like either a dumbass posting stupid shit, unfair bans, idiotic arguments, etc etc. i feel so incredibly stupid letting it affect me at all, but then also there’s real feelings mixed in there because it’s a real argument i give a shit about to some degree. so it’s this odd double crossing where i know it’s stupid but i process it as being real.
bonus points for not answering ‘go outside drink water read a book’ etc etc
It doesn’t happen often, but I do this for people in my life occasionally as well with online. I type out a whole response that I would want to say. Then I delete it without sharing it. It is often enough for me to realize it just doesn’t matter and it is better to move on.
Reddit taught me this. It’s great to cope with frustration while not engaging in a sterile argument.
It’s a good idea. You get to rehearse your response to something touchy that somebody might mention IRL at a dinner or campfire or whatever. It helps you evaluate your own understanding before saying something ignorant or too extreme that winds up negatively affecting a good friendship.
When I first started participating online I made the mistake of regurgitating IRL a lot of opinions and garbage I read in spaces I thought I agreed with, at least adjacently. When I noticed other people doing this in my cohort I got a serious case of the cringe and made an effort to be a little more real to myself.
Now various channels are other worlds to practice my thoughts before expressing them materially, before possibly causing discomfort to people I like. I’m thankful for online spaces taking the burrs off or otherwise letting the dough proof
This, along with keeping in perspective that troll farms exist and operate on social media because more interactions mean more usage, and more usage means more value to the platform because these numbers prove people are using it. So the trolls causing friction make the platform owners richer, the trolls try to go viral on bad takes (for clout or other direct financial gain by ‘influencing’), and this is how and why there seems to be so many people seeming to be ‘extreme’ (while some certainly are, others are emboldened and just follow their lead when it seems that there’s no negative consequence). End of the day, if someone’s trying to get your goat, don’t let them buy it with bullshit.