I tend to think it comes down to two things. 1) anger is energising, and 2)anger drives engagement, not just at the algorithm level, but at the social level. If you make a post about something...
I tend to think it comes down to two things. 1) anger is energising, and 2)anger drives engagement, not just at the algorithm level, but at the social level.
If you make a post about something that makes you really happy, the response is mostly likes/upvotes/celebratory emoji reactions and most comments are one or two word cheers.
If you make a post about something that makes you really angry, the response is usually a lot more verbose and the conversation lasts longer. People who agree tend to rant and the people who disagree tend to argue.
This pattern applies everywhere I look. Pseudonymous social media, named social media, work chat channels, friend group messages, and even sometimes actual in-person chats with friends and family.
So if you're looking for interaction, negative posts/comments get much more of it than positive ones. And because it's energising it feels rewarding, sometimes even productive.
This is definitely it. The algos favor engagement and angry people create the most engagement. And right now western politics is peak angry. As you say, anger is energizing and it can feel...
This is definitely it. The algos favor engagement and angry people create the most engagement. And right now western politics is peak angry.
As you say, anger is energizing and it can feel constructive even though it almost never is.
The left is, in theory, the demographic of compassionate, educated and emotionally intelligent people. But it's also the demographic of self righteousness. We saw it in the worst examples of cancel culture, and we're seeing it now with the demonization of the right. Picking out the worst examples of a group and yelling at them in the public square doesn't seem very progressive. It dehumanizes the whole group. Not to mention that it's intentionally invoking negativity bias, creating an unrealistic picture of the world.
Even if I agree with the sentiments a lot of the time, the methods are self defeating at best. It's good to remember that it's not just one side with a lot of people behaving like children.
It’s more universal than just algos. It’s human nature. The examples OP has are from Reddit, which has a simple confidence interval based voting system. It’s hardly just the evil algos.
It’s more universal than just algos. It’s human nature. The examples OP has are from Reddit, which has a simple confidence interval based voting system. It’s hardly just the evil algos.
I thought someone might say that :) You're right, it's just people. But the algos turn up the volume, and reddit is effected by them quite a lot because everything is cross platform posted these...
I thought someone might say that :) You're right, it's just people. But the algos turn up the volume, and reddit is effected by them quite a lot because everything is cross platform posted these days.
Also, Reddit has an algo too, it's not just upvotes. Age, upvote speed, source subreddit and engagement all play a part. Like everywhere else the exact details of the algo aren't public. There has been speculation that the engagement weight has increased over the last year or so. They'd be crazy not to try it as a publicly traded company.
I live outside of the US, and I think you see the algorithm more easily from here. Many times on the front page I’d see a post that had zero upvotes and many comments calling OP an idiot. I think...
I live outside of the US, and I think you see the algorithm more easily from here. Many times on the front page I’d see a post that had zero upvotes and many comments calling OP an idiot. I think the algorithm is overwhelmingly based on engagement at this point, downvotes probably directly boost the signal.
Correct. This also applied to your point about self-righteousness. Note the use of past tense, as there has been a notable chance in right-wing culture within my lifetime. The big reason why...
it’s not just one side behaving like children
Correct. This also applied to your point about self-righteousness. Note the use of past tense, as there has been a notable chance in right-wing culture within my lifetime. The big reason why self-righteousness is associated with leftism is that the true-believing religious right has been sidelined from an equal partner in the GOP alliance to being fringe weirdos who care too much about persnickety details.
Hard to be self-righteous when the core agreement of the new alliance is lib-triggering, rather than any set of performatively shared values.
I think this video on an adjacent subject is now old enough that the general internet population does not remember it! Interesting that that is what makes me feel old. Hahaha. tl;dw: your thesis...
I think this video on an adjacent subject is now old enough that the general internet population does not remember it! Interesting that that is what makes me feel old. Hahaha.
tl;dw: your thesis is close to touching upon the theory of memetics, or the notion that ideas are subject to selection pressure and evolution same as a gene (ie “genetics”. Also this is where “meme” comes from btw). Content that makes people angry is way, way more compelling than almost any other form of media, so it “wants” to be shared; thus it slowly drains the air out of the room.
