The long term effects of peer-enforced behavior moderation

[Punp]

View: https://mobile.twitter.com/_burntlime_/status/1585383365846663168


I thought this Twitter thread by @_burntlime_ was really interesting. I'll transcribe it here so you don't need to go through to Twitter.

TL;DR sjw internet has escaped containment within a school.

art school is taking a toll on my mental health and not for the reason you'd think

to be frank, a lot of the students here (especially the younger ones) are TERMINALLY online. they cannot function normally or have a normal conversation outside of the internet. fandom discourse is now class discourse. there is no logging out.

they cannot consume any media through any lens other than a literal one. EVERYTHING is problematic, but only when other people enjoy it. ie. homestuck fans will accuse fellow students of being PEDOPHILES (or pedo defenders) for satirically liking that one clown guy from hxh.

shipping wars become ACTUAL DRAMA THAT SPLITS FRIEND GROUPS AND STARTS HARASSMENT. there is now an official case of stalking within our dorm complex, which they legally had to inform us of.

let me repeat this, THERE IS NO LOGGING OUT. your entire real life becomes constant and extremely stupid fandom discourse. the upperclassmen are (thank god) usually a lot better about this, but since i'm in mostly first year classes and housing, it's beyond draining.

it's this weird fucking purity culture and performative activism that the younger students constantly crusade in the name of. how the hell do you go to art school just to be so judgmental? art is about expressing yourself! some art will make you uncomfortable. go outside.

anyway yeah i'm just really drained from hearing about stupid online discourse both online and constantly irl too. i'm sick of hearing about how owl house is problematic or how people who watch ouran host club should be compared to real actual criminals. i am so fucking TIRED.

didn't really expect this thread to get attention but i'll add another scary factor is future work. these are the students that will go industry in a few years. jobs don't care about ur fandoms but will obv drop u if they hear "pedo" being yelled at u. people will be fired.

that is SERIOUS. as someone who was groomed and sa'ed it is insane that i have to clarify that i was *actually* assaulted because the definitions have been so fucking watered down. this shit hurts real survivors of abuse. it's not funny or harmless and definitely isn't justice.

jesus did not expect to wake up to this i'm an animator in college for- well- animation! maybe check out my page and gimme a follow if you wanna see more? i've got an instagram too by the same @ :] i lost some followers over this thread for some reason lol ??

 

[№56]

This isn't new, art schools have been filled with terminally online tumblr fandom people for years now. Is there something about being an artist that makes you more likely to fall prey to this kind of thinking, or are fandom kids just the only ones left who still want to go to art school?

 

[dorgon]

not gonna lie, i think this is a symptom of a bigger issue. social media, i think, has had some pretty profound consequences on mental health. A lot of social media promote echo-chamber-like behavior (twitter and >reddit) and as a result terrible behavior like this comes up. This is what happens when you raise your kids via the internet.

 

[handoferis]

Arty wankers have always been like this, the only thing that's changed was the "this" - case in point, art people were still insufferable motherfuckers when I was at uni like a decade ago

 

[Chao Tse-Tung]

I think this showcases that overarching trend, that magnetic pole shift in which normies are the terminally online ones and the weirdo nerds are normal-internet-addicted but still have actual lives.

Speaking as someone who exited high school pretty much just pre-covid, it was definitely largely the weirdo outcasts who would actually hang out and do shit outside of school and the internet. The genpop would maybe have the occasional party and generally speaking just play online games together. This lead to an interesting dynamic in which normies had a lot of strange hardline-opinions, social anxiety, and weird idiosyncrasies, whereas the weirdos were generally the more socially capable people irl that you could hold a real conversation with.

This doesn't add much to the thread but my own anecdotal experience, I guess, but maybe somebody can glean something from it

 

[Deleted member 3373]

I think this showcases that overarching trend, that magnetic pole shift in which normies are the terminally online ones and the weirdo nerds are normal-internet-addicted but still have actual lives.

Speaking as someone who exited high school pretty much just pre-covid, it was definitely largely the weirdo outcasts who would actually hang out and do shit outside of school and the internet. The genpop would maybe have the occasional party and generally speaking just play online games together. This lead to an interesting dynamic in which normies had a lot of strange hardline-opinions, social anxiety, and weird idiosyncrasies, whereas the weirdos were generally the more socially capable people irl that you could hold a real conversation with.



