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I kissed comment culture goodbye

(sustainableviews.substack.com)
256 points spyckie2 | 2 comments | 05 Sep 25 20:11 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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tptacek ◴[05 Sep 25 20:54 UTC] No.45143473[source]▶
Weird! Sorry to hear that commenting (including on HN) didn't make this person any friends. It has made me a bunch of friends, including some very close in-person ones. I don't think I'm an oddball in that regard!

Of particular note: comment culture is how I managed to engage with local politics here in Chicagoland, through which I met a ton of my neighbors and got actively involved with campaigns and the local government itself. Those are all in-person relationships that were (and remain) heavily mediated by comments.

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1. Karrot_Kream ◴[05 Sep 25 21:07 UTC] No.45143636[source]▶
It's hard. When I was younger and on certain forums and chatrooms my comments made me friends. My closest friends are from a chatroom I was invited to by a friend of a friend in a subculture. 80% of that chatroom was invited to my wedding and 2 of them were my Best Men. But I find that the internet has gotten too big and everyone online just feels so angry and hurt all the time.

This might be me; I am older and have less time. The bar to novelty in my life was a lot lower in my late teens than it is now. But I can't shake the feeling that "something" has changed in the world around me. Every social medium, from the follower-only Mastodons to the heavily algorithmicized Twitter FYP is angry at something or dunking on someone.

(N.B. Sometimes I wonder if this is the nugget of truth behind the wisdom of having kids. That at some point humans become inflexible and recalcitrant but the act of having kids ties your own mood and outlook to the future of humanity as a whole rather than your own crotchety self.)

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2. seabass-labrax ◴[05 Sep 25 22:17 UTC] No.45144300[source]▶
I'm no sociologist, but a pet theory of mine is that lots of people have realized that one doesn't necessarily need to listen to others in order to achieve one's goals. For instance, in the past you could write a letter of complaint to a company and have a reasonable chance of getting a personal response, but it can be difficult to even find any contact information now, and any response is likely to come from a script. Companies know they can ignore complaints and pretty much carry on as before. I don't suppose one always liked the personal response but it surely feels better to be listened to.

People who want to discuss things in good faith (which presumably includes you and I) and achieve consensus get bogged down in long and complicated discussions while those who have selfish motivations just do whatever they want largely without any cost. The overlap between people who are 'well-meaning' and 'successful' shrinks, leaving the well-meaning people angry and bitter - not generally at each other, but still sometimes unfortunately.