Additionally — and maybe more contentiously? — algorithmic systems in place on all those sites encourage contention, either through voting or payment systems (ie rewards for people that create popular content), or through recommender algorithms that prioritize engagement (ie rewards for compelling content). Together those are like pouring kerosene onto a a culture bonfire that was already fairly intense.
So that in mind, my take on answering your question:
how come this many people, after all this time, don't realize this is such an unhealthy thing?
The system was rigged from the start. It feels good to get PO’d on the internet (theory of memes), and as long as you have the slightest desire for feeling good, there is an endless stream of content to consume (algorithmic biases). Paid content creators are further incentivized to create more and more radical content, and unpaid content creators get updoots in place of dollarinos.
I’d also note that many people do realize that this is killing them, but there are many, many more people on the internet who don’t or who have learned to profit from the current state of affairs. Put another way: it’s likely difficult to notice one person’s absence when a dozen new people jump in afterwards.
I had the same video in mind before I finished reading the original post. First step is to think about what you’re seeing on these social media platforms — very few allow a timeline-only based...
I had the same video in mind before I finished reading the original post.
First step is to think about what you’re seeing on these social media platforms — very few allow a timeline-only based feed anymore, almost everything that’s ever put in front of you is content that has already collected a bunch of metrics that the platform wants to maintain or enhance (e.g. people view it for longer, click on it sooner, comment on it more, whatever the metrics are capturing)
So okay, what you’re seeing is what has already captured these metrics well. How did it get here? I think the hint is in the original post too: a lot of this stuff is shared across platforms — a Reddit post that’s a screenshot of a Facebook post that’s a screenshot of an Imgur post that’s a screenshot of a tweet — which means that someone saw it on this other platform, and decided to screenshot it and post it somewhere else.
To take that action requires at least a little bit of effort, so while everyone’s effort threshold will be different, chances are it only got shared because it hits that person in just the right way to motivate them to share it further. And layered on top of that, many platforms down-rank content that causes someone to end their session, so if people take a screenshot to take elsewhere, then that post had better be otherwise performing really well in the other ways. Otherwise, anything that’s inherently shareable but doesn’t drive engagement will be flagged as performing poorly. So your grandma’s world class pancake recipe will never end up on the front page, much to the detriment of the wider world.
Even search results these days are often based on “relevance” (and stuffed with “featured” or “recommended” items peppered throughout) so the options to view posts without any influence from the platform is quite limited.
So ultimately, the content that you even have access to has likely been passed through multiple filters, and each filter selects for content that is high in engagement and sharability, so in my mind the kind of stuff that makes it to the list is almost inevitably going to be this kind of toxic content. How could you come across anything else, except by sheer force of willpower and deliberate consideration on the part of many individuals along the pathway through social media.
I've noticed this even in non-political contexts. I make a weekly post to r/CFB analyzing voting patterns in the Associated Press college football rankings. Even for something as unimportant as...
I've noticed this even in non-political contexts. I make a weekly post to r/CFB analyzing voting patterns in the Associated Press college football rankings. Even for something as unimportant as that, the majority of comments are mocking or memeing against specific voters instead of commenting on the data. It's discouraging because it takes a moderate amount of effort to make every week, but the quality of interactions in the comments is steadily getting worse.
I've considered posting it to Tildes as well, since the quality of conversations is better here, but there are so few sportsball nerds around here that I might not get any response at all.
As an established non-sportsball nerd, post it here. Tildes will never attract sports folks if sports info isn't here. And those of us who don't follow can get a taste, or block if we want to.
As an established non-sportsball nerd, post it here. Tildes will never attract sports folks if sports info isn't here. And those of us who don't follow can get a taste, or block if we want to.
There are dozens of us here! r/CFB is one of the few subreddits in which I still consistently lurk. Unfortunately I tend to not write much nowadays so you won't get much out of me except for a vote.
There are dozens of us here! r/CFB is one of the few subreddits in which I still consistently lurk.
Unfortunately I tend to not write much nowadays so you won't get much out of me except for a vote.