This doesn't add much to the thread but my own anecdotal experience, I guess, but maybe somebody can glean something from it

This. This is completely accurate. Exactly what I'm increasingly seeing.

This isn't new, art schools have been filled with terminally online tumblr fandom people for years now. Is there something about being an artist that makes you more likely to fall prey to this kind of thinking, or are fandom kids just the only ones left who still want to go to art school?

Internet fan culture persists well into the current day unfortunately and it is usually where creative people end up. Why? Well its' origins lie in the culture of schools during the earlier days of the internet. Back when I attended primary school this culture still existed. That is good old fashioned jocks and nerds. Even when I was very young I never fit in with the boys much. I'd have my own little social enclave which was even open to gender mixing. "The boys" were a group of kids that had a very strong need to prove their masculinity. But my group had a much softer sense of masculinity in comparison and also did not feel much need to prove it. We simply left them be. We weren't very loud and aggressive partially because we simply weren't allowed to be at home. I call the former boomer masculinity and the latter traditional masculinity (but more on that in the next paragraph). But the problem is that boomer masculinity prevailed and traditional masculinity was increasingly looked down upon. So what do you do if you are traditionally masculine? Simple, you go to the internet. Because these people are usually spread out and isolated the internet is perfect for them. And what do you do on that internet? Simple, you play video games and watch cartoons. Why? Because these were introverted activities without any real hierarchy. People could argue about this stuff with each other but it had no real world impact on your standing because it was all without consequence as normies didn't care about star trek.

But why do I call this traditional masculinity? Well it's because it is a continuation of what masculinity used to be defined as. Take for example a knight. A knight had a code of conduct which included mercy, humility, honor, sacrifice, faithfulness, courage, utmost graciousness and courtesy toward women. These were pro-social traits designed to maintain peace within a community. Boomer masculinity by comparison required that all the guys get together to play football not as a friendly or casual game but rather to prove their masculinity to the next guy. It is founded on insecurity. Nerd communities used to be higher in these pro-social traits as although prone to petty infighting the men existed on a field of equality within a group and were loyal to that group. They weren't comparable to knights but nerds were actually at one point a very pro-social group. Look at media depicting nerds. Although it will be an exaggeration (as is all fiction) it does in some way reflect the realities of these set ups. Often times nerds in media are depicted as quite cohesive. The stereotype of the anti-social geek couldn't have actually been further from the truth. Nerds were in many ways just running on a now outdated (and superior) version of masculinity. So what changed?

Simple. Social media and online competitive multiplayer gaming. Notice how I stated that video games and cartoons used to be an introverted solitary activity with a sense of equality. Video games used to be mostly single player. Even in the early days of online multiplayer gaming it was a very much casual thing. There was no such thing as ranks or leaderboards. But nowadays we do have leaderboards and rankings. And as a result normies dropped sport in favour of nerd stuff as it was now viable for them to indulge in anti-social traits. Even on the cartoon side of things it was no different as social media allowed for ranking of people based on how much they could pander to the sensibilities of a mass of people they had never met. Normies could now colonise these spaces and in the process force out the old nerds. Normies who are more adapted to high competition could now come in and make these things into their competitive dream.

So where does this leave the artist? Well simple it means that those competitive kids can now come in and wreck the place. Normies now allow themselves to watch cartoons and by extension they can also draw now. And they bring their crap with them. And thus the person who would have fit right into nerd culture back in say.... the 70s is now a fish out of water. This person is searching for something which no longer exists. Most pro-social people are simply leaving this stuff behind now. And it is a very sad reality.

 

[lain is here]

Just going to drop this link since I talked extensively about the whole "perpetually online" situation in my Serial Experiments Lain video. We live in a world that has quite literally fused with the digital

 

[Punp]

This. This is completely accurate. Exactly what I'm increasingly seeing.


