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Culture War Roundup for the week of December 30, 2024

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It's pretty clearly a troll post.

It has a couple nice features that make it well-calibrated for engagement.

#1) It gives off a #thathappened vibe. It's just so obviously fake. People can feel smart when they expose it.

#2) It buries the lede. Wait, this guy is 25 and has several properties. He got "lucky" in marketing? So this means he's either a scammer or has money from daddy. Again, this allows internet sleuths something to latch onto and post about.

My favorite form of burying the lede is posts that start with "Me (30m) and my girlfriend (22f)" and then, later on, reveal "when we first started dating 7 years ago...".

I hope you enjoy these helpful hints for getting engagement on your own short fiction on Reddit. I've been considering doing it myself lately. Not sure why. Seems fun.

I've been considering doing it myself lately. Not sure why. Seems fun.

It may be fun for some but if it's not obviously fake then it gratuitously damages social trust by adding to readers' expectations of bad behavior from others. I wish people wouldn't write these.

Damaging people's social trust in Reddit would be doing them a huge favor.

Damaging people's social trust in Reddit would be doing them a huge favor.

It would, but @Incanto's point is not that it's social trust in Reddit that's being damaged, but social trust in people in general. People read a fake story about a cruel or unjust landlord on reddit and slowly grow to believe that landlords are more likely than not to do them wrong, that all landlords are bad, that landlording is evil, that private property should be banned, that the means of production should be redistributed...

The point has also been made about those radio shows (i.e. "Ryan's Roses") where people are caught cheating on their partners, who call in -- they're fake but did damage to the public's trust in relationship fidelity and therefore in relationships in general. The same is true for /r/relationshipadvice and /r/aita.

I don't think Reddit (at least most parts of it) are redeemable.

The only way to interact with an extremist propaganda factory is to mock it. I want Reddit to die and be replaced with something better.

The end result of this is /r/FuckLuigiMangione: an entirely invented drama op that exists purely for lulz.

I won't deny it's given me some belly laughs, but I don't see how it could be good for society. It's not even hurting Reddit: it's volunteer engagement farming that gives them more opportunities to display ads.

The end result of this is /r/FuckLuigiMangione

What's the point of that subreddit? To poke fun at the people who like Luigi, or the people who hate Luigi? It just doesn't make sense to me.

But in general, this is my least favorite aspect of the internet: real discussions boiled down to trolling and why-are-you-so-serious-about-serious-issue type loserdom. The people who care the least shouldn't always win. But nether should the people who care the most always win.

I guess I just see it as another area where the internet destroys authentic connection. If you bring up a serious issue with a real-life friend, you can have an actual discussion about it and maybe learn something. But outside of a few places on the internet, like here, it's lulz vs activism all the way down. Real talk with people who are concerned but not trying to sell you something is rarely possible.

What's the point of that subreddit?

Dramatards hit it big with the abortion bounty hunters thing, and have been chasing that high ever since.

What's the point of that subreddit? To poke fun at the people who like Luigi, or the people who hate Luigi? It just doesn't make sense to me.

Chaos. It's literally an op by rDrama to make people on Reddit of every "side" post angry comments to share and laugh at them.

Stop going on Reddit. Seriously.

It's like complaining about porn recommendations on Porn Hub. You are telling on yourself.