Absolute vs. relative % numbers are in play, here. We as humans haven't yet developed the cultural tools we need to deal with superscale connectivity, and much of our innate social judgement...
The question is this: how come this many people, after all this time, don't realize this is such an unhealthy thing?
Absolute vs. relative % numbers are in play, here. We as humans haven't yet developed the cultural tools we need to deal with superscale connectivity, and much of our innate social judgement co-evolved in much, much smaller groups than we are exposed to now. What seems like a lot of people may be a tiny percentage of the most reactive, simply amplified by the algorithm. Or it may be bots. Or it may genuinely reflect a worrying trend! But we do not, and cannot know which of these it is without serious analysis and access to back-end data that the social media companies do not share.
I recently heard someone say that they are nostalgic for the time the internet was a small part of their lives and felt big, instead of the current inverse. I agree with them, and it's one of the reasons I post more here than on reddit. I do want to talk to people, just not everyone all at once, and yes I gatekeep the everliving heck out of who I interact with for sanity's sake. Falling down the rabbit hole of guessing internet behavior otherwise is (IMO) a losing game.
it's easier to engage with than actual insight which requires thought to understand and appreciate because of that, you win more hearts and minds by making every mistake related to your opponent...
it's easier to engage with than actual insight which requires thought to understand and appreciate
because of that, you win more hearts and minds by making every mistake related to your opponent stick to them so they look like morons. The modern right built a lot of success on the back of "sjw cringe compilation" type content in like 2012 - 2016
As others have pointed out, anger/negativity drives engagement. One thing that I would add is that it is a coping mechanism. I think the people you're talking about recognize the many gigantic,...
As others have pointed out, anger/negativity drives engagement. One thing that I would add is that it is a coping mechanism. I think the people you're talking about recognize the many gigantic, frightening, rage-enducing problems in the world and they feel powerless when it comes to addressing those problems. Proper organization/mobilization/whatever is very difficult. It takes planning, coordination, willpower, time, leadership, and worst of all, getting up and doing something. That's a very daunting task. Not only are they trying to get by in life, but they're also facing a multi-billion dollar machine that is engrained in every level of the political process and has a propaganda outlet that targets the other side's fears and resentments with precision.
When people feel helpless, and there's nothing really there to channel that feeling and turn it into something productive, then the shitposts that mocks the absurdity of the situation become cathartic. There's comfort in knowing someone else out there feels the same way.
A lot of folks are talking about anger, and while I think it is an important driving factor, I think it's important to look a step deeper. Why do people feel angry and need more outlets for their...
A lot of folks are talking about anger, and while I think it is an important driving factor, I think it's important to look a step deeper. Why do people feel angry and need more outlets for their anger? I believe this is just an outlet for a symptom - the symptom being deep distrust in the system, a lack of support, an increasing wealth divide, and a desire to see change but no mechanism by which to actualize it. If you've spent a reasonable amount of time in spaces where folks are really marginalized, you'll find a lot more folks who need a space to vent their anger. I think we're seeing this in society at large as more folks are feeling left behind and without support, and the internet has created spaces for this particular behavior to be vented.
People have discussed many dimensions of this phenomenon in the thread but to specifically address your core question of why people continue to do this when we know it is bad for us… To me, the...
People have discussed many dimensions of this phenomenon in the thread but to specifically address your core question of why people continue to do this when we know it is bad for us… To me, the real answer is addiction. We are not making 100% free and independent decisions. We are chasing the dopamine hits and a number of other biological responses.
It’s like asking a compulsive eater to put down the bag of cookies. And yet the cookie company is figuring out how to make them more addictive than crack.
People have always made fun of other people. Groups of people have always made fun of, or ostracized (or worse), other groups of people. The times when this doesn't happen are the exception rather...
People have always made fun of other people. Groups of people have always made fun of, or ostracized (or worse), other groups of people. The times when this doesn't happen are the exception rather than the rule and are usually socially situational (you don't make fun of people in your own circle, to your boss's face, or at church). The exceptions to this human behavior are when we invoke social contracts and cultural norms (I've gotten used to the African cultural norm of people openly laughing at your misfortune, but if a westerner does that to me I will shit down their throat).
