Before I really get into this, I'd like to acknowledge the genuinely cool people here. People with cool hobbies, who post photography and other cool art... People who are enthusiastic about something that even mildly interests me. You are the reason I scroll Lemmy for embarrassing amounts of time. I've learned a lot over the past three years from cool people like you. Folks like you are what makes anything about the Internet worth a damn period, and I wish we could clone you all! Another thank you to the people who have been cool to me even when I myself was being toxic. A few of you managed to be kind and offer helpful advice even when I probably didn't deserve it, without coming off as fake or condescending. It usually brought a tear to my eye and made me have a bit more hope for the future. This has happened more than a handful of times and I appreciated it each time.

Now for the shit I need to get off my chest...

Admiral Patrick is a fucking asshole for multiple, already-discussed reasons we can all agree on. He was wrong about quite a lot, but he was right about one thing: a lot of users make this platform often hard to handle (and no I'm not proposing a system to shadowban anyone). I could write up lots of detailed examples but we all know what I'm talking about. Many people are incredibly rude, condescending, hateful, and intolerant when it comes to certain topics, and they don't even feel the need to limit their hatred to people who "deserve it". Anyone who dares challenge them catches all those flavors of negativity. I've had to block so many users, communities, and instances I couldn't begin to name even 5% of them.

I would say this toxicity is not unique to the fediverse, but it goes largely unchecked here because certain users share their hatreds and bloodlusts and form cliques based on it, mods/admins included, and the thing that more often is kept in check by those individuals is pushback against the zealotry/toxicity. Nearly all of it is related to black and white thinking and snap judgements.

If you take issue with one minor point, you'll often get a hateful reply assigning you horrific viewpoints. The way I interact with the platform anyhow, it's a very unwelcoming place without lots of blocking in place, and the blocklist is always growing. I always want to see "All", so I'm not siloed into small communities with polite people who want to discuss a cool nerdy interest. If there were more users here I would probably try to make that my usage mode, but there aren't enough users to make that work for me.

What makes me consider leaving this place nearly every day is how absurdly common it is to have someone jump down your throat and cram words in your mouth. Over something they literally had no understanding of and don't want to understand. They want to take out their sadness and anger on you because you represent the "enemy", if you challenge them at all. I'm self aware enough to know that I do it too sometimes too btw.

Conservatism is the ultimate in toxicity, and frankly we don't have much of that brand here. To hear many lemmings tell it though, there's secret conservatism hidden everywhere and only they are above it. The purity testing, the hatred for people with slightly different positions (even if the goals are identical), it's painfully exhausting. The other day I saw someone baselessly called out as a Zionist (who wasn't even present in the thread at the time!) and when I stood up to the accuser on their behalf, they soon slid into the thread to insult me and say the accuser was right to be randomly accusing them, even though they are not a Zionist. That's yet another sign to me that the toxicity is deeply ingrained. "Hey I'm not [bad thing], but I will stand up for stranger's right to say it about me any time!"

This also reminds me of another weird quirk I see here. Because the user base is small enough to recognize top commenters/posters, it's common to see specific users get shit talked when they are not even present. That usually rubs me the wrong way. One user even made a very in depth audio recording talking several minutes of shit about a top poster here and you'll never guess what happened when I called that out as shitty! Banned in several communities and toxic comments galore. How dare I come on on my high horse to point out how childish and shitty that was.

All this gets very deflating. Coming from reddit, it was very refreshing to see leftists everywhere, and intolerance of views being mostly aimed at conservatism, but everyone adjusted and started infighting almost immediately. I fully expect to be called a liberal or a zionist for writing this post, because, see, some users already know everything about me that matters: I implicitly called out their zealotry and am thus the enemy. I fucking hate it. I know there are many reasonable people here but honestly? They're probably often afraid to say anything because they'd rather not get an inbox full of shitty messages. All of this goes back to black and white thinking. And the oligarchs have gotten exactly what they want. Instead of banding together we're slinging shit at each other constantly. Fuck that. People are capable of being better than this but every day I'm learning they just refuse to be.

Conservatives have the toxic views, but so many leftists would rather see you dead than disagree with them on anything. What the fuck is wrong with them? I get being frustrated, WE ALL ARE. But you are NOT HELPING with this shit. Cut it the fuck out.

I got a little sidetracked though because a lot of these issues come up when politics are discussed, but it's not only politics. The fediverse-specific type of toxicity is mostly political in nature but then you also get all the normal asshole behavior you see on reddit and elsewhere. People who care far more about stating something in the exact way they understand it and become offended if you even try to add clarity to what they said for other users. Pedantry, snide dismissiveness, bigotry, most anything you hate about reddit is here too. Some other things that are sort of unique here, IME anyhow: weird/awkward horny posts. I do not want to have to block the same users account 5 times and be told I'm a prudish asshole if I say so. I simply want to use my phone in public without weird shit I don't want to see, ever, popup in a feed. I have probably blocked 50 communities for NSFW stuff I'm rarely if ever interested in, dozens of furry and hentai communities, some portraying sexualized children, etc. Is my having to block these things the issue, partially yes, but I'm only bringing it up here because of the fediverse mantra of "dude just block it okay?! No one cares about your little hangups!" I get it, it doesn't bother you to need to block 37 communities of dragon cocks and twelve year olds bending over or whatever, but if anyone complains about those, can we not chill the fuck out and let them vent for a second? Many if not most people don't want to see that shit.

The last thing about this place that's been getting my goat lately is hatred against large groups of people. Ya know what, you will never convince me or any truly decent person that it's okay to blanket-hate Americans because of what their leadership is doing. I don't want this to become as big of part of this post than necessary, but I just had to say it. A lot of Americans are shitty people, yes. As an American I'm insanely aware of it. I'm embarrassed, I'm sad about it, and there's a feeling of hopelessness I wouldn't wish on anyone that comes from watching this country's citizens reveal publicly so many awful things about themselves. More than I understood to be possible. Guess what though, saying job losses in America is hilarious still makes you a shitty person. I'm not sure what the best way to describe it is but I call it bigotry myself. What you're doing is literally saying "those people are terrible because of where they were born; they're all the same there". You can pretend that all Americans are to blame for trump or whatever you wanna say but that's just not factual. Sure, American society is if you zoom all the way out. We Americans let it get that way here over the years, but it's idiotic to suggest people who became homeless in America "deserve it" because of something you oversimplified. Even if 90% of them did, you're still a hateful asshole. And yes you're the same level of shitty if you laugh about terrible things happening to random Russians (not soldiers, politicians, etc). Those people may not support one fucking thing being forced on them by that dictatorship, and further, even if they did, it should not be so hard to understand that such a high degree of propaganda can convince people of lies.

Anyhow, that's my rant. I keep saying I'm going to quit Lemmy but so far the cool people mentioned above and the dopamine hits keep me coming back. I probably won't last forever though. The toxicity level seems to keep rising even after I block more and more toxic users. It sucks. That's all