Internet fan culture persists well into the current day unfortunately and it is usually where creative people end up. Why? Well its' origins lie in the culture of schools during the earlier days of the internet. Back when I attended primary school this culture still existed. That is good old fashioned jocks and nerds. Even when I was very young I never fit in with the boys much. I'd have my own little social enclave which was even open to gender mixing. "The boys" were a group of kids that had a very strong need to prove their masculinity. But my group had a much softer sense of masculinity in comparison and also did not feel much need to prove it. We simply left them be. We weren't very loud and aggressive partially because we simply weren't allowed to be at home. I call the former boomer masculinity and the latter traditional masculinity (but more on that in the next paragraph). But the problem is that boomer masculinity prevailed and traditional masculinity was increasingly looked down upon. So what do you do if you are traditionally masculine? Simple, you go to the internet. Because these people are usually spread out and isolated the internet is perfect for them. And what do you do on that internet? Simple, you play video games and watch cartoons. Why? Because these were introverted activities without any real hierarchy. People could argue about this stuff with each other but it had no real world impact on your standing because it was all without consequence as normies didn't care about star trek.

But why do I call this traditional masculinity? Well it's because it is a continuation of what masculinity used to be defined as. Take for example a knight. A knight had a code of conduct which included mercy, humility, honor, sacrifice, faithfulness, courage, utmost graciousness and courtesy toward women. These were pro-social traits designed to maintain peace within a community. Boomer masculinity by comparison required that all the guys get together to play football not as a friendly or casual game but rather to prove their masculinity to the next guy. It is founded on insecurity. Nerd communities used to be higher in these pro-social traits as although prone to petty infighting the men existed on a field of equality within a group and were loyal to that group. They weren't comparable to knights but nerds were actually at one point a very pro-social group. Look at media depicting nerds. Although it will be an exaggeration (as is all fiction) it does in some way reflect the realities of these set ups. Often times nerds in media are depicted as quite cohesive. The stereotype of the anti-social geek couldn't have actually been further from the truth. Nerds were in many ways just running on a now outdated (and superior) version of masculinity. So what changed?

Simple. Social media and online competitive multiplayer gaming. Notice how I stated that video games and cartoons used to be an introverted solitary activity with a sense of equality. Video games used to be mostly single player. Even in the early days of online multiplayer gaming it was a very much casual thing. There was no such thing as ranks or leaderboards. But nowadays we do have leaderboards and rankings. And as a result normies dropped sport in favour of nerd stuff as it was now viable for them to indulge in anti-social traits. Even on the cartoon side of things it was no different as social media allowed for ranking of people based on how much they could pander to the sensibilities of a mass of people they had never met. Normies could now colonise these spaces and in the process force out the old nerds. Normies who are more adapted to high competition could now come in and make these things into their competitive dream.

So where does this leave the artist? Well simple it means that those competitive kids can now come in and wreck the place. Normies now allow themselves to watch cartoons and by extension they can also draw now. And they bring their crap with them. And thus the person who would have fit right into nerd culture back in say.... the 70s is now a fish out of water. This person is searching for something which no longer exists. Most pro-social people are simply leaving this stuff behind now. And it is a very sad reality.

I think this was an interesting read but falls into a bias of personal experience. There have always been competitive players - see Bartle's player types as a very rough outline. Unfortunately competitive players will often drive out the """weaker""" players if not properly balanced.

Boomers and other toxic masculinity culture comes from a long history, and if anything being able to deal with emotions properly is an under culture which has only been able to come to light in recent years and people crave it. However, they bring their own toxicity to whatever they touch in their effort to absorb it.

There are places for these balanced and non-aggressive men. The real problem your hobbies are suffering from is popularity.

The only adjustment I'd make to the above graphic is that it's usually the beta males who orbit the women who join the hobby and treat it like a dating service.

 

[Orlando Smooth]

The first person I can remember being what we now call "internet addicted" was one of my neighbors growing up. Our parents were friends and we got along pretty well too, she was a theater kid and VERY into tumblr and early Facebook. It was kind of funny because this was before it was normal for kids to have smartphones, so she'd bring her laptop everywhere in order to stay up on Potter fanfic (no, I'm not joking). She was really smart, always did well in school in the advanced classes, went to a good college and did well there too... and now she's ~30 and still living at home across the street from my parents.

