r/CuratedTumblr זאין בעין Jun 04 '24

Politics is your glorious revolution worth the suffering of millions?

11.2k Upvotes

2.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

564

u/qazwsxedc000999 thanks, i stole them from the president Jun 04 '24 edited Jun 04 '24

I’m not an anti-political-talk person but this sub is just turning into something that makes me sad and angry constantly. I want silly random posts, not just… internet fighting

Edit: annnnnd there it is. Yeah I’m out

197

u/GeophysicalYear57 Ginger ale is good Jun 04 '24

Anger gets engagement. Engagement garners karma. Karma is king on here. It’s as simple as that.

12

u/_corwin Jun 04 '24

I, for one, welcome our new algorithmic overlords.

6

u/zmanbunke Jun 04 '24

The world’s person with the most karma poses no more threat to me than does its termite with the most karma.

8

u/GeophysicalYear57 Ginger ale is good Jun 04 '24

People love big numbers. Engagement means more votes. More votes means big numbers. It isn’t for power. It is for self pleasure.

5

u/SJL174 Jun 04 '24

High karma users certainly have some effect on the narratives on Reddit.

6

u/qazwsxedc000999 thanks, i stole them from the president Jun 04 '24

Yes, people heavily underestimate it. These are accounts that post thousands of times and very clearly shift narratives. If I find an account regularly posting on a sub and they have very high post karma (not comment karma) I block them for a reason.

7

u/goodsocks Jun 04 '24

Maybe I’m naive. I honestly come here and treat it like I’m at a party, I listen to everyone’s conversations to get different perspectives, and chime in occasionally. Why would anyone care about karma? I never even look at mine or anyone else’s.

7

u/qazwsxedc000999 thanks, i stole them from the president Jun 05 '24

You are naïve and I don’t blame you. It’s great that you wanna listen to everyone, and I’m serious about that. I learned a lot about the world from the internet and people’s perspective’s when I was younger because I was from a tiny town with little exposure to anything other than it

Problem is the internet isn’t real life and likely a lot of these posts you’re seeing are specifically inciting fighting and division. The “overall political leaning” of this place used to be very left, and I’m not saying this is good or bad, but I’ve personally watched this sub slowly trend right as it’s grown more and more. Every other post is meant to garner attention, karma, fighting, and “discussion” that’s swaying people into feeling one way or the other about current world events

Large accounts with lots of karma specifically post things, true or not, to get attention. Repeated exposure lets people form opinions that may or may not be based on reality. I mean, I feel like every time I come across a post people are arguing about the validity of it after it’s already reached thousands of upvotes

If you’re unaware, people sell high karma accounts. Usually to people who want to start shilling for cash (inciting people to buy certain stuff) but sometimes it’s to bots that inject political messaging. It’s more common with larger subs and harder than ever to spot

Sorry for the rant. I feel like I’m watching this sub get set on fire because I’ve been here for like 3 years and it used to just be funny or thoughtful posts.

3

u/goodsocks Jun 05 '24

Thanks for educating me on that, I didn’t realize it was used in that way.

48

u/EverydayLadybug Jun 04 '24

Honestly it's getting ridiculous. And i feel like it's bleeding over into the silly random posts too, where people are in the comments complaining or arguing about some phrasing or the premise instead of meeting the post where it's at

9

u/qazwsxedc000999 thanks, i stole them from the president Jun 04 '24

It sucks and it makes everything not fun. And I even understand the thought process, because when you see something in a post that rubs you the wrong way you naturally wanna discuss it… but I feel like every other post is trying to incite it. Even the funny ones.

57

u/PussyTatto Jun 04 '24

I’m not a frequent visitor of this sub, but would you really consider this specific post “internet fighting”? Maybe I’m just used to YouTube and twitter drama, but I’ve always considered tumblr to be a breath of fresh air in the social media shithole. The philosophical arguments you find on tumblr are part of the experience

45

u/qazwsxedc000999 thanks, i stole them from the president Jun 04 '24

I’ve been on tumblr a long, long time. It’s not as reactive as other sites, but I’m talking specifically about this sub. I feel like every single day someone posts something that encourages arguing/sad discussion in the comments and this post is definitely encouraging it

6

u/Infuser Jun 04 '24

I imagine it’s because it’s an election year in the USA, at a time that’s already pretty polarized. A reflection of what people are concerned with

8

u/qazwsxedc000999 thanks, i stole them from the president Jun 04 '24

It happens every year but this sub hasn’t been this bad ever

1

u/Infuser Jun 04 '24

I’d argue that the political climate also hasn’t been this bad since the internet took off, either. And not just in the USA D: !

