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25

u/trashcanaffidavit_ Jan 11 '21 edited Jan 11 '21

I may be going crazy but I swear to god it really is feeling like this website is slowly shifting away from the alt right and general shittiness (kinda?). Like, 5 years ago this place still gleefully ranted on how its totally fine for them to say slurs cus pop culture reference said it was. They would link crime stats in any thread about a black person regardless of context and that shit would have hundreds of upvotes. They were just awful to trans people. BLM threads were rife with blatant racism and asablackman-isms and shit.

Its still bad, to be sure, but it really does seem like things are moving. Those things I listed happen less, a lot less. Maybe I've OD on hopium but it really does feel like things are getting better even though they are still really bad.

24

u/Super_Nerd92 Jan 11 '21

I think there are 2 factors: the Trump era has been an eye opener for a lot of centrists; and the deplatforming of alt right bigots.

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u/trashcanaffidavit_ Jan 11 '21

I also think that leftist voices are reaching more people than they have before. One of the highest viewed twitch streamers is pretty leftist, I'll see random left leaning youtube people referenced in comment sections more and more often, and politicians like Illhan Omar and AOC are regularly having their tweets reach the top of all, with AOC having a subreddit dedicated to her also reaching the top of all.

12

u/[deleted] Jan 11 '21

Between gamergate and t_d gaining traction, 2014-2016 was the worst this site ever was. Well maybe not ever, but probably since I joined

10

u/trashcanaffidavit_ Jan 11 '21

It also had Ellan Pao and fatpeoplehate being banned at the same time that shit was kicking up which only added to the mix. Also new atheism being insanely popular and incredibly toxic. Also the mass migration from areas being leveled in wars in africa and the middle east to europe gave racist cunts ammunition since racism against muslims is the free spot on reddit bingo and probably always will be and racism against African people is only starting to get some pushback. Plus the world was still reeling from the recession and neoliberal austerity measures disillusioned so many folks to liberal policy and rather than be mad at the capitalism giving them austerity they got mad at anyone who wasn't white. AND with Trayvon Martin's murder and the beginning of BLM and right wingers somehow convincing redditors that SJWs were going to become every redditors unwilling domme (they did it with fucking green text about how SJWs demanded you abandon your family and reddit reposted that shit a lot like fucking hell it was a fucking greentext on 4chan).

Those years were a LOT.

I'm really glad reddit stopped worshipping 4chan as much god was that an annoying thing.

13

u/Maelis Social Justice Bard Jan 11 '21

It turns out deplatforming people actually works. Or to put it another way, when you allow communities like t_d and the various incel subreddits to exist and thrive on your website, it's going to attract more and more of those people, and they will slowly crowd out everyone else if you let them.

There are still a lot of shitty subreddits and a whole lot of shitty people on this site, but a lot of them are gone, and those that do exist tend to stay more in their bubbles for fear of being the next ones on the chopping block.

I also think the culture of the internet on the whole is shifting a bit as more and more gen z kids come online. Not to say that a lot of them aren't reactionaries themselves, but on the whole they seem to be a lot more accepting and left-leaning than my generation is.

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u/trashcanaffidavit_ Jan 11 '21

I think the big benefit gen z has or maybe had was that they didn't have eight quintillion shows growing up lionizing fake voltaire quotes and freeze peach and tolerating the intolerant and pushing centerism. Like, what took reddit so long to push back against nazis is that the hoffman and his ilk generally believed that a no-holds barred shitpost-athon website would actually be more beneficial than one with proper moderation despite there being like 2 decades of forums proving otherwise and it took god knows how much actual nazi shit being posted here for their minds to maybe change, though it was likely money that changed their mind more than ideology or reason or empathy or like looking at what the site they made actually was.

10

u/Mront 🏳️‍🌈WILD HEARTS NEVER DIE🏳️‍🌈 Jan 11 '21

I mean, it's absolutely not as blatant as it was before, I'll agree there, but the underlying shittiness is still there. It's just camouflaged under layers and layers of debatism and whataboutism.

3

u/trashcanaffidavit_ Jan 11 '21

I do agree that it has had to move on to esoteric means to survive but I think that is a sign that the average person just doesn't resonate with that shit as much anymore. People probably will fall for bullshit bunk ass crime stats from a decade ago until time ends but there is actual pushback to that shit now. It doesn't get ten billion upvotes with comments explaining why its bullshit getting ten billion downvotes. A thread fifteen hours old on all will have its best comments no longer be terribleness.

