irwinNov 9, 2022
Wow. This needs to be read by everyone who joined Mastodon in the last week: https://www.hughrundle.net/home-invasion/
Home invasion - Mastodon's Eternal September begins

The fediverse is dealing with a huge wave of Twitter people bringing toxic ideas with them.

Show threadArclight

@irwin It reminds me a lot of a phenomena here in Austin where, if you moved here more than seven years ago, you are required by law to complain about all the new people moving here and wrecking the place. Just like people complained about people like you when you first moved here.

I get it. But I've also been using the internet fairly regularly since 1988.

Nov 9, 2022 at 1:42pmWeb
Show threadJobNov 9, 2022

@arclight @irwin sort of, but I don't think what the article describes is quite the same thing as Eternal September (which is a get-off-my-lawn thing, like you said).

The phenomenon of "small internet forum goes viral and gets overrun with tourists who don't get or care about the subculture" has been a thing for ages.

It's why the best subreddits tend to be the ones with the heaviest moderation: they filter out most of the people who don't care about what the core point of the subreddit is.

Show threadJobNov 9, 2022
@arclight @irwin and in this case, the "locals" are already people who have very good reasons to feel worried about having their safe spaces get taken away from them.
Show threadArclightNov 9, 2022
@vanderZwan @irwin The whole point of federating is to define specific communities, recognizing that one size cannot possibly fit all, letting the membership or admins choose who they connect with. Not sure what the right answer is for dealing with such an influx of refugees - some combination of tolerance, vigilance, and isolation.
Show threadArclightNov 9, 2022
@vanderZwan @irwin My recollection of the Eternal September was a ton of classist comic-book-guy AOL-hatred. For whatever reason, I never saw anywhere near the horrors described by others. Not saying that it didn't happen, just that I saw much more mean-spirited overreaction than the problem they complained about.
Show threadJobNov 9, 2022

@arclight @irwin I'm not sure if you're talking about last week on Mastodon, your experience in Austin, or something else.

Anyway, unless you actually represent a minority who has to worry about their safe space being taken away from them, saying that you haven't experienced this is basically just describing the privilege of not ever being at the receiving end that kind of bigotry, no?

Speaking as a white-passing hetero cis-male person who also only experiences these things indirectly

Show threadArclightNov 9, 2022
@vanderZwan @irwin All I'm saying is that I don't see my experience as necessarily typical, a counter to "if I didn't see it, it didn't happen". It's going to be an uncomfortable few weeks as people find their respective lunch tables. Most of the problems will be from ignorance not malice. Still, the problems are real, more for some communities than others. Difficult to distinguish "your behavior is threatening my community" from "get off my lawn" :/
Show threadpandionNov 9, 2022
@arclight @irwin As I was reading the article, I was thinking it's a lot less like that newcomers phenomenon (which we have up here in Seattle too) and more like when I moved to Qatar and complained about how the lack of street names is a problem for non-locals. I wasn't incorrect, but I was also kinda out of line assuming I had all the answers.