Shitposting and clowning on stuff people posted on the internet, and calling them cringe en masse, only unites people around victimizing the victim (especially if they're anonymous or forgettable). In answer to "how come this many people, after all this time, don't realize this is such an unhealthy thing?" They do it because it's something to do and fulfills their most primitive needs. I mean, we also had the war to end all wars and then decided that a sequel would be a worthy enterprise. Didn't really fulfill our needs in the long run. Repeating our mistakes is easier than working to find common ground, so the cycle continues. Incidentally, some people who suffer traumas become the people who perpetrate traumas on others. Because as individuals and as small groups we don't really heal ourselves right.
If humans were really good at improving society around us we wouldn't be that meme of a dog in a house on fire saying "this is fine." (Relevant NPR article on that meme.) I think there's a way to peacefully improve society, but we're past the point of "let's hope everyone listened to that great podcast on sociology."
People want easy validation. It's really that simple. For all the same reasons Right Wing feeds and forums and so forth will be full of "owning the libs" and such, Left Wing will be full of the...
People want easy validation. It's really that simple.
For all the same reasons Right Wing feeds and forums and so forth will be full of "owning the libs" and such, Left Wing will be full of the same stuff, for the same reasons. To get that dopamine hit of "they agree with me." They all want the validation of the mob.
It's not just standalone threads or whatever, where someone starts it specifically for the validation of getting everyone to pile on the molehill they start so it can grow into a mountain they'll be at the top of. You see it in most threads. There's a groupthink conclusion, or at least one some will either assume or want to be the assumption, and they'll respond to the thread along those lines. They post according to that assumption, seeking the validation. Because they know, or at least suspect, that'll be what gets validated and they want to be validated rather than targeted.
I could name specific topics as examples, but that'd just, inevitably, ironically, derail this thread. It would devolve it into people protesting it's not a good example, it's totally valid to hate that example, and so on. They wouldn't admit the point, wouldn't even address the point. They'd simply fall over themselves in their extreme eagerness to seek the validation of others who'd come along and say "yeah, exactly, that (whatever) is (whatever's bad about it/them) and therefore fuck (it/them)."
If you pay attention, which really most people don't, you see the treads. They're not exactly hidden. They're right there in plain sight. You see people pop into threads and they'll try to walk some tightrope line where they attempt to assuage the mob with "oh, of course, totally evil and bad and deserved to be fucked right off of existence" even as they might then attempt to "but, maybe, there's this one part that might be okay".
Which is an uphill climb, because mob rules. Few do that; they're the exception. Most are just piling on. Validation is easy. Simple. Grade school simple. Anger lowers intelligence. Something the Left fails to grasp about how "easy" it is for the Right to harness people is how basic, simple emotions are easier for a crowd, a group, a mob, to share amongst themselves.
Look at what's easier? To propagate, to reinforce. "Fuck that guy!!!" Or, "well, on balance, there's X and Y and we should consider Z and really it's a complicated subject demanding careful study."
When you're trying to harness the mob, get their votes for example, the most direct path to influence is through basic emotion. Something the Left refuses to utilize in their attempt to "rise above" and "be cultured" and all that. Right is perfectly willing to harness even the most simple of emotions because, at the end of the day, power is power. People are power. People backing you is power.
Mobs don't study shit. Mobs want action. Social media is lightspeed mobbing. Simple rules the day. Complex comes later, after they're on board. After they've decided who they might listen to for a bit. Way later.
And later, way or not, rarely comes online. Feeds move second by second. You can say something, go to sleep or hop on a plane, and a few hours later you're the worldwide trending "fuck you" of the moment simply because you offended the mob and offered them an easy target to score dopamine with. Made yourself the squeeze they're all getting today's juice from.
And no one wants to be in the juicer. They'd rather be drinking. They want to be part of the mob, not the target. So they'll fall all over themselves to perpetuate the targets, rally the rabble-rabble-rabble, convince everyone else that they too hate the 'right' things, the 'right' targets.
