So I’ve had several comments removed recently and I was wondering how those of you with strong contrarian instinct avoid being toxic debate perverts.
I’ve noticed myself getting really confrontational online over shit that I know on an intellectual level does not matter in the slightest.
Are there strategies you’d recommend for acting more prosocially?
I want to second writing out your response, reading it, and then if it doesn’t feel fully like a banger/fully empathetic to people, just fucking delete it. I delete stupid stuff I write out all the time. Dumb responses to people that aren’t well thought out. posts that aren’t very helpful or thoughtful. stuff that would probably just piss off the person i’m responding too because they pissed me off in some way. I have typed comments today that I just deleted and moved on with my life about it. Fuck, sometimes I think I have a good contribution and I can’t get the words to word in a way that actually makes sense. I delete it.
Not saying you shouldn’t post, just that it’s necessary to leverage the inherent distance of communicating electronically in the written word in both directions. You cannot communicate the full nuance of your human person to others online; you can try to realize when you simply can’t succeed or are about to put something out that might not be received how you’d intend. You can even put something out there, have people agree with you, and then decide that you must have fucked up a bit for people to be saying what they’re saying in agreement with you and then delete that too. I’ve deleted posts before after deciding hours later that actually I shouldn’t have said that for such and such reason.
Write your response, read it, then get up/change apps/whatever, then when you come back to it, clear the field/close the tab/refresh the page.
Get the thoughts out, then delete them.
Being contrarian is universally annoying so I’d suggest just never do it unless its an obvious joke thing. For mansplaining I did this a lot and I have a hard rule that I don’t give advice or explain anything unless directly asked. Took a lot of getting used to but its pretty easy now.
Sometimes i find typing out my comment then deleting it is enough to satisfy my brain. If i end up posting something stupid i go back and delete when I’ve cooled off and hope no one saw it lolol
Make a meme as your response to them. If you start making the meme and suddenly it feels like too much effort, that’s because it is
