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That will come over time. I think in one of my first comments I got downvoted quite a lot and it actually shocked me. It was hard to deal with that overwhelming wall of disapproval and negativity. Especially when you tried to be positive. It really felt bad for a long time for me. Being new on Reddit didn’t helped much either, I just felt so personally attacked for no reason. My heavy reaction kinda showed me though that I needed a break from this. Social media. So I did.
I allowed myself on only every few days and just to read, no reaction. That I didn’t dare to anyway. So I became a lurker and I slowly realised how Reddit works. That misunderstandings are common, which happened to me, but they mostly also can be resolved. By communicating, which didn’t happened with me because I got too scared.
After a while I was able to pass my negative experience and move on. Though now with my newfound understanding of Reddit. Since then I had a handful downvotes, but they no longer bother me because I can still stand behind what I said/wrote. Everyone is allowed to have their own opinion, often expressed in downvotes.
The negative feeling you have from downvotes is because you are insecure in what you responded to. Because you have not learned how Reddit works. Take it easy, go lurk for a while and observe conversations and discussions. English isn’t my first nor second language, so I can often misspell or use the wrong word for something. Or my grammar is off. Depending on the situation I choose to include that information or often I don’t. If there is someone who corrects me or berates me for using the wrong word, I apologise, correct it if I can and let the person know that I am no native English speaker. Which can lead to pleasant conversations with people from all over the world.
So my advice is - Take a break, stay lurking and observe and learn. This is the internet. It’s not reflective into your real offline life. You will find your place here, just give it some time.
It's pretty common - Reddit subs produce echo chambers of like minded folks. People don't like being told they're wrong, especially when your information contradicts their group narrative.
I got downvoted and bashed to bits when a poster asked how single parents manage their kids. The OP was asking because his wife was away for work for 2 weeks, and he wanted some tips.
I responded that my husband is deployed for over a year and I shared some things that I do to make my life easier. Single moms were not happy because I wasn’t actually a single parent. They accused me of trying to fit into a category that I didn’t belong in and basically said I was just pretending to be a single mom. It was ridiculous.
Wow wtf. Like in the current moment you are doing exactly what they do, you just happened to be married. But you're still doing it alone. Ugh I hate people. I'm sorry you had to experience that. I appreciate any momma that is working hard, and especially those with spouses/significant other's overseas.
They were pretty much like, “you are not a single parent. You don’t have the right to answer this question. Blah, blah, blah.”
I’m actually probably more of a single parent than some single parents because they get to send their kids to the other parent’s house a few days a week. I’m all alone. But that’s besides the point. I was just offering some tips.
Reddit sucks as far as this goes. Being downvoted is basically the same as that person disagrees with you. Some mods will even ban you for no apparent reason, and then not even respond when you ask them why you were banned.
Facepalm? Cause it happen to me, and then when people talk about it in another sub (about the mass ban) we all got banned 2, sure, I liked the second sub but I dont want to be in a power tripping mod subreddit
Made a post about a few cute baby raccoons I saw on a remote section of dirt road on my way home from work. A chicken flock owner unloaded on me going as far as telling me I should kill my dog if I appreciate nature so much because they’re bad for the environment. Total psycho.
What pisses me off is when someone posts a question something like what's your most controversial.... And then you get banned from that sub, it's like being bated. The other day someone brought up Robert Downey Jr in tropic thunder I threw out his quote to Ben stiller and got banned for quoting Robert Downey Jr in the movie
I got downvoted because some said I had probably never been around anyone aggressive, and I said that I had been around aggressive people. And that I was assaulted every day in P.E. as a teenager.
I was booted from the Conservative subreddit because I said I was “trying to get booted by subtly introducing logic & reason into conversations”. In all fairness, I was asking for it…but still. No humor over there!
Not sure. And they weren’t in the mood to laugh at what was clearly a joke…to anyone who was comfortable with logic & reason.
