Or is it just doomed to the vapidity of sterile commercialization?

It feels like everything is serious these days… and ‘humor’ is only of the commercial variety. Joke communities and circlejerk communities are considered ‘hate groups’ now. Mods will ban you for sarcastic comments on ‘serious’ topics, and even on non serious ones, and everything is politicized either by trolls, bots, or whackjobs.

It’s boring when you can’t joke anymore. I miss my internet communities of 5-10 years ago when you could joke around, and even people of different beliefs and persuasions could laugh at themselves.

Now everything is so deadly serious. It’s a complete bummer. And any sort of ‘edge’ or sarcasm or sardonic remarks are ban-worthy.

I guess it’s just poe’s law run amok? I feel like mods could tell the difference 10 years ago and the non-jokey psychos were just ignored.

  • Boozilla@lemmy.worldEnglish
    39·
    6 months ago

    There’s a hypothetical phenomenon called the “asshole filter” that some have proposed. Basically, the idea is: hostile, humorless and trolling type people chase away the more pleasant people over time. The end result being, the concentration of assholes is always going up on social media and anonymous online forums, etc.

    I don’t think it’s very scientific. How could you accurately measure such a thing. But I have felt like it was happening as various corners of the internet have grown in popularity.

    One way I try to deal with it on here is I aggressively block people. Why let my energy get drained when there’s any easy way to never see the jerks again.

    I don’t know if this tactic will work long term. There are potentially friendlier instances to migrate to, also. Lemmy is an interesting ongoing experiment.

    Hope you hang in. Completely understand if you don’t want to.

    • Lvxferre@mander.xyz
      8·
      6 months ago

      I’ve been thinking about social mechanics in online environments for a few years, and this arsehole filter definitively sounds true for me. I think that it has a twofold mechanism:

      • it’s easier to endure arseholes if you’re one
      • your behaviour sets up the example for newbies

      So arseholes have a higher re-incidence and proliferation than nice people.

      I also think that this applies to assumptive/dumb/disingenuous vs. smart, and entitled/whiny vs. contributive people. If that’s correct then the phenomenon is likely wider, and we could actually measure it for something else. It wouldn’t prove that the arsehole filter is true, but it would strengthen the hypothesis.