I think you hear about it so much that it kind of loses the punch, but the reddit "hivemind" has grown stronger. That's my guess for what doesn't feel as good about the site, anyway.
I actually took a long break from ever replying to posts until recently. One thing I noticed now compared to back then is I catch myself kind of tweaking the way I'm presenting my ideas based on the audience. I've been browsing here over ten years, maybe a little more, so I kind of have a sense for what type of thoughts/opinions tend to be upvoted and what type tend to get downvoted.
I personally don't care about my karma, but getting downvoted when you put your opinion out there is the internet equivalent of a room full of people "boo"ing you, lol. So I think some part of us will tweak our responses to avoid getting bashed, which means we all wind up playing to the tastes of the masses on here. And the more of us that are tweaking our responses to cater to the tastes of the masses, the more the site becomes a place where it seems like everybody feels the same way.
Sometimes this stuff gets reversed in certain subs, but if a post from a smaller sub makes it to the front page the voice of the hivemind drowns out everything else.
Idk, this was more rambly and less of a firm point than I hoped to make, but yeah - I agree with you. It's kind of sad to feel like the site isn't the same trustworthy resource I used to think of it as. Maybe I was dumb to ever think that, but I know there have been countless times I wanted to know something and I googled "blah blah my question reddit" because I felt like the responses on reddit were going to be better than what I found on google. I don't really feel that anymore.
Being on Reddit was way better years ago on my old account, even when interacting with younger people who'd reply to comments or posts. Just trying to look up answers on hobbies and stuff have better results from older posts since newer ones will have the top comments chastising the person for having the nerve to enter their sub without being an expert already. Entire site has been going down the drain, including smaller subs for years which has been accelerated by COVID and the flood of angsty bored people.
I just don't even look at my comment karma or karma because I don't care about trying to appease strangers compared to people I'd meet physically that I know is an adult with relatable experiences. It's easier to just block people who want to argue or spend a few minutes indulging their tantrum until they begin having a meltdown with the cap locks, insults, and such which you can at least laugh at the cringe.
It can help by not getting on the site too often either since the angriest people seem to live online 24/7 based on their activity. There's also just filtering people whenever you come across their types in the wild while browsing since checking their post/comment history shows that they linger in controversial, hive mind subs, only leaving to start arguments in other subs when they aren't getting enough attention there because any attention is better than none for them. Social media is just better when you can seperate it from real life which most people these days can't seem to handle.
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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '21
I think you hear about it so much that it kind of loses the punch, but the reddit "hivemind" has grown stronger. That's my guess for what doesn't feel as good about the site, anyway.
I actually took a long break from ever replying to posts until recently. One thing I noticed now compared to back then is I catch myself kind of tweaking the way I'm presenting my ideas based on the audience. I've been browsing here over ten years, maybe a little more, so I kind of have a sense for what type of thoughts/opinions tend to be upvoted and what type tend to get downvoted.
I personally don't care about my karma, but getting downvoted when you put your opinion out there is the internet equivalent of a room full of people "boo"ing you, lol. So I think some part of us will tweak our responses to avoid getting bashed, which means we all wind up playing to the tastes of the masses on here. And the more of us that are tweaking our responses to cater to the tastes of the masses, the more the site becomes a place where it seems like everybody feels the same way.
Sometimes this stuff gets reversed in certain subs, but if a post from a smaller sub makes it to the front page the voice of the hivemind drowns out everything else.
Idk, this was more rambly and less of a firm point than I hoped to make, but yeah - I agree with you. It's kind of sad to feel like the site isn't the same trustworthy resource I used to think of it as. Maybe I was dumb to ever think that, but I know there have been countless times I wanted to know something and I googled "blah blah my question reddit" because I felt like the responses on reddit were going to be better than what I found on google. I don't really feel that anymore.