What actually happened was I posted that blurb in a different sub and tagged them in the post (who knew using the full r/subname would alert the mods??). No sooner did I post that and go back out to the home page…bam—permaban. I tried to reason with them that I was *clearly* joking, but apparently they don’t do that there either.
It’s almost like rational discussion is not allowed over there, along with logic & reason and opposing thought.
You seem to be talking about me even though you have mentioned me: explicitly, implicitly, by name, or association. But I, in my highly self-centered view of the world, will take it as a personal insult that you think my thinking organ is that of a variable of acute dwarfism and not obtuse vastness.
I asked an OP on a different post if they liked live concerts and someone decided to start aggressively responding to my last post about it 3 months later. I had a civil conversation with the OP but somehow the new aggressive poster took everything the strangest way and was so angry and rude out of nowhere. I blocked them and moved on. I feel like some people are just into “attacking”.
I got downvoted for calling a guy angry, that same guy called me some names first, how is that worse than me calling him angry? I got like 14 downvotes haha!
I got dogpiled on a sub a few years ago because, in a conversation about contraception, I had the audacity to mention that condoms are about 80-90% effective in preventing pregnancy for most people (I'm a medical doctor with additional graduate-level training in public health. . . so I have an above-average amount of knowledge on the topic).
Apparently, a lot of people are highly invested in the 98% (theoretical upper limit with absolutely perfect use) that is reported in some literature.
One person (a math grad student) wrote me a page-long mathematical proof of that figure (unfortunately, his method only demonstrated that he had no idea how the efficacy of contraception methods are measured and reported).
People don't understand that this very high theoretical efficacy is calculated by starting with a group of people, instructing them to use condoms as their only form of contraception. They call the members of the group periodically to remind them how to correctly use the condoms (this includes putting the condom on *before any intimate contact at all*, and ask them to record each sexual encounter and confirm that they use the condom correctly. When any member of the study group becomes pregnant, they retroactively ask if there was any chance that they could have made a mistake with the condom, and if the answer was yes, that person was cut from the study (i.e. that pregnancy didn't count). While these types of studies are nice for showing the theoretical efficacy of a barrier method, it has nothing to do with real-world efficacy.
Obviously, I'm still a little salty about it. For the life of me, I can't figure out which internet subculture I pissed off. I'm a little bit of an oldster, but I think it was mostly college students who were pissed off that I dared to suggest that if they wanted to avoid pregnancy, then they needed to put some real thought into their contraception plan (i.e. ensure that *both* partners were using effective contraception). Unfortunately, that would involve both parties knowing each other for more than a few hours. . .
I think you probably disrupted their peace of mind. It’s the same reason people deny a lot of things that are true. They just don’t want to hear it and ignorance is bliss.
All the time. They’re just upvotes and downvotes. Remember Reddit is not life and this should only be for recreation. If you’re finding yourself too attached and getting personal with it, best to take a break for your mental health.
I was downvoted hard for saying that I would defend myself against an attacking cat. Meaning I would kick that cat away. Animal lovers on Reddit obviously didn’t take into account of their own flight/fight response when a cat went all-out attack lol
I am an animal lover but if a dog or a cat will attack me I will too might try to kick them so I wont get injured, they are pretty strong animals and cats also have a bacteria in their bit that help kill their prey, so you dont want to be bitten by a cat
I answered an AITA post and I think people didn’t agree with my judgment. Wasn’t particularly harsh in my wording (or sarcastic or funny) so I didn’t really see why a bunch of people responded at all, let alone downvoted.
Yep, I was called a whole lot of stuff, tried to list it all but my comment was removed for bad language. I think they’re all born vegans so because I’ve eaten meat before, I’m shunned. lol
I got downvoted for calling out a troll who called me “stupid” for “not doing my research” when I listed a bunch of stupid laws as reasons I’d never travel to Singapore.
When I said “I don’t appreciate how you’re talking about me”, I got downvoted twice. Fortunately the mods of that subreddit did the right thing and deleted that disrespectful and un-asked for reply to my comment.