Prove they aren't standing out.
It'd be sad except how it destroys lives and prevents us from advancing on so many levels. It's in our nature to destroy ourselves. Shit like this is why. Mob rules. Dopamine. Fear of standing out.
Sure there's probably some deeper meaning to a number of them, but a large helping of it is for the same reason the media does it, anger and pettiness gets the clicks, shares and upvotes. They're...
Sure there's probably some deeper meaning to a number of them, but a large helping of it is for the same reason the media does it, anger and pettiness gets the clicks, shares and upvotes.
They're karma farming (or whatever the equivalent is on other platforms). They'll grab old posts that did well and repost them or post what did well on another sub, knowing it'll get lots of upvotes. Some have bots doing this stuff and I'm sure we have AI written posts as well. You might not notice, but they do this with comments as well. All to get more Karma either because they're obsessed with raising it, selling accounts or raising Karma to make an account appear more legit with some underhanded plan like creating accounts for bots that will influencing voters, upvote/downvote posts or praise/hate a product.
I'm curious what Reddit would be like without karma or awards. How much of the trash posts would just disappear?
I think others have expressed my thoughts better than I could, so I will keep it short. That kind of low effort content drives engagement and people love getting more imaginary internet points. I...
I think others have expressed my thoughts better than I could, so I will keep it short. That kind of low effort content drives engagement and people love getting more imaginary internet points. I recommend watching this video, it's only about 6 minutes long: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc
I tend to think it comes down to two things. 1) anger is energising, and 2)anger drives engagement, not just at the algorithm level, but at the social level.
If you make a post about something that makes you really happy, the response is mostly likes/upvotes/celebratory emoji reactions and most comments are one or two word cheers.
If you make a post about something that makes you really angry, the response is usually a lot more verbose and the conversation lasts longer. People who agree tend to rant and the people who disagree tend to argue.
This pattern applies everywhere I look. Pseudonymous social media, named social media, work chat channels, friend group messages, and even sometimes actual in-person chats with friends and family.
So if you're looking for interaction, negative posts/comments get much more of it than positive ones. And because it's energising it feels rewarding, sometimes even productive.
This is definitely it. The algos favor engagement and angry people create the most engagement. And right now western politics is peak angry.
As you say, anger is energizing and it can feel constructive even though it almost never is.
The left is, in theory, the demographic of compassionate, educated and emotionally intelligent people. But it's also the demographic of self righteousness. We saw it in the worst examples of cancel culture, and we're seeing it now with the demonization of the right. Picking out the worst examples of a group and yelling at them in the public square doesn't seem very progressive. It dehumanizes the whole group. Not to mention that it's intentionally invoking negativity bias, creating an unrealistic picture of the world.
Even if I agree with the sentiments a lot of the time, the methods are self defeating at best. It's good to remember that it's not just one side with a lot of people behaving like children.
It’s more universal than just algos. It’s human nature. The examples OP has are from Reddit, which has a simple confidence interval based voting system. It’s hardly just the evil algos.
I thought someone might say that :) You're right, it's just people. But the algos turn up the volume, and reddit is effected by them quite a lot because everything is cross platform posted these days.
Also, Reddit has an algo too, it's not just upvotes. Age, upvote speed, source subreddit and engagement all play a part. Like everywhere else the exact details of the algo aren't public. There has been speculation that the engagement weight has increased over the last year or so. They'd be crazy not to try it as a publicly traded company.
I live outside of the US, and I think you see the algorithm more easily from here. Many times on the front page I’d see a post that had zero upvotes and many comments calling OP an idiot. I think the algorithm is overwhelmingly based on engagement at this point, downvotes probably directly boost the signal.
Correct. This also applied to your point about self-righteousness. Note the use of past tense, as there has been a notable chance in right-wing culture within my lifetime. The big reason why self-righteousness is associated with leftism is that the true-believing religious right has been sidelined from an equal partner in the GOP alliance to being fringe weirdos who care too much about persnickety details.
Hard to be self-righteous when the core agreement of the new alliance is lib-triggering, rather than any set of performatively shared values.