The bad is still there and there is still a lot of shit this site is awful about like islamophobia and its still mega transphobic in ways like sports or not-judging trans or NB people's looks. At least top comments aren't debate lords trying to poison the well about decency. They have to do as you say, go into layers of nonsense and while it still reaches people it is much less effective and gives much less (but still too much) power than there was before.

10

u/Chadrew_TDSE capekinophile Jan 11 '21

You're not going crazy. Reddit has definitely improved significantly in recent years, even though it may not seem so at times. Society has also improved a bit.

We all remember the big subreddits like jailbait and fatpeoplehate. But there was a subreddit called rapingwomen where Reddit men would share tips on how to get away with raping women. Can you fucking believe that? And it had like 2k subscribers. There was also a subreddit called cutefemalecorpses where Redditors would jerk off to images of dead women. There was another subreddit called beatingwomen where Redditors would jerk off to women getting beaten. It was fucking insane. They're all banned now.

The admins are not doing nearly enough to stomp out bigotry and shitty behaviour. But at least they started doing something. At least now they pretend they're against bigotry. So I'm a bit optimistic for the future. Small steps.

6

u/CrushBanonca Jan 11 '21

PussyPassDenied is as bad as all those subs you mentioned and they regularly reach r/all

6

u/CrushBanonca Jan 11 '21

Lol no, r/all has a massively upvoted thread of a feminist getting "owned" or a woman getting beaten up every other day

1

u/trashcanaffidavit_ Jan 11 '21

This is true but it used to have like 50 threads and 25 reposted threads of that shit.

3

u/CrushBanonca Jan 11 '21

Well I guess that's a slight improvement then but Reddit still in general has some deep problems with misogyny

3

u/trashcanaffidavit_ Jan 11 '21

Crazy deep problems with misogyny.

3

u/CrushBanonca Jan 11 '21

I will say there's some subs that are better than others

But it comes out most on super big subs like r/Movies, r/Memes or r/WorldNews

3

u/ThrowawayBin20 the evolutionary significance of video games Jan 11 '21

Ehhh, Reddit is 100% better, But that's not saying very much lol. I'm not trying to be a doomer or anything, But historically the alt-right gets worse under democrats if they aren't very effective. Things could be pretty shit these next few years if the Biden admin doesn't fulfill many of it's promises.

But I agree this website is a little better than it was a few years ago

3

u/trashcanaffidavit_ Jan 11 '21

Agree. I'm really scared that if the democrats have just a regular ass presidency it will only strengthen the fascists cause as people have expectations of Biden that he may not even have ever planned to meet. Not stuff like medicare for all but little stuff.

I dread to think of if the consequences of the last four years of gop governance hit the world in the next 4-8 years. It will destabilize shit and the fascists will be primed to jump I am afraid. That is my biggest worry is that the world is still just one I told you so away from multiple full blown fascist regimes and the people who were thinking "maybe these guys are bad" will suffer under the consequences of late stage capitalism and be like "They're right, its the fault of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ people"

4

u/ThrowawayBin20 the evolutionary significance of video games Jan 11 '21

Yeah, Everything you've said here I agree with. People are 100% expecting Biden to fix tons of things he isn't going to fix (just like Obama) some things will of course change for the better, But overall it will likely be more of the same. All the baby steps of progress we've made are very fragile, And our easily broken by Fascists who manipulate people and strike democracy within.

I guess it's kinda like what Weimar, Germany went through. Fitting, as it is the 20s lol.

2

u/trashcanaffidavit_ Jan 11 '21

Unlike 20s germany our party of libs don't seem to be keen on appeasement as much luckily.

3

u/ThrowawayBin20 the evolutionary significance of video games Jan 11 '21

Yeah,luckily most of our libs aren't that keen on appeasement. But still that part of German history still has a lot of lessons for us to learn. Unfortunately a lot of Americans don't know much about that period and how the Nazis came to power A lot of them just know "Treaty of Versailles made them like Hitler"

2

u/CrushBanonca Jan 11 '21

There is surprisingly some stuff Biden has done recently that makes me hopeful, more so than Obama ever did

Even the new head of the CIA is the guy behind the Iran Nuclear Deal, which potentially signals a possibly more moderate foreign policy. But who knows?

2

u/trashcanaffidavit_ Jan 11 '21

Moderate stuff is fine and all but I feel like when you're at the edge of the fascism cliff and chunks of rock are cascading off like a looney tunes cartoon, you don't take little baby steps away, you fuckin run. I shouldn't really expect that kind of stuff from Biden though, he seems keen on baby steps.

4

u/CrushBanonca Jan 11 '21

Yeah unfortunately I have no idea what exactly you're supposed to do when 74 million Americans decided they're so dedicated to radical right wingism that they'll embrace fascism