I think that's the thing that always gets to me: being an internet addict seems to rot people's minds in a uniquely damaging way. It would be one thing if being an internet obsessed person was like being a sports obsessed person; something the rest of us can roll our eyes at but generally harmless. But it's not like that. There are terminally online people who have real jobs, sure, but they're incredibly insufferable to be around, are extremely anxious, and don't seem to have meaningful personal relationships in real life.

I also think there is some kind of connection to popularity/bullying, that explains why it has always seemed especially prominent amongst art/theater/music types. Historically there was very little that bullied or unpopular kids could do. Now there exists an opportunity for them to join an online mob and harass people themselves. The power and ability of people to harass one another has expanded massively, so it's believable that there's always been X% of the population that had the desire to harass but never before had the social standing to be able to do it.

 

[handoferis]

The first person I can remember being what we now call "internet addicted" was one of my neighbors growing up. Our parents were friends and we got along pretty well too, she was a theater kid and VERY into tumblr and early Facebook. It was kind of funny because this was before it was normal for kids to have smartphones, so she'd bring her laptop everywhere in order to stay up on Potter fanfic (no, I'm not joking). She was really smart, always did well in school in the advanced classes, went to a good college and did well there too... and now she's ~30 and still living at home across the street from my parents.

I think that's the thing that always gets to me: being an internet addict seems to rot people's minds in a uniquely damaging way. It would be one thing if being an internet obsessed person was like being a sports obsessed person; something the rest of us can roll our eyes at but generally harmless. But it's not like that. There are terminally online people who have real jobs, sure, but they're incredibly insufferable to be around, are extremely anxious, and don't seem to have meaningful personal relationships in real life.

I also think there is some kind of connection to popularity/bullying, that explains why it has always seemed especially prominent amongst art/theater/music types. Historically there was very little that bullied or unpopular kids could do. Now there exists an opportunity for them to join an online mob and harass people themselves. The power and ability of people to harass one another has expanded massively, so it's believable that there's always been X% of the population that had the desire to harass but never before had the social standing to be able to do it.

Never thought of it like this, but it makes a lot of sense!

 

[Deleted member 3373]

I think this was an interesting read but falls into a bias of personal experience. There have always been competitive players - see Bartle's player types as a very rough outline. Unfortunately competitive players will often drive out the """weaker""" players if not properly balanced.

Boomers and other toxic masculinity culture comes from a long history, and if anything being able to deal with emotions properly is an under culture which has only been able to come to light in recent years and people crave it. However, they bring their own toxicity to whatever they touch in their effort to absorb it.

There are places for these balanced and non-aggressive men. The real problem your hobbies are suffering from is popularity.

The only adjustment I'd make to the above graphic is that it's usually the beta males who orbit the women who join the hobby and treat it like a dating service.

Bartle's player types was MMORPGs which is perhaps the earliest genre to be appealing to that kind of hyper competitive demographic. The thing about MMORPGs was that they required extensive monetary investment. World of warcraft required a $15 subscription fee per month which in today's money is equivalent to $23 dollars. It made the game inaccessible to a large chunk of the public. Now it's all free to play and optimised for every computer on the planet. And I don't deny that boomer masculinity has a long established history it's just that it never held widespread support. In the middle ages football hooligans were considered a pest by authorities and said authorities would even go as far as to discourage the playing of football in favour of archery (as it was considered useful). Those kinds of men had very little in the means of support. Today however there are national leagues where this kind of culture can be encouraged. For the record I'm not against sports as that would be stupid. I am against professional sports as it would be far better for those in the stands to play the game themselves. They could do with the exercise.

 

[UCD]

I think art school students have always been intolerable.

 

[Punp]

Bartle's player types was MMORPGs which is perhaps the earliest genre to be appealing to that kind of hyper competitive demographic. The thing about MMORPGs was that they required extensive monetary investment. World of warcraft required a $15 subscription fee per month which in today's money is equivalent to $23 dollars. It made the game inaccessible to a large chunk of the public. Now it's all free to play and optimised for every computer on the planet. And I don't deny that boomer masculinity has a long established history it's just that it never held widespread support. In the middle ages football hooligans were considered a pest by authorities and said authorities would even go as far as to discourage the playing of football in favour of archery (as it was considered useful). Those kinds of men had very little in the means of support. Today however there are national leagues where this kind of culture can be encouraged. For the record I'm not against sports as that would be stupid. I am against professional sports as it would be far better for those in the stands to play the game themselves. They could do with the exercise.