I think this video on an adjacent subject is now old enough that the general internet population does not remember it! Interesting that that is what makes me feel old. Hahaha.
tl;dw: your thesis is close to touching upon the theory of memetics, or the notion that ideas are subject to selection pressure and evolution same as a gene (ie “genetics”. Also this is where “meme” comes from btw). Content that makes people angry is way, way more compelling than almost any other form of media, so it “wants” to be shared; thus it slowly drains the air out of the room.
Additionally — and maybe more contentiously? — algorithmic systems in place on all those sites encourage contention, either through voting or payment systems (ie rewards for people that create popular content), or through recommender algorithms that prioritize engagement (ie rewards for compelling content). Together those are like pouring kerosene onto a a culture bonfire that was already fairly intense.
So that in mind, my take on answering your question:
The system was rigged from the start. It feels good to get PO’d on the internet (theory of memes), and as long as you have the slightest desire for feeling good, there is an endless stream of content to consume (algorithmic biases). Paid content creators are further incentivized to create more and more radical content, and unpaid content creators get updoots in place of dollarinos.
I’d also note that many people do realize that this is killing them, but there are many, many more people on the internet who don’t or who have learned to profit from the current state of affairs. Put another way: it’s likely difficult to notice one person’s absence when a dozen new people jump in afterwards.
I had the same video in mind before I finished reading the original post.
First step is to think about what you’re seeing on these social media platforms — very few allow a timeline-only based feed anymore, almost everything that’s ever put in front of you is content that has already collected a bunch of metrics that the platform wants to maintain or enhance (e.g. people view it for longer, click on it sooner, comment on it more, whatever the metrics are capturing)
So okay, what you’re seeing is what has already captured these metrics well. How did it get here? I think the hint is in the original post too: a lot of this stuff is shared across platforms — a Reddit post that’s a screenshot of a Facebook post that’s a screenshot of an Imgur post that’s a screenshot of a tweet — which means that someone saw it on this other platform, and decided to screenshot it and post it somewhere else.
To take that action requires at least a little bit of effort, so while everyone’s effort threshold will be different, chances are it only got shared because it hits that person in just the right way to motivate them to share it further. And layered on top of that, many platforms down-rank content that causes someone to end their session, so if people take a screenshot to take elsewhere, then that post had better be otherwise performing really well in the other ways. Otherwise, anything that’s inherently shareable but doesn’t drive engagement will be flagged as performing poorly. So your grandma’s world class pancake recipe will never end up on the front page, much to the detriment of the wider world.
Even search results these days are often based on “relevance” (and stuffed with “featured” or “recommended” items peppered throughout) so the options to view posts without any influence from the platform is quite limited.
So ultimately, the content that you even have access to has likely been passed through multiple filters, and each filter selects for content that is high in engagement and sharability, so in my mind the kind of stuff that makes it to the list is almost inevitably going to be this kind of toxic content. How could you come across anything else, except by sheer force of willpower and deliberate consideration on the part of many individuals along the pathway through social media.
I've noticed this even in non-political contexts. I make a weekly post to r/CFB analyzing voting patterns in the Associated Press college football rankings. Even for something as unimportant as that, the majority of comments are mocking or memeing against specific voters instead of commenting on the data. It's discouraging because it takes a moderate amount of effort to make every week, but the quality of interactions in the comments is steadily getting worse.
I've considered posting it to Tildes as well, since the quality of conversations is better here, but there are so few sportsball nerds around here that I might not get any response at all.
As an established non-sportsball nerd, post it here. Tildes will never attract sports folks if sports info isn't here. And those of us who don't follow can get a taste, or block if we want to.
There are dozens of us here! r/CFB is one of the few subreddits in which I still consistently lurk.
Unfortunately I tend to not write much nowadays so you won't get much out of me except for a vote.
It was my main subreddit for so long. I've been unsubscribed for years now because it just got too big and lost what made it great.
