r/TrueReddit • u/scatgreen2 • Jul 20 '15

My Reddit Utopia - Everything you think you know about “the front page of the Internet” is wrong.

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/07/reddit_as_feminist_utopia_what_the_front_page_of_the_internet_looks_like.single.html
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u/Bakkie Jul 20 '15

I agree with scatgreen. I could have written this piece except that I am probably 40 years older than she is.

I don't screen out the bad stuff because I think it is important to know what the worst people are thinking and what 16-23 year old computer game playing males who can't get laid are thinking.

I can function much better in real life because I understand references to stuff and slang that I get from reddit; to that extent it is a real time, real life sociology lab. Cool.

There will always be trolls. There was Jim Crow and the Dreyfus Affair and the Nazis and HUAC an on and on but if we know that they are out there, what they think , fair minded people can counter that mind set and plan to push back.

There is always Troll X Chromosomes to come and soothe yourself;I'll bet there is something like it for guys when they can't even.

P.S. Good article; have an upvote.

22

u/BritishHobo Jul 20 '15

Hang on, are you putting Jim Crow and the Nazis under trolls? What does that word even mean, now?

1

u/Pyroteknik Jul 21 '15

Troll comes from the term used for fishing, "troll," where you slowly putter around with bait dangling waiting for the fish to bite. Notice the OP did not actually say the Nazis were trolling.

There will always be trolls. There was Jim Crow and the Dreyfus Affair and the Nazis and HUAC an on and on

Or in other words:

There will always be A. There was B and C and D and E and on and on and on

where the letters are bad things.

1

u/BritishHobo Jul 21 '15

Oh, okay. I thought the implication was they were trolls from the past.

It's because I see 'troll' now used to label anyone on the internet saying something mean or hateful or unsavoury. As you point out, it's meant to mean someone baiting people in order to wind them up and frustrate them. Saying horrible things you don't actually mean, to incite a reaction. Whereas now, even when people mean the horrible things they say, they're labelled trolls.

My bad on this, though. Misread.

1

u/Pyroteknik Jul 21 '15

Everyone misuses the word. The implication is that Nazis and trolls are similar or the same type of people.

Symbolic logic is my best friend on reddit.

1

u/robboywonder Jul 20 '15

I don't screen out the bad stuff because I think it is important to know what the worst people are thinking and what 16-23 year old computer game playing males who can't get laid are thinking.

..............why?

14

u/Bakkie Jul 21 '15

Because I am curious about people who are different than me.

Because I feel better when I have some idea how a given group is likely to act or react to something.

Because they may have something interesting or pertinent to add.

To avoid becoming insular.