Of course, football in the middle ages spanned entire villages and resulted in multiple deaths by trampling, so it doesn't really compare to today's football. There has always been the intellectual vs the physical in society, and unsurprisingly it was the ones who could write that got recorded in history.

Bartle's player types got an expansion recently, I think it lists around eight different player types now but I can't remember what the new theory is called (sorry).

 

[Orlando Smooth]

I think this showcases that overarching trend, that magnetic pole shift in which normies are the terminally online ones and the weirdo nerds are normal-internet-addicted but still have actual lives.

This is an interesting take and caused me to do some reflection. It definitely was not the case when I was in school, but that was long enough ago now that I'm sure a lot has changed since then. In the anecdote I shared above though, the girl I referenced was always a good student, never got in trouble, only friends with other good students, etc. etc., you get the story. Meanwhile, I was the kid who would sneak out in the night to smoke weed with my friends. I was never a bad student (all A's and B's), and I did sports/clubs socially but never super competitively or as a way to simply build out the resume. The point is that at the time all indications were that she was going to be the one to go on and do great things while I'd just be average, but reality has turned out to be just the opposite.

The more I reflect on it, the more it seems like being online is a way for the shut-ins and over protected children of the world to feel like they're gaining experiences and maturity without actually doing so. These people don't realize that dealing with drama in their tumblr fandom world where there are no real consequences is not the same as real world socialization where if one friend hurts another, you have to pick sides and it can dramatically impact your future-self socially. Is that the reason these people are so fucked? By replacing actual socialization with some junk food-tier facsimile they've wound up as Peter Pan and never grown up?

 

[Sketch Relics]

Sounds a lot like the petty squabbles that historically occurred around religion, and considering that humans have already experienced and had this collapse on itself in the west I can only imagine this type of behavior going through a similar cycle, though massively accelerated due to the internet.

The more I reflect on it, the more it seems like being online is a way for the shut-ins and over protected children of the world to feel like they're gaining experiences and maturity without actually doing so. These people don't realize that dealing with drama in their tumblr fandom world where there are no real consequences is not the same as real world socialization where if one friend hurts another, you have to pick sides and it can dramatically impact your future-self socially. Is that the reason these people are so fucked? By replacing actual socialization with some junk food-tier facsimile they've wound up as Peter Pan and never grown up?

I think it's more so part of some baseline human behavior, it's something you used to see expressed through religion in the west commonly and it may have been partially kept in check by it. It has simply become more apparent as people cease separating their online presence from their real life one.

 

[Punp]

This is an interesting take and caused me to do some reflection. It definitely was not the case when I was in school, but that was long enough ago now that I'm sure a lot has changed since then. In the anecdote I shared above though, the girl I referenced was always a good student, never got in trouble, only friends with other good students, etc. etc., you get the story. Meanwhile, I was the kid who would sneak out in the night to smoke weed with my friends. I was never a bad student (all A's and B's), and I did sports/clubs socially but never super competitively or as a way to simply build out the resume. The point is that at the time all indications were that she was going to be the one to go on and do great things while I'd just be average, but reality has turned out to be just the opposite.

The more I reflect on it, the more it seems like being online is a way for the shut-ins and over protected children of the world to feel like they're gaining experiences and maturity without actually doing so. These people don't realize that dealing with drama in their tumblr fandom world where there are no real consequences is not the same as real world socialization where if one friend hurts another, you have to pick sides and it can dramatically impact your future-self socially. Is that the reason these people are so fucked? By replacing actual socialization with some junk food-tier facsimile they've wound up as Peter Pan and never grown up?

This is a great take. Adjacently, I can remember there were a bunch of kids at school who would pour their heart and soul into studying. They would finish school and go home and study, take a break to watch Neighbours, then continue studying until 11pm.

