Years ago, a coworker told me about someone famous who had died that morning. I don’t remember who, only that it was someone who I had heard good things about, was well liked, and seemed like a nice person.

I was actually sad to hear about it. I probably would have gone weeks without hearing about their death otherwise, and it wouldn’t have bothered me as much. Instead, my morning was ruined by someone who just wanted to be the first to tell people, and treated the news like it was merely another piece of trivia.

I decided right then and there not to share bad news without a reason. Sometimes people need to hear unpleasant things, of course, and I don’t dodge that responsibility. There’s no reason to pointlessly spread negativity, though, especially when the information isn’t particularly essential to anyone.

I don’t know why I typed that. It’s basically the exact opposite of what you asked. Uh… sorry!

This mostly relates to stuff you disagree with (politically, etc):

It’s really easy on the Internet to live in a bubble, surrounded by others and material you like and agree with. This is especially true when it comes to the political right or left. Posting/viewing material from the “other side” serves three purposes: 1) it’s different from what your Internet crowd posts and therefore novel and interesting, 2) it’s something to gawk at, and 3) it keeps your crowd up to date on what the opposition is doing and thinking, which is important if you want to debate/defeat/win them over.

Example: you’re on the left and a “look what the right is memeing” sub/community starts posting a lot of trad-wife material. You have now been 1) introduced to a new concept (and thereby upgraded your Internet cred with new slang), 2) provided with novel material to yourselves meme about and make fun of (in this example, Ben Shapiro’s sister’s oversized titties), and 3) inoculated to the concept so when your 19-year-old cousin starts whining at Thanksgiving about how all the women at college are sluts and why can’t he find himself a good traditional wife you can give his manosphere-brainwashed ass a thorough smackdown thanks to some sweet rhetoric you picked up from the snarky comments section of aforementioned posts, instead of weakly stammering something about equal partnerships (or worse yet, not understanding the nuance behind wanting a “traditional wife” and thinking this is a perfectly normal expectation for dating in the 21st century that totally won’t lead down the path of inceldom).

There is another, 4th reason: self-reflection. Sometimes, during a blue super-moon lunar eclipse, you see content that’s from the other side that makes you wonder, “are we the baddies?” Or perhaps, “okay maybe they have a point there.” Or at the very least, “yeah I can see where maybe we’re not at our absolute best on this particular aspect of this specific issue.” At least, it would be nice if that ever happened, right?

How am I supposed to form an angry mob if nobody else is angry?

Online content should not affect your mood!

There are currently millions of people online, it makes it easy to see content that does not align with your needs or the needs of your community. As another commenter said, they might actually believe in what their posts are saying and your opinion might be radical to them.

Online content is easy to polarize. The reality is that most people are happy to meet in the middle and hear you out when they’re part of the same IRL community. No one wants to live in anger with their neighbors. (well almost, there is the occasional feud I’m sure)

But here is a Kurzgesagt video that helps explain why we tend to get defensive online. Fight the good fight and spread positivity wherever you can. Link.

Edit: one of the reasons I haven’t left back to Reddit is because here it’s a bit easier to maintain an air of positivity and open discussion. There are a few topics that will always be taboo such as what we eat, religion, and politics but I can generally post a comment without being hit back with an ugly rebuttal and usually understand that if it’s downvoted to hell it means I’m in the minority thought rather than a piece of shit that should reconsider all his life decisions. If it’s racist or bigotry, fuck all that noise and report it, I thankfully have yet to see a meme on here that elicits any such behavior.

People love outrage.

Shortsighted validation.

@Skullgrid I don’t really know why they do that but my best guess is that joining others to express anger at a third thing is a form of social bonding.

I used to have several neighbours who would watch a weekly television program on animal abuse. As far as I can see, the experience of gathering next to the letterbox and denouncing the animal abusers gave them a sense of community.

It may also fulfil the dual function of reassuring them that the world has plenty of people who also don’t support the hated object.

Contrary to what you might think, those people probably believe in the thing they posted. Just because it makes you angry, doesn’t mean it has that effect on everyone else.

There’s a user on a Francophone community that keeps posting articles from a website called frustrationmagazine. Literally

so people can tee off it, because shitty bad viewpoints are easy to argue against, and the more people that see the rebuttals, the better

I suppose the logic is that rage clicks are still clicks.

I could ask the same question about people who post bad-faith leading questions on asklemmy with the sole intent of ranting about something that annoys them.

Accountability.

Because if people don’t, then evil wins. Even GI Joe taught us: Knowing is half the battle.