to the belief that your average American (judging based on Reddit demographics and content of the sub) has to go through a process of dehumanization. Most people get up, try to avoid eye contact with the massive homeless population, ignore news about our empire droning children, grab some lunch, try not to think about us having the largest prison population in the world, and then call it a day. The single defining political moment of my, and many other Americans lives, has been 9/11. The bloodthirst in the aftermath is that only political consensus I've ever seen. How does one reconcile higher covid mortality rates than 9/11 with calls to reopen Fuddruckers regardless of the outcomes? It appears this subreddit is one of many answers.

ryandrake 5y ago

I think an important difference is that the subreddit doesn't post any random person who dies of COVID. They limit posts specifically to people who also used the last 6-12 months of their lives to obnoxiously post to their social media anti-mask and anti-vax messages, COVID denial, conspiracies, persecution victimhood, complaints about tyranny, etc. and then ironically died of the disease they were mocking. Big difference. Just like Darwin awards don't just mock the dead in general, they mock people dying doing crazy dangerous things that they should know will kill them.