Unsurprisingly, this was not helpful to them in the long run. They failed a bunch of exams and wound up being full of nostalgia and regret. Seeing them today is really depressing because they just talk about "the good old days".

 

[stonehead]

The point is that at the time all indications were that she was going to be the one to go on and do great things while I'd just be average, but reality has turned out to be just the opposite.

It sounds super cliche, but effort and drive are way more important than intelligence. It's true that "doing great things" is far easier for smart people, but it's literally impossible if you spend 16 hours a day browsing social media. Doesn't matter how smart you are.

I'm not going to complain about my life because I've been incredibly lucky, but I would be doing so much better if I didn't spend a decade trying to lazily coast on being a bit above average.


More on topic, it's really sad talking to people who clearly have no life outside of the internet. I made some joke at work about not having the time to get angry over something (I forget what), and this guy jumps in aggressively, like, "Oh, right? When there's all these Disney remakes we should be getting mad at." Everything else he's said too makes it seem like he doesn't have an opinion that wasn't handed to him by some algorithm. At one point, when a different guy mentioned playing Overwatch 2 offhandedly, this guy said "Oh, can you believe Blizzard? I don't play Overwatch, but I'm up to date on the drama." Why do you care so much about a video game you've never played? Is it just because it was on the front page of some feed?

I'm not trying to make fun of this guy, I genuinely feel kinda bad for him. I don't want to tell someone else how to live their life, but I know I wouldn't be happy living a life that just parrots whatever's trending on the internet.

 

[Aral]

This isn't new, art schools have been filled with terminally online tumblr fandom people for years now. Is there something about being an artist that makes you more likely to fall prey to this kind of thinking, or are fandom kids just the only ones left who still want to go to art school?

Artists and creative people often have a predisposition to mental illness. Besides, many artsy kids were historically the "weird kids" and thus more likely to be picked on. When you get picked on it can very much cause trauma, and trauma stunts your development quite a bit. Besides, we don't know what these kids are living at home. But one thing is sure, when you're by nature introverted/weirder, you get on the Internet more, because it's easier to find your tribe so to speak, and then from here... it can lead to being terminally online in extreme cases.

But tbh this is one of the reasons why I won't ever go to art school. This, and the unwillingness to get my creativity and pleasure making art smashed by academics.

 

[Punp]

It sounds super cliche, but effort and drive are way more important than intelligence. It's true that "doing great things" is far easier for smart people, but it's literally impossible if you spend 16 hours a day browsing social media. Doesn't matter how smart you are.

I'm not going to complain about my life because I've been incredibly lucky, but I would be doing so much better if I didn't spend a decade trying to lazily coast on being a bit above average.


More on topic, it's really sad talking to people who clearly have no life outside of the internet. I made some joke at work about not having the time to get angry over something (I forget what), and this guy jumps in aggressively, like, "Oh, right? When there's all these Disney remakes we should be getting mad at." Everything else he's said too makes it seem like he doesn't have an opinion that wasn't handed to him by some algorithm. At one point, when a different guy mentioned playing Overwatch 2 offhandedly, this guy said "Oh, can you believe Blizzard? I don't play Overwatch, but I'm up to date on the drama." Why do you care so much about a video game you've never played? Is it just because it was on the front page of some feed?

I'm not trying to make fun of this guy, I genuinely feel kinda bad for him. I don't want to tell someone else how to live their life, but I know I wouldn't be happy living a life that just parrots whatever's trending on the internet.

I was (and am) this person, and it's really hard to break out of. You get all these strong feelings and emotions which seem justifiable as if you came up with the idea, but really it's just some big group think that has leeched into your brain. Once you sit and rifle through your actual values and opinions and realise that they don't align with how you actually feel you can slowly and gradually remove the thorns.

I still fall prey to this.

 

[Aeria Gloris]

not gonna lie, i think this is a symptom of a bigger issue. social media, i think, has had some pretty profound consequences on mental health. A lot of social media promote echo-chamber-like behavior (twitter and >reddit) and as a result terrible behavior like this comes up. This is what happens when you raise your kids via the internet.

Raising your children with internet access was worth it (or at least much less mentally harmful) until 2010, no later. Because that's when social media did not have this much influence and did not promote autistic herd mentality.