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PaperclipPerfector  9mo ago (text post)   3314 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for March 22, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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It’s because Reddit (and all similar communities) have a fundamental design flaw for actual issue discussion in that upvotes serve as both ‘retweets’ (in that they make the content more visible) and ‘likes’ (in that they express ‘approval’ with a comment, link, image, news story or happening). Traditional forums are another example of where this doesn’t happen, because post prominence is just tied to comment recency and ‘likes’ are usually a separate way to say thanks for a comment with an emoji or some forum currency or whatever. The Reddit model is much better for viral content, memes, cat gifs, but less so for politics and current affairs.

I don’t think it’s that Libs are unwilling to discuss ‘bad news’ (for them), you see plenty of it in online news comments sections on left-leaning opinion and news sites, for example, or on their Facebook pages. But to upvote a ‘Democrats are doing terribly’ post triggers some tribal instinct. It’s the same reason Russian footage of the Ukraine War is never going to be upvoted on /r/combatfootage, the sub is partisan and even if it isn’t actually ‘anti-Ukrainian’ to discuss Russian footage, the very act of upvoting the enemy’s victories feels dirty and humiliating.

Please don't respond to culture war stuff in the friday fun thread.

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