Post ANDQ6uT1FaKSVKdccC by icedquinn@blob.cat
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(DIR) Post #ANDEtyW7mXrjnyiicS by Anarkat@hackers.town
2022-09-03T00:55:12Z
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Have a long essay on the internalized toxicity of "shitposter" culture floating around in my head.
(DIR) Post #ANDEtzBFJel7rVxYiO by Anarkat@hackers.town
2022-09-04T06:02:35Z
0 likes, 1 repeats
I consider "shitposting" to be a kind of stream-of-consciousness way of engaging with the world. Bringing internal thought processes external, with minimal filtering.But bringing internal thought processes external doesn't only work one way.It works both ways.When you have a whole group of shitposters, in a shitposter echo chamber, bouncing ideas back and forth at each other, they are individuals building up a mutual view of the world. They share the things they think about the world, and if it's close enough to someone else's view of the world, they become integrated together.In the same way that the shallow internal thoughts are processed and externalized with minimal filtering, the shallow external inputs of other people are internalized with minimal filtering.At a basic level, it's a kind of skinner box. Press the button, get reward. Shitpost a good zinger, get a lot of likes, I'm a good person because other people like what I'm saying.But all of this is subconscious. It's following urges to chase good feelings, and avoid bad feelings.Since these posts and responses are engaged with as though they were integral to the thought processes, they are also related to as though they were integral thought proceses.Good thoughts feel good. Good happy feelings posted by other people aren't just other people saying nice things, those thoughts become internally true thoughts. Validation is not processed internally, but sought entirely externally, and integrated as though it were an internal thought, when the individual no longer believes themselves capable of generating positive internal validation for themselves.So then, what about the shitposters' violent reaction to negative stimulus? Someone saying bad things that they don't agree with, that they don't want to think about themselves or the world?This whole process of engagement and integration of ideas serves the purpose of staving off obtrusive negative thoughts; when an individual doesn't feel like they have control over the things that they think, they find ways to externalize that process until they can have some manner of control. It's about having control. I can control the things that I think about the world, and about myself, by making sure that the other people who I engage with and relate to are people who have a view of the world that agrees with what I want to think about the world, and who tell me things about myself that feel good.If someone says something that leads me to not feel good, it feels like an attack. I view of the world which runs entirely contrary to my own desired view of the world.This negative stimulus is reacted to as though it were an internal obtrusive though; it is violently expelled.Now, I'm fairly certain that most social media encourages shitposting to greater or lesser degrees. Engaging with social media in this way doesn't make someone a bad person. It's not bad to use other people's view of the world, to build up our own view of the world. We create mutual understanding of the world this way.Where this turns toxic is when exaggerated perceptions of the way that the world sucks becomes accepted reality. Engaging with the world in this way also makes someone very vulnerable to manipulation.If a hostile actor recognizes how a particular individual or group engages with social media in this way, it is fairly trivial for them to suggest that the world is bad in someway, and that some particular individual is responsible for it. In this way, individuals or whole communities can be subverted to unknowingly act in the benefit of these hostile actors.This happens in conspiracy theorist echo chambers. They went from reality-denying but ultimately harmless nonsense about chemtrails and bigfoot into being weaponized heavily against government orgs and minority communities.These "shitposter" communities also pride themselves on their "open-mindedness" whereby they refuse to take moderator action on an instance level, and insist that it is the right of the individuals to engage with whoever they want, however they want.What this is really about, is following the wishes of their users to not allow other people to control their worldview, recognizing that their worldview is affected by who they talk to, but failing to recognize that other people can control their worldview without their consent, through the previously mentioned manipulation strategies.When a moderator refuses to disengage, filter, silence, or defederate their own community from horrifically toxic communities, for example shitposter.club, or poa.st, that moderator is abdicating responsibility for the impact that the shitty racist sexist ideas have on shaping the worldview of their users.When there is a group of people who are vulnerable to being manipulated into taking on shitty racist ideas and ideology, and someone else claims that it is the other person's "right" to engage with those other people as they see fit, that's clearly bullshit.It's about maintaining control, and not doing things to piss off their users, to prevent themselves from losing power.Because if they cared about their users' well-being, they'd disengage from the shitty racist toxic people, and even accepting the assertion that it's true that they're free to engage with other people as they wish, blocking those shitty toxic communities doesn't take any autonomy away from the individual users because those users can move to a different instance if interacting with shitty racist people is so important to them.The process of shitposting back and forth is the process of establishing a mutual understanding of reality, either of trying to establish a mutual understanding of what the in-group believes, or trying to establish a mutual understanding of what the out-group believes.It's easy for groups who are un-self-aware and locked in this dynamic to be directed towards demonizing outgroups. All it takes is for someone of the outgroup to say something that intrudes on their mutually asserted reality, or for them to be convinced that someone else said something that intrudes on their mutually asserted reality.The point where this turns into a flame war, is where multiple