I really, deeply wish everyone would make some collective effort to unlearn the passive argumentative nature we all learned from Twitter.
Everyone always treated posts like invitations to debate or argue every point.
We deserve better than this. We don’t have to do that.
It’s so ingrained that lots of people don’t realize they’re doing it. They think they’re just “making conversation.”
There are so many ways of making conversation that aren’t just contradicting the person.
That doesn’t mean the only option is to agree either! These are false choices you don’t have to adhere to.
Put frankly: people don’t care about opinions from people they wouldn’t ask advice from.
Stop offering your opinion to people who don’t even know you. They don’t care.
For any of that to have meaning or weight, you’ve gotta have some kind of rapport or relationship with them.
Offering your opinions without those things is completely meaningless.
I think part of this I attribute to Twitter because it popularized one-way relationships (follows vs mutual friendship) as a platform.
It gave lots of people the idea they were closer to the person they were replying to than they actually were.
It’s not all bad, many friendships can blossom from that. But I maintain that a bad way to make friends with a stranger is to argue with them.
Louie, I am amazed to note that you and I seem to have joined Mastodon within a week of one another, in August 2018. So as one old-timer to another ... don't you feel like we have our own problematic posting habits over here? Like, in particular, we are prone, historically speaking, to lecturing people on how to behave. Which newcomers find off-putting. As well they might. Don't you think?
Louie Mantia, Jr.
Richard Grant
J. Blake