We used to have that adage about how anonymity made people worse on the internet. It always made me feel uneasy. We hit 2025, and I was dismayed to find it was wrong - the internet was a warning bell for how evil the average person is.
this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2026
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We used to have that adage about how anonymity made people worse on the internet
Many of us have been saying that's untrue ever since people started claiming it was real.
All you need to do is go to Facebook to see people being horrible under their own names.
People were bigger assholes back in the day. If anything they've gotten better
everyone is evil to somebody else.
it's that before the internet we largely weren't exposed to all sorts of people who were radically different than us on a regular basis. most of us were mostly exposed to people who were mostly similar to us.
and in real life, most folks are still mostly exposed to folks who are similar to them
Yeah, and the problem is the Internet isn't even a real exposure, it sucks. I don't know that there's a replacement for just living around people, seeing them in stores, in your community, and just existing around them. Even the boogeyman seems less scary when you see it going about it's day to day life. It's hard to realize people are humans on the internet, especially because it is never a display of your mundanity, but if your quirks and the things that make you interesting.
That's why Lemmy is great, because this place is mundane af.
Yeah a lot of online interaction is also just like... projection of the reader/viewer.
Can't agree with you that it's mundane here. I find a lot of spaces here to completely detached from any humanity or reality and a lot of the users here to believing in fictional worlds in their heads where they are the only good person who exists and it's everyone else that is evil.
But there are some pretty cool stuff that reminds me of early reddit where I had a lot of cool and educational interactions. Which sadly, stopped existing on reddit in the late 2010s as the site became systematically removed it's 'melting pot' aspects that I found so fruitful and positive.
Yeah, old reddit wasn't so politically charged, but that's probably more a product of the times. There are some niche areas here where I can escape those discussions, and discussions that devolve into Linux circlejerks, though, and I like that.
Good and evil are veils of excuses around the complexity of humans' wants and needs.
what the fuck does any of that even mean?
good and evil are moral classifications of actions, mostly based on your frame of social reference. hence why murder is sometimes good and sometimes bad, and legally it has different degrees that make it more or less heinous, which comes with greater or lesser sentences.
That's what i tried to say. There's no universal good or bad. Only viewpoints.
oh, ok. the whole 'veil' thing was weird.
but i'm an asshole and pretty direct about my wants and needs. I don't veil much of anything. which does upset a lot of people who can't communicate effectively or directly. they tend to think i'm pretty evil with my 'hey can you do this thing' type of communication
Every person is capable of evil, even the best one. It's dangerous to separate people into good and bad boxes because there is always the right set of circumstances for someone to do unspeakable evil.
unpopular opinion, but i don't like these kinds of memes. reality sucked then and drove all the outcasts to the internet, and it sucks worse now. but now, on the internet you have this corporate dystopia to deal with on top of it.
escapes come at a premium these days, but the internet is still your best bet, you just need to work overtime to actually find the right places to go.
I'm sober now, I don't smoke, I avoid sugar and only drink two coffees a day. Now I can't even enjoy the internet. Just a whole lotta nothing to take the edge off
🤷
I mean, seems like you haven't tried meth!
The future fucking sucks.
Raw-doggin' reality
More like: People in 2026 using fedi to escape the corporate internet
Maybe both?
and realizing it's all the same people that were on corporate internet making it miserable to use it.
Nah being allowed to talk about Luigi does actually make me less miserable.
The internet has become too mainstream
It's so over!
You just missed it
I know 🥺 Growing up while the internet was cool suucked!
Meanwhile, I want to escape this fucking world.
Which movie is this from?
That Gerard way show, umbrella academy.
Or if you go further back, its from an episode of Malcolm in the middle
You know a show is good when just knowing the characters makes this screenshot so damn funny.
Netflix show, Umbrella academy, Seasons 1 and 2 are the most worth watching
Except due to the sheer amount of internet controlled cameras and surveillance you cannot escape.
I'm feeling more and more that way even though reality can be pure bullshit sometimes.