Absolute vs. relative % numbers are in play, here. We as humans haven't yet developed the cultural tools we need to deal with superscale connectivity, and much of our innate social judgement co-evolved in much, much smaller groups than we are exposed to now. What seems like a lot of people may be a tiny percentage of the most reactive, simply amplified by the algorithm. Or it may be bots. Or it may genuinely reflect a worrying trend! But we do not, and cannot know which of these it is without serious analysis and access to back-end data that the social media companies do not share.
I recently heard someone say that they are nostalgic for the time the internet was a small part of their lives and felt big, instead of the current inverse. I agree with them, and it's one of the reasons I post more here than on reddit. I do want to talk to people, just not everyone all at once, and yes I gatekeep the everliving heck out of who I interact with for sanity's sake. Falling down the rabbit hole of guessing internet behavior otherwise is (IMO) a losing game.
So right. And I think we're going to need to be more intentional about developing them, feels like it's happening too slowly.
it's easier to engage with than actual insight which requires thought to understand and appreciate
because of that, you win more hearts and minds by making every mistake related to your opponent stick to them so they look like morons. The modern right built a lot of success on the back of "sjw cringe compilation" type content in like 2012 - 2016
As others have pointed out, anger/negativity drives engagement. One thing that I would add is that it is a coping mechanism. I think the people you're talking about recognize the many gigantic, frightening, rage-enducing problems in the world and they feel powerless when it comes to addressing those problems. Proper organization/mobilization/whatever is very difficult. It takes planning, coordination, willpower, time, leadership, and worst of all, getting up and doing something. That's a very daunting task. Not only are they trying to get by in life, but they're also facing a multi-billion dollar machine that is engrained in every level of the political process and has a propaganda outlet that targets the other side's fears and resentments with precision.
When people feel helpless, and there's nothing really there to channel that feeling and turn it into something productive, then the shitposts that mocks the absurdity of the situation become cathartic. There's comfort in knowing someone else out there feels the same way.
A lot of folks are talking about anger, and while I think it is an important driving factor, I think it's important to look a step deeper. Why do people feel angry and need more outlets for their anger? I believe this is just an outlet for a symptom - the symptom being deep distrust in the system, a lack of support, an increasing wealth divide, and a desire to see change but no mechanism by which to actualize it. If you've spent a reasonable amount of time in spaces where folks are really marginalized, you'll find a lot more folks who need a space to vent their anger. I think we're seeing this in society at large as more folks are feeling left behind and without support, and the internet has created spaces for this particular behavior to be vented.
People have discussed many dimensions of this phenomenon in the thread but to specifically address your core question of why people continue to do this when we know it is bad for us… To me, the real answer is addiction. We are not making 100% free and independent decisions. We are chasing the dopamine hits and a number of other biological responses.
It’s like asking a compulsive eater to put down the bag of cookies. And yet the cookie company is figuring out how to make them more addictive than crack.
People have always made fun of other people. Groups of people have always made fun of, or ostracized (or worse), other groups of people. The times when this doesn't happen are the exception rather than the rule and are usually socially situational (you don't make fun of people in your own circle, to your boss's face, or at church). The exceptions to this human behavior are when we invoke social contracts and cultural norms (I've gotten used to the African cultural norm of people openly laughing at your misfortune, but if a westerner does that to me I will shit down their throat).
Shitposting and clowning on stuff people posted on the internet, and calling them cringe en masse, only unites people around victimizing the victim (especially if they're anonymous or forgettable). In answer to "how come this many people, after all this time, don't realize this is such an unhealthy thing?" They do it because it's something to do and fulfills their most primitive needs. I mean, we also had the war to end all wars and then decided that a sequel would be a worthy enterprise. Didn't really fulfill our needs in the long run. Repeating our mistakes is easier than working to find common ground, so the cycle continues. Incidentally, some people who suffer traumas become the people who perpetrate traumas on others. Because as individuals and as small groups we don't really heal ourselves right.
If humans were really good at improving society around us we wouldn't be that meme of a dog in a house on fire saying "this is fine." (Relevant NPR article on that meme.) I think there's a way to peacefully improve society, but we're past the point of "let's hope everyone listened to that great podcast on sociology."
People want easy validation. It's really that simple.
