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One of the trickiest things about Reddit (and social media in general) for me is the homogenization of tone. Each comment is an individual person, a unique voice & perspective, accents from around the world, but the medium of text, combined with the listing of comments leading to consumption of dozens/hundreds/thousands of viewpoints, leads to a blurring and obscuring of the uniqueness of each commenter.
These comments, they feel like a consistent person - I think that’s part of what people are talking about when they refer to the “hive mind”. These highly upvoted expert opinions, they begin to slot into the “trusted authoritative voice” in your mental categorization, regardless of whether they’re actually experts or not. The wisdom of the crowd, the inclination to trust the source of those upvotes, it’s pernicious.
I didn’t think I could last without Reddit after July 1st, but the truth is I’m fucking thriving. I really only ever lurked on Reddit, wasn’t much of an active commenter, and the continual absorption of fairly minor amounts of toxicity and negativity was exhausting. Relying on my own voice, my own perspective, it’s important. When the power goes out and your phone dies, when the world turns mad around you, when all seems hopeless, there you are. No matter where you go, there you are. Yes, it might be true that everyone on Reddit seems to be miserable. That’s their choice, it doesn’t have to be yours
This new, more decentralized space called the Fediverse took a little getting used to, more so considering how we stampeded into this place with the wiring and tubing still exposed, the drywall not installed yet.
Now, it gives me the sense of contact with a community I need, but without The Algorithm, so my mind feels freer to roam elsewhere, and in my case it's been watching YouTube videos of cosmology and physics, mathematics, ancient history, etc.
I even re-took the habit of doing the NYT Crossword, a couple of months ago.
With no Reddit (nor Twitter nor TikTok etcetera) in sight, I like what I see.