Hacker News Reader

Comment by segasaturn | Hacker News Reader

The site really took a nosedive in about the last 6 months in my experience, I think a combination of the API fiasco + current world events has really done a 1-2 punch on the site. The front page of reddit is a nightmare zone, it's all ragebait, clickbait, shit political memes and posts clearly made by marketing interns and boosted by bot accounts. Every comment section feels intensely ideological and any comment that strays from the majority opinion is downvoted to hell. Also loads of those tacky "badges" on comments everywhere making for a lot of visual clutter. Just an all around unpleasant to use site. PG calls the average reddit user "curious, skeptical, ready to be amused" which feels almost like the exact opposite of my experience.

View on HN

I’ve felt it too. I can’t fight the feeling that it happens to attract a certain kind of mentally ill person. Specifically, the preponderance of anxious, neurotic persons, often with a persecution complex and a militant ideology, is enormous. The result is a climate of unbridled vitriol and outright hate for whatever group they hold responsible for their woes.

It increasingly feels like Reddit is a breeding ground for various types of extremism (usually left-leaning, with some notable exceptions).

People who seem to want to be offended. I hate the /s they've adopted. It ruins the joke by explaining it. I dislike the implication sarcasm cannot be conveyed via text. Hundreds of years of authorship and numerous popular works tell otherwise. But people do it to shield themselves from what sometimes feels like intentional misinterpretation.

Showing votes is possibly a huge contributing factor. It's well known they gather momentum.

> I hate the /s they've adopted. [...] I dislike the implication sarcasm cannot be conveyed via text.

I suspect autism is overrepresented in the Reddit population.

It probably is here too, but people tend to self regulate a little better I think. The rules help a lot too.

I still use some tech subs but I used to dumbscroll the main page for inane things to laugh at. What was on there changed over time and it was well past the high point, but maybe a year or six months ago I just couldn't do it. The stuff you describe was always part of the /r/all mix but now that is all there is. There's nothing fun on there anymore, at all.

lemmy is probably to left leaning for my taste but at least the main page still has lots inane and funny things as well as more of a tech focus.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com