For all the same reasons Right Wing feeds and forums and so forth will be full of "owning the libs" and such, Left Wing will be full of the same stuff, for the same reasons. To get that dopamine hit of "they agree with me." They all want the validation of the mob.
It's not just standalone threads or whatever, where someone starts it specifically for the validation of getting everyone to pile on the molehill they start so it can grow into a mountain they'll be at the top of. You see it in most threads. There's a groupthink conclusion, or at least one some will either assume or want to be the assumption, and they'll respond to the thread along those lines. They post according to that assumption, seeking the validation. Because they know, or at least suspect, that'll be what gets validated and they want to be validated rather than targeted.
I could name specific topics as examples, but that'd just, inevitably, ironically, derail this thread. It would devolve it into people protesting it's not a good example, it's totally valid to hate that example, and so on. They wouldn't admit the point, wouldn't even address the point. They'd simply fall over themselves in their extreme eagerness to seek the validation of others who'd come along and say "yeah, exactly, that (whatever) is (whatever's bad about it/them) and therefore fuck (it/them)."
If you pay attention, which really most people don't, you see the treads. They're not exactly hidden. They're right there in plain sight. You see people pop into threads and they'll try to walk some tightrope line where they attempt to assuage the mob with "oh, of course, totally evil and bad and deserved to be fucked right off of existence" even as they might then attempt to "but, maybe, there's this one part that might be okay".
Which is an uphill climb, because mob rules. Few do that; they're the exception. Most are just piling on. Validation is easy. Simple. Grade school simple. Anger lowers intelligence. Something the Left fails to grasp about how "easy" it is for the Right to harness people is how basic, simple emotions are easier for a crowd, a group, a mob, to share amongst themselves.
Look at what's easier? To propagate, to reinforce. "Fuck that guy!!!" Or, "well, on balance, there's X and Y and we should consider Z and really it's a complicated subject demanding careful study."
When you're trying to harness the mob, get their votes for example, the most direct path to influence is through basic emotion. Something the Left refuses to utilize in their attempt to "rise above" and "be cultured" and all that. Right is perfectly willing to harness even the most simple of emotions because, at the end of the day, power is power. People are power. People backing you is power.
Mobs don't study shit. Mobs want action. Social media is lightspeed mobbing. Simple rules the day. Complex comes later, after they're on board. After they've decided who they might listen to for a bit. Way later.
And later, way or not, rarely comes online. Feeds move second by second. You can say something, go to sleep or hop on a plane, and a few hours later you're the worldwide trending "fuck you" of the moment simply because you offended the mob and offered them an easy target to score dopamine with. Made yourself the squeeze they're all getting today's juice from.
And no one wants to be in the juicer. They'd rather be drinking. They want to be part of the mob, not the target. So they'll fall all over themselves to perpetuate the targets, rally the rabble-rabble-rabble, convince everyone else that they too hate the 'right' things, the 'right' targets.
Prove they aren't standing out.
It'd be sad except how it destroys lives and prevents us from advancing on so many levels. It's in our nature to destroy ourselves. Shit like this is why. Mob rules. Dopamine. Fear of standing out.
Sure there's probably some deeper meaning to a number of them, but a large helping of it is for the same reason the media does it, anger and pettiness gets the clicks, shares and upvotes.
They're karma farming (or whatever the equivalent is on other platforms). They'll grab old posts that did well and repost them or post what did well on another sub, knowing it'll get lots of upvotes. Some have bots doing this stuff and I'm sure we have AI written posts as well. You might not notice, but they do this with comments as well. All to get more Karma either because they're obsessed with raising it, selling accounts or raising Karma to make an account appear more legit with some underhanded plan like creating accounts for bots that will influencing voters, upvote/downvote posts or praise/hate a product.
I'm curious what Reddit would be like without karma or awards. How much of the trash posts would just disappear?
I think others have expressed my thoughts better than I could, so I will keep it short. That kind of low effort content drives engagement and people love getting more imaginary internet points. I recommend watching this video, it's only about 6 minutes long: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc
Was /r/195 particularly influential in meme history or something?