I feel like the people I interact with irl don’t even know how to boot from a USB. People here probably know how to do some form of coding or at least navigate a directory through the command line. Stg I would bet money on the average person not even being able to create a Lemmy account without assistance.
Reddit used to be different too. It may seem stupid, but you used to get criticized on Reddit for making posts that were completely devoid of grammar and whatnot. It kinda functioned to a similar level of editorial sources, despite much of the information conveyed being silly memes and whatnot.
Personally, I think that people taking the time to write out things in a cohesive, thought out manner, versus shortening words (like “stg”, looking at you OP) and the like, to me ends up with a better discourse. You’re not rushing to spill out as many words as quickly as possible if you’re taking a second to type it out correctly. Maybe just me.
But as with all things, popularity up, quality down.
I was on Reddit back from the beginning and around 2007-2010 it was a very well curated place due to this culture.
People didn’t comment unless they had something actually relevant and insightful to say. Researchers, engineers, lawyers, doctors/med students and all walks of life in between with professional or intellectual knowledge of the subject at hand.
It was great because the comments were vibrant with good discussion, links, and other ancillary information.
As all things that get popular, the quality declines in tandem.
It started out with the whole summer break periods when school kids were out and bored…then the digg exodus. Slowly, but steadily the quality declined as the user base exploded. Large subreddits were increasingly shit so you’d have to stick to the more niche subs.
The API debacle was finally enough for me to strip all my comments and delete my account.
Lemmy is not quite at the level of when Reddit first started. I find that outside of a handful of commenters per notable post, most are not very knowledgeable, insightful, or otherwise providing quality discourse. I will say that it’s not consistently the case, as sometimes (depending on the topic), it does remind me of those old times. There’s still hope lol
You reawoke memories of summers on Reddit, hard to believe that was a thing, because it’s been all year summer for the last decade it feels like.
I still post. There’s niche subs that I still think are quality. I completely understand anyone deciding to leave, though, it’s really a shell of it’s former self. The algorithm that decides what’s on top of your feed kinda ruined everything. I can sort by new, and somehow it’s not sorted chronologically. It doesn’t make any sense.
I saw stg, didn’t know what it meant and questioned if I should look it up. Decided against it in the end it appears. Figured if it was pertinent I’d pick it up from context clues in the comments, but here I am still flying blind.
I believe it means something.
That might be right, the sentence almost makes more sense if you just choose that out.
I couldn’t come up with anything else. I was hoping for something cool like Slam The Gavel, I would bet money…
A week late but it’s swear to god. There’s also istg.
Had to look it up on urban dictionary.
Is would have assumed istg was Instagram, thanks for the heads up haha
I wouldn’t blame people entirely. Reddit’s engagement algos and UX design (aka rewarding short, biting posts/submissions) went a long way.