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Re: "Everyone is on a crusade"
re: the OP :: I have a theory. The growth of natural socialization strategies (including the capacity to live and let live, to let people be, to respect boundaries, etc) has been stunted. The increase in stunted socialization may correlate with the degree to which our socialization is learned through internet media.
I don't mean to take a shot at any medium in particular, though the major social-media-industrial-complex has done a number on people psychologically. (Check out Tristan Harris, ex-google employee on this).
There's little 'skin in the game' with respect to digital media for communication. If you say something dumb, or come across as a jerk, you can delete the posts or make a new account. There aren't real life consequences for most people, unless you wind up going viral for some reason.
Human beings aren't just brains in jars. Something like 90% of communication is nonverbal (or some high percentage, I can't remember how much). Most people simply don't have the verbal / linguistic skills to process messages and empathize apart from body language. (source?!? : you are here, and not on Big Social, for a reason).
Denying that physiological element to our humanity is stunting our social capacities by degrees, and the strongholds in which we'd still learn those skills are slowly dying off. Your grandma wasn't on the internet as much as you are, and she learned manners (or didn't) from people in-person. It shaped the social contract in ways that simply aren't available to generations that are growing up immersed in a social/communications environment that doesn't have the same physiological dimensions.
Media like tiktok or snapchat add a visual element, but... that seems like it's creating a new set of social dynamics, not all of which are solving for greater psychological welfare (as a culture, or for individuals).
I suspect that the smolweb appeal is part nostolgia for an aesthetic, but partly a nostolgia for a set of social circumstances that the bloatweb simply doesn't DO anymore. The adventure and discovery and "nice" wasn't due to the content of the web, so much as the habits of the genration that first explored it. If you somehow put 6k teenagers on this BBS, the quality of the experience would change rapidly... not because of the protocol, but because of the people.
I realize that I probably sound like an octagenarian boomer normie complaining about the 'kids these days!!1', so... sorry about that. I don't mean this to be a potshot at anyone, so much as identify the vastly different social circumstances people bring when they sit down in front of their keyboard and chunk of light-emitting-glass-screen.
If there are vastly rude people out there, well... yeah. People are rude anyway. They can get away with more when there isn't empathic feedback. There's also the differences in context... when you have no context for why someone is having a bad day, it's a lot harder to be understanding about it.
So: I'm sorry, this is normal for any medium that separates mind and body outputs. You're not alone in being frustrated by this (or by the necro-posting from people who just discovered your post). It's normal. Don't get trolled. Close the window and go outside for a bit. Sunlight helps a lot.
Mar 30 · 6 weeks ago
Everyone is on a crusade — Everyone is on a crusade nowadays and I need to vent. I'll leave examples out in order to stay an anonymous Internet dog. Whatever you do to keep away from getting involved and from taking sides, sooner or later someone will extend his agenda into your life. Most of the time it is not much of an interference. Nevertheless it slowly ads up to the straw that breaks the camel's back. Even if I agree with your particular agenda, my life is not centered on your...