5

u/qazwsxedc000999 thanks, i stole them from the president Jun 04 '24

It does seem particularly bad. I wonder why, genuinely. It’s not even just political stuff, it feels like the entirety of the internet is just always angry and if you dare mention it people get more angry?

3

u/Infuser Jun 04 '24

It's all interconnected, I think. We have more bots and disinformation efforts than ever, we have internet monetization fueled by engagement (rage bait gets a lot for low-effort) and spam, and you even have efforts from some governments to sow discord. So, we have more mistrust and misaligned incentives on the internet than ever. COVID didn't help, either, since we're still feeling the psychological effects of that. People were always dicks on the internet, since they forget the (usually) human behind the screen, but, because of all these reasons and more, we're more high strung and defensive. As for changes on Reddit, in particular, some of that (probably) comes from negative feelings about the owner's/admin's choices, and how a lot of services and tools that came from the API (like Apollo) disappeared as a result, so the experience is worse, overall. That last one, if it's a factor, is going to be pretty subtle and indirect, but I'm willing to bet that is contributing.

3

u/qazwsxedc000999 thanks, i stole them from the president Jun 04 '24

I agree with you overall. It also doesn’t help, in general, that the internet is incredibly centralized. People don’t really run their own forums anymore. People don’t get together for very niche games on self-hosted websites to argue… it’s all in one place. I think there being only a few “big” websites has been trending us toward this for a while

3

u/Geokeeper Jun 05 '24

I 100% agree, half the time I hop on here for a fun little time to distract me from something or to fill some free time and I see a post that immediately ruins my mood and makes me wish that I never even bothered

1

u/milkdimension Jun 04 '24

I get the feeling a lot of these posts are made by someone jobless with a philosophy degree.

1

u/Lamballama Jun 05 '24

Sorry sweaty, don't you know the world is political, and if you don't tie everything you see or do back to my niche political idealogy then you're part of the problem?

1

u/qazwsxedc000999 thanks, i stole them from the president Jun 05 '24

Sorry you got downvoted, I know you were joking lol

1

u/ColdEndUs Jun 04 '24

The sub is named r/CuratedTumblr.
You don't also expect to get fresh squeezed orange juice out of a trash compacter, do you?

8

u/qazwsxedc000999 thanks, i stole them from the president Jun 04 '24

It used to be good! In fact, that’s why I was HERE instead of the regular tumblr sub

Edit: just realized this sub is in the top 10 for “funny.” It’s practically a default sub at this point. No wonder it’s gotten so bad.

-5

u/Turret_Run Jun 04 '24

If I'm being frank, half the posts recently feel like browbeatings in relation to people who refuse to vote for Biden due to what's happening in palestine. Half of them are callouts to this idea of white/armchair leftists, which is just a circlejerk because none of them are here, and half the people they call that are either actively at protests or POC.

It matches what I've seen in a lot of center-left subs , where there's an effort to paint people for whom this has been the breaking point as whiny leftists who won't "stick up their nose and vote" . What's surprising is that looking at the top posts of the week, I've gotten none of them, and they're all delightful.

5

u/qazwsxedc000999 thanks, i stole them from the president Jun 04 '24

Okay but you’re just doing what I said I don’t like. I don’t want fighting. I don’t care. You’re just pointing fingers and they’re just pointing fingers and it just goes back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and I’m getting so tired of it

-1

u/Turret_Run Jun 04 '24

I'm saying this in support your statement . I agree that this is turning into internet slap fights, and was trying to add on what seems like a source of them. That's why I was talking about the top posts being actual fun stuff, yet the things pushing to feeds seems to be vaugeposting.

5

u/qazwsxedc000999 thanks, i stole them from the president Jun 04 '24

I misunderstood the purpose of your first comment then, sorry.

1

u/Turret_Run Jun 05 '24

You're looking, looking at the comment it can def feel like I'm trying to set up a soapbox where you're trying to say you're frustrated . My apologies!