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Me too, it was personal, whimsical, and serendipitous. It was also a lot of work, and visions of “success” were different. On the work side, creators had to

Me too, it was personal, whimsical, and serendipitous. It was also a lot of work, and visions of “success” were different. On the work side, creators had to work to produce the content, but consumers had to work harder to find it. I had a physical “yellow pages of the internet” book in the mid 90s. You’d look up the subject then go to a site and surf around till you found what you were looking for (or not.) The expectations were also different, especially for creators. If you put content up and got 100 page hits that was really cool. 10,000 was amazing. Reaching an audience that big would have required pre-internet would have required formally publishing something, which wasn’t easy. The sheer novelty of being a “normal” person and connecting with / influencing 100 or 10,000 strangers was a huge selling point. I think the massive scale and reach of the biggest properties/stars has devalued the type of content creation the author talks about in the eyes of the creators. It’s just harder to get excited about 100 or even 1000 page views when you know people are getting millions or billions, and when your low quality Facebook post can get 100s of likes. I really miss the old internet, but I also know I don’t have the time or capacity to consistently go back to the old “surfing” metaphor- search is too good and convenient, and I don’t think others are going to be willing to pour their time and souls into passion projects like they used to. Perhaps it’ll be a new frontier (VR?) that captures that sense of newness and whimsy next.

jimmygrapes 5y ago
I have noticed the same sense that hundreds or thousands of views or likes or whatever is unfairly compared to those others with the tens of thousands and millions, with one critical exception: forum karma. It seems like when people communicate to each other through text, even a few down votes are often cause for extraordinary negative reaction on the part of the creator. So much so that it's a rule to not complain about it, here. Assuming I'm not alone in witnessing this, I wonder two things: 1) what makes a forum environment different? and, 2) do people who react poorly to negative karma (or meager positive karma) ALSO expect high engagement IF they create on other platforms? For example, I present a hypothetical person on reddit with accumulated "high" karma (say, high 8000s). This person also has 10k followers on TikTok, 3 YouTube videos with 6 digit views, and several viral tweets. They get -5 karma on a random reddit post and freak out. What makes the raw number differ between platforms? Is it raw number or a ratio of potential to actual? (yes I know this is the epitome of a strawman, but I'm basing it off of a cohort of roughly similar real people)
- CIADidHarryHolt 5y ago
  I doubt the number matters so much that it is negative. If you put in a few minutes to write a reasoned, thoughtful and informative reply and the groupmind instantly -50's it for no discernible reason, that's a really good signal that investing time in that community is a poor decision. Reddit used to have informal rules against downvoting those you disagree with because it lowers the caliber of participants on their forum. I guess they don't enforce it any more.
- dannyw 5y ago
  I think you're describing loss aversion. To me getting a -5 downvoted post roughly feels like the inverse of making a 50 upvoted post. I don't care about either, but yes minus has a bigger emotional impact than positive.
- bserge 5y ago
  I used to be affected by downvotes a lot. I understand them on aggressive shitposts, but on comments with facts or comments that I've put a lot of thought in? It just doesn't make sense! It's like having a group of people think up ideas for something and then you share yours and everyone tells you to shut the fuck up. That sort of feeling. I never downvote. Either upvote or leave it, it achieves the same thing imo. Fortunately I learned that any interaction on general social media is absolute garbage and not worth the emotional (and even intellectual/mental) investment. I'm here because I'm a dumb addict. I am/was on small technical forums because that's where my interest lies and I can share and learn specific knowledge. Sadly it's all moving to Reddit nowadays, where you're one misclick away from drowning in shit.
  - wglb 5y ago
    Downvoting to express disagreement is accepted practice here.

jimmygrapes 5y ago

I have noticed the same sense that hundreds or thousands of views or likes or whatever is unfairly compared to those others with the tens of thousands and millions, with one critical exception: forum karma. It seems like when people communicate to each other through text, even a few down votes are often cause for extraordinary negative reaction on the part of the creator. So much so that it's a rule to not complain about it, here. Assuming I'm not alone in witnessing this, I wonder two things: 1) what makes a forum environment different? and, 2) do people who react poorly to negative karma (or meager positive karma) ALSO expect high engagement IF they create on other platforms? For example, I present a hypothetical person on reddit with accumulated "high" karma (say, high 8000s). This person also has 10k followers on TikTok, 3 YouTube videos with 6 digit views, and several viral tweets. They get -5 karma on a random reddit post and freak out. What makes the raw number differ between platforms? Is it raw number or a ratio of potential to actual? (yes I know this is the epitome of a strawman, but I'm basing it off of a cohort of roughly similar real people)

CIADidHarryHolt 5y ago
I doubt the number matters so much that it is negative. If you put in a few minutes to write a reasoned, thoughtful and informative reply and the groupmind instantly -50's it for no discernible reason, that's a really good signal that investing time in that community is a poor decision. Reddit used to have informal rules against downvoting those you disagree with because it lowers the caliber of participants on their forum. I guess they don't enforce it any more.
dannyw 5y ago
I think you're describing loss aversion. To me getting a -5 downvoted post roughly feels like the inverse of making a 50 upvoted post. I don't care about either, but yes minus has a bigger emotional impact than positive.
bserge 5y ago
I used to be affected by downvotes a lot. I understand them on aggressive shitposts, but on comments with facts or comments that I've put a lot of thought in? It just doesn't make sense! It's like having a group of people think up ideas for something and then you share yours and everyone tells you to shut the fuck up. That sort of feeling. I never downvote. Either upvote or leave it, it achieves the same thing imo. Fortunately I learned that any interaction on general social media is absolute garbage and not worth the emotional (and even intellectual/mental) investment. I'm here because I'm a dumb addict. I am/was on small technical forums because that's where my interest lies and I can share and learn specific knowledge. Sadly it's all moving to Reddit nowadays, where you're one misclick away from drowning in shit.
- wglb 5y ago
  Downvoting to express disagreement is accepted practice here.