groups who are prone to falling into these patterns of engagement become convinced that the other has said something or believes something which is irreconcilable with their own worldview. If someone else's worldview is irreconcilable with your own, that makes the other person a threat to be attacked and defended against.So, what of mastodon queer shitposter culture in particular?I consider this community and mindset to be a reaction to a lot of socially-induced trauma, around failing to communicate, to be understood, and in being accused of being a bad person, and feeling like a bad person so much as a result of external factors.These people, having been pushed out of their communities over and over again for their identity, for other people not understanding them, now establish for themselves a space to share with other people, who understand this shared trauma, and who have this shared mode of engaging with other people, who understand this shared trauma.They bounce shitposts back and forth at each other and build a mutual understanding of the world through this exchange of ideas.Then, if/when this shared understanding of the world, of how to use language, diverges from what other people think is acceptable, and someone in the out-group points out how the way they engage with other people is hurtful or harmful or perpetuates harmful ideas to people outside the in-group, this itself can be very triggering.After a lifetime of being accused of being bad for who they are, of other people interpreting things that they're saying as bad, of failing to be understood, they think that they've finally established a place where they're free of that, and yet it returns once again.They've now formed an entire identity around saying things that they don't mean, indirect language, and being understood in what they actually mean through a shared understanding of interfacing with each other feels good, because it feels good to be part of a community.A lot of this is taking on a rejection of sincere expression of intent and language, in favor of a cynical one, where no one says what they mean, the actual intent of the meaning of the members of the in-group is a shared secret, in order to protect themselves against the hurt and pain of not being understood. They reject sincere expression, and say things that they don't mean, to ensure that, if someone else doesn't understand what they mean, it's because it's intentional, and if someone else does understand what they mean, it's because they're a trusted member of their community.And then being challenged to say what they actually mean, that feels bad. It feels like a rejection of their identity.These are people who are building up their own language, which is intentionally obtuse and opaque to outsiders. These are people who are linguistically isolating themselves in order to defend themselves against the pain of being isolated against their will.These are not people who are unreachable. These are people who have been hurt by society, who have been excluded and alienated from communities. We're all a bunch of traumatized children, trying to sort through a world which is constantly contradictory and painful. With this in mind, trying to inoculate one's self against that pain and confusion, by claiming ownership of it, makes a certain kind of sense.Understand the individual, and you can understand how to reach them.We're all just people, trying to protect ourselves from trauma.Please be nicer. There's a scared child inside all of us.unrelated: This is what the hackers.town character limit looks like.
(DIR) Post #ANDEu0J580cZM6dKZE by Anarkat@hackers.town
2022-09-04T06:05:41Z
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I'm calling out @onan @eris
(DIR) Post #ANDEu1U6kV2F0aneOO by Anarkat@hackers.town
2022-09-04T06:15:07Z
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Ultimately, when shitposters get really mad, they probably aren't even engaging with whatever it is they're being accused of, or feel like they're being accused of. At that point, they're not fighting against what the other person is actually saying, they're fighting against what they think the other person is saying. We all do this to greater or lesser degrees when we're upset.What they're actually afraid of is losing their community, either from being Canceled, or from the community falling apart, or from someone central to the community being ostracized, causing the community to fall apart.They're afraid that the way that they've finally found to meet one of their basic human needs, social connection and mutual understanding within a community, is under threat.Understand that when you're directing vitriol at other people for things that they've said, you're weakening your own message, and the primary message that is going to be received is "you're bad and should feel bad" and this is interpreted, cognitively, as an attack, equivalent to a physical attack in perception, to be defended against.Step back, reassess. If someone is interpreting something you're saying as an attack, the intent of your message isn't getting through.Assess. Understand. Redirect. Re-engage.But don't try the same thing over and over.By doing that, you're going to drive the subject to dig in deeper in their beliefs, to shield themselves from the pain .You're not going to make the world a better place by making someone else's life worse.
(DIR) Post #ANDPUgQF1JtVwP6wFM by kaia@brotka.st
2022-09-04T08:37:59.110550Z
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@eris @onan @Anarkat I think they meant the other eris maybe?
(DIR) Post #ANDPsoSmm8pJpVo5uS by icedquinn@blob.cat
2022-09-04T08:42:21.821718Z
6 likes, 2 repeats
@kaia @eris @Anarkat @onan :blobcatread: this is an awful lot of words.:ablobcatcry: <- this blob is very sad:blobfoxpolice: stop being sad, blob. just git gud and don't lose.:blobcatpain: <- this blob has learned to cope through sarcasm:ablobcatbongokeyboard: <- this blob is posting nonsense because it eases the pain:blobcatshy: thank you for coming to my ted talk
(DIR) Post #ANDQ6uT1FaKSVKdccC by icedquinn@blob.cat
2022-09-04T08:44:54.076893Z
2 likes, 0 repeats
@eris @Anarkat @kaia @onan shitposting is a coping mechanism
(DIR) Post #ANDTlc0f4xTUzlTRsO by emilis@puff.place
2022-09-04T08:54:35.578Z
1 likes, 0 repeats
@Anarkat@hackers.town good deranged takethis is the epitome of a midwit
(DIR) Post #ANDZb2qXYlPkle5HkW by xue@bae.st
2022-09-04T10:31:12.766307Z
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@Anarkat i read the first paragraph, you described any type of social network