Comment on [deleted]
petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 days agoThe votes represent, in some sense, a social consensus, and consensus actually does matter quite a lot to people.
If you ever see people arguing about which movie is objectively better than some other, that’s what they’re doing. They’re fighting for social capital.
ericwdhs@discuss.online 4 days ago
Seeing the social consensus can be legitimately useful in many situations outside subjective opinion though. YouTube dislikes are the classic example. They were a very reliable way to know when a tutorial was not worth your time.
petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 days ago
Oh yeah, I don’t hide them. Votes even on reddit can be a useful temperature check for audience engagement.
I do think it’s funny when people whine about getting downvotes, though; it betrays just a little bit of discomfort with whatever else they’re saying.