this post was submitted on 13 May 2024
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Unpopular Opinion

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(Content warning, discussions of SA and misogyny, mods I might mention politics a bit but I hope this can be taken outside the context of politics and understood as a discussion of basic human decency)

We all know how awful Reddit was when a user mentioned their gender. Immediate harassment, DMs, etc. It's probably improved over the years? But still awful.

Until recently, Lemmy was the most progressive and supportive of basic human dignity of communities I had ever followed. I have always known this was a majority male platform, but I have been relatively pleased to see that positive expressions of masculinity have won out.

All of that changed with the recent "bear vs man" debacle. I saw women get shouted down just for expressing their stories of being sexually abused, repeatedly harassed, dogpiled, and brigaded with downvotes. Some of them held their ground, for which I am proud of them, but others I saw driven to delete their entire accounts, presumably not to return.

And I get it. The bear thing is controversial; we can all agree on this. But that should never have resulted in this level of toxicity!

I am hoping by making this post I can kind of bring awareness to this weakness, so that we can learn and grow as a community. We need to hold one another accountable for this, or the gender gap on this site is just going to get worse.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Think of it like this, we as a civilization stand on the brink of collapse. Can we change it? Yes. Are we trying to? Yes. Is it working? Debatable.

About Lemmy, there's all kinds of people here. Those with the know-how segregated themselves into particular communities and blocked out all the rest. They're just quietly doing their thing wherever, with no fucks given about what's happening outside of that.

Beyond that, in my opinion, are two types of people left to roam the default maelstrom. Those without the know-how and those who thrive in the drama. The former are usually driven out by the dramartists.

I'd see it to be the same as in society. There's people doing their own thing, trying to be left alone. There's people just stumbling through life, not knowing what they want or need, nor the means to get them. And then there's the people who thrive through conflict and making things miserable for everyone else.

Both on Lemmy and in society, guess which ones usually end up in charge...

The answer though is simple. Get involved. Don't want to deal with the toxic waste? Well tough shit, because the planet's full of it. We're at the stage where we all have to clean it up. There's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Want to give up and run away? Good luck with that! When there's no more room left, all that toxicity will just spill all over you, no matter how hard you tried to get away.

As individuals, each of us is a minority. And if we keep running from the issues that plague us as a group, we'll never be allowed to thrive.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (5 children)

Meanwhile its the opposite for me. Character assasinating everyone who wasnt a fan of the bear meme and mods deleting any post that wasnt fully inflammatory has made me second guess whether I want to be here far more than the Tankies ever did

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (9 children)

the internet is a machine that turns attention into currency, it does this at the same rate for negative and positive attention, and negative attention is a lot easier to get. you just burst onto a platform unbidden and say something that will piss people off. You get rewarded, the platform gets rewarded, everybody wins except the users who have a gross toxic time in the comments. Lemmy may not run ads, but it's structured the same way that other platforms are and we already have a way of using those types of platforms built into our cultural knowledge, so Lemmy just turns into a loose confederation of reddits.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I'm not a bear but on behalf of bears I think it's funny that many women prefer bears which unironically explains how deranged everyone is

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

Who will win: Gender equality or a funny bear

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago

I hear what you are saying. It makes me think of the LGBTQ people when some Mastodon instances gave them a safe space to communicate. Safe spaces do however depend on well working moderation.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (12 children)

I don’t know how you can solve this. Lemmy has become a refuge for outcasts. Men with social/personality issues are the biggest group of outcasts. Women are much less likely to be outcasts and so have far less interest in being here.

To create an environment that is welcoming to a particular group takes a certain critical mass of people from that group. If you’re such an extremely small minority you’re going to have a very difficult time reaching that critical mass and the negative environment further discourages people from joining.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (2 children)

wtf been going on around here

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago (22 children)

i'm just a little disappointed woman seem to consistently be a minority here

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