Comment on Is there as much enthusiasm for Trump online today as eight years ago?
FigMcLargeHuge@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
I am not taking sides with this comment, but you could literally swap names of everything you just posted with (the opposite candidate) and there is someone saying this exact same thing somewhere on the internet. They are most likely sitting there posting about where all the Harris people went and how they moved to a saner platform to avoid toxic people… Everyone needs to remember that there is someone out there with a polar opposite viewpoint as you and it’s just as strong as yours. The internet and social media has made it much easier for everyone to wall themselves off into groups containing people with only their viewpoint. And now all of that has been fed to LLMs. This is going to be an interesting future we are walking into.
I think that’s why op’s asking in the first place, right?
If you were republican and asked whether the democrats are as enthusiastic this time as the last time, it would be a perfectly legitimate question. The fact is, people tend to shade themselves from the online madness (good for them), but then they can’t be sure whether the madness continues with full force or not.
Asking about it seems logical. But neither you nor I are able to answer.
Yup. I probably shouldn’t ramble as much, but my point was that I am sure all of the “opposite viewpoint than you” people are off in their walled garden asking the same questions. Where that is located, well, you have got me. I wasn’t questioning the legitimacy of his question.
Yeah, this is a solid insight maybe we're all just locked off into our walled gardens now. But the Fediverse crowd is a bit of an extreme case - surely there must be some sort of vibe going on on the more popular platforms? Instagram, Reddit, TikTok, I don't even know any more.
I don't think that's the question I try to ask, though I probably struggle to formulate myself well. It's not really about comparing to Harris.
It seemed that Trump engaged a lot of people who would not usually bother with politics in 2016. He ran a campaign that completely dominated the Internet. People seemed to have nothing better to do than to create right wing memes in half serious, half joking support of him.
I don't see that any more. What I see is a more normal campaign ran by a guy frequently making fascist talking points. He could still win, and maybe it's still a successful campaign, but it feels very different to me from the 2016 one.
But then again, I have changed my Internet habits so that I wouldn't see it anyway. Maybe there's still hordes of 20-something incels posting frog memes for the masses to be offended by, it's just off my radar.
ogmios@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
It’s not people who share your viewpoints, unless you buy into the artificial left/right dichotomy and are willing to simply accept whatever popular talking points permeate your silo. Conversely, if you actually wanted to share a space online with only people who are actually from your own country, or even just western society broadly, such a thing doesn’t exist at all. While the issues of political division within America are significant, what flies completely under the radar is how trivial it is for bad actors from places like Russia and China to participate freely in political debates, often without anyone actually being aware of it.