I don't have an interesting story but I agree. Everyone I know that uses reddit became less interesting or a worse person. People became less interesting to talk to because seeing same viral content on reddit is no basis for any kind of relationship with anyone. Someone would bring up something they saw, and you would basically know that you both looked at reddit that morning and everything interesting or funny to be said about it was in the comment thread. It is like reddit replaced our normal interactions with commodified human interaction. It took over people's brains and they became generic and boring by deploying wit that has been reviewed by fellow humans and determined to be valuable by an algorithm. For years I avoided everything where interacting with known people was replaced by interacting with points. I guess I'm fully back in the bullshit but I think I was probably happier back then.
I need to second this. Not necessarily with reddit, but the sensation that relating genuinely to other people has been replaced with articles or posts. My friends are techies, so conversations inevitably start with "hey did you see...?" followed by a link to an article from a website or blog that my friend knows we both read, and that I definitely have already read. And since that article has a comment thread, our conversation has been presaged for us. Everything has already been said, and when this pattern repeats many times, eventually we skip the conversation and just go right to "weird" or "crazy" or "lol" or "i know, rite?". Make sure to keep an eye out for the most controversial comment (even amount of upvotes and downvotes), that is sure to be the most interesting take. The more comments the article has, the better.
I like my friends, but I feel that there are aspects of the internet (and I guess the dark cloud of capitalism, as pointed out in other comments here) that make interacting with people feel less special.
I don't have an interesting story but I agree. Everyone I know that uses reddit became less interesting or a worse person. People became less interesting to talk to because seeing same viral content on reddit is no basis for any kind of relationship with anyone. Someone would bring up something they saw, and you would basically know that you both looked at reddit that morning and everything interesting or funny to be said about it was in the comment thread. It is like reddit replaced our normal interactions with commodified human interaction. It took over people's brains and they became generic and boring by deploying wit that has been reviewed by fellow humans and determined to be valuable by an algorithm. For years I avoided everything where interacting with known people was replaced by interacting with points. I guess I'm fully back in the bullshit but I think I was probably happier back then.
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I need to second this. Not necessarily with reddit, but the sensation that relating genuinely to other people has been replaced with articles or posts. My friends are techies, so conversations inevitably start with "hey did you see...?" followed by a link to an article from a website or blog that my friend knows we both read, and that I definitely have already read. And since that article has a comment thread, our conversation has been presaged for us. Everything has already been said, and when this pattern repeats many times, eventually we skip the conversation and just go right to "weird" or "crazy" or "lol" or "i know, rite?". Make sure to keep an eye out for the most controversial comment (even amount of upvotes and downvotes), that is sure to be the most interesting take. The more comments the article has, the better.
I like my friends, but I feel that there are aspects of the internet (and I guess the dark cloud of capitalism, as pointed out in other comments here) that make interacting with people feel less special.