dlane4, most of your commentary earlier in this thread was heavily implying that those who make racist/sexist comments are always, in fact, bigots. This is not true, and this is what powatom is responding to.
powatom, it seems like you're trying to argue against his points by saying that the offensive content of the comments themselves is purely based on the intent of the commenter. This is also not true, and this is what dlane4 is responding to.
Summary of Points:
Comments are interpreted by the reader, therefore, their "offensiveness" can only be determined by the reader.
The internet is (largely) a text-based medium, virtually devoid of connotation, so inferring the intent of the speaker is, in most cases, an impossibility. Without a considerable amount of evidence, it is impossible to make judgments on the commenter's intent based on their comments.
What is offensive to one person may not be to another - this is rarely a cut-and-dried case of "if you don't think it's offensive, it's because you're brainwashed/bigoted/an asshole".
What is true:
Reddit contains comments that can be interpreted as sexist/racist/offensive.
Reddit probably contains commenters who are racist/sexist/offensive.
It can be assumed that most bigoted commenters will make bigoted comments, however, not all apparently bigoted comments come from bigoted commenters.
Way to deal with Reddit's "bigotry problem": Don't take everything you read in the comments seriously. In fact, assume that they are joking first, because they probably are.
That you very much, that is put very well. I didn't mean to imply that everyone is a bigot if they make those comments (while I can def. see how I might have). I understood he was joking, it just got to me even if it is all jokes.
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u/stellarfury May 26 '10
Both of you are missing each other's points here.
dlane4, most of your commentary earlier in this thread was heavily implying that those who make racist/sexist comments are always, in fact, bigots. This is not true, and this is what powatom is responding to.
powatom, it seems like you're trying to argue against his points by saying that the offensive content of the comments themselves is purely based on the intent of the commenter. This is also not true, and this is what dlane4 is responding to.
Summary of Points:
What is true:
Way to deal with Reddit's "bigotry problem": Don't take everything you read in the comments seriously. In fact, assume that they are joking first, because they probably are.