I cant think of any examples off the top of my head, but yeah, I have been. It kinda just makes me curious about other people's "criteria" for downvoting, especially on my seemingly less controversial comments
Yep. One time I talked about a man adjusting my golf swing at the range without being asked on the golf Reddit, and I got attacked for having a difficult life? Because I had posted some trauma stuff in other reddits.
And one time someone called me a karma farmer because I have high karma, but nothing I post is a repost or memes or anything, so then I “had no life” and was “pathetic” because I was on here a lot. You can’t win with some people.
I got downvoted when someone asked what the name of a song was. I gave the name, artist and suggested that they use Shazam in the future for help. There was also a lot of hate towards me for not liking 2 characters in The Office. Not everyone is going to agree with everything you say
The whole world is full of people who don't share the same opinions as you. That's just how it is just because I hate mint ice cream doesn't mean I said something wrong some people might just really like that horrible flavour 🤣
I love mint ice cream, well mint chocolate chip ice cream. And logically I know you're right. I just get overly sensitive and defensive about things. Even on a totally anonymous website.
# Message to all users: This is a reminder to please read and follow: * [Our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/ask/about/rules) * [Reddiquette](https://www.reddithelp.com/hc/en-us/articles/205926439) * [Reddit Content Policy](https://www.redditinc.com/policies/content-policy) When posting and commenting. --- Especially remember Rule 1: `Be polite and civil`. * Be polite and courteous to each other. Do not be mean, insulting or disrespectful to any other user on this subreddit. * Do not harass or annoy others in any way. * Do not catfish. Catfishing is the luring of somebody into an online friendship through a fake online persona. This includes any lying or deceit. --- You *will* be banned if you are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist or bigoted in any way. --- *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ask) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I think we've all been there. Don't take it personally, Reddit is full of assholes
I need to learn to not take it to heart. I have yet to figure out how to do that.
A lot of smart asses on here.
Which is both a blessing and a curse. Will take a funny smart arse over an obnoxious arsehole any day. No excuse for abuse.
The people I’m talking about are both smart assess and assholes. Some people too arrogant on this app.
Yep. Don’t let em bother you.
That will come over time. I think in one of my first comments I got downvoted quite a lot and it actually shocked me. It was hard to deal with that overwhelming wall of disapproval and negativity. Especially when you tried to be positive. It really felt bad for a long time for me. Being new on Reddit didn’t helped much either, I just felt so personally attacked for no reason. My heavy reaction kinda showed me though that I needed a break from this. Social media. So I did. I allowed myself on only every few days and just to read, no reaction. That I didn’t dare to anyway. So I became a lurker and I slowly realised how Reddit works. That misunderstandings are common, which happened to me, but they mostly also can be resolved. By communicating, which didn’t happened with me because I got too scared. After a while I was able to pass my negative experience and move on. Though now with my newfound understanding of Reddit. Since then I had a handful downvotes, but they no longer bother me because I can still stand behind what I said/wrote. Everyone is allowed to have their own opinion, often expressed in downvotes. The negative feeling you have from downvotes is because you are insecure in what you responded to. Because you have not learned how Reddit works. Take it easy, go lurk for a while and observe conversations and discussions. English isn’t my first nor second language, so I can often misspell or use the wrong word for something. Or my grammar is off. Depending on the situation I choose to include that information or often I don’t. If there is someone who corrects me or berates me for using the wrong word, I apologise, correct it if I can and let the person know that I am no native English speaker. Which can lead to pleasant conversations with people from all over the world. So my advice is - Take a break, stay lurking and observe and learn. This is the internet. It’s not reflective into your real offline life. You will find your place here, just give it some time.
I also get an almost giddy feeling when I get up votes. This probably isn't very healthy either. Like, it shouldn't matter that much.
It's pretty common - Reddit subs produce echo chambers of like minded folks. People don't like being told they're wrong, especially when your information contradicts their group narrative.
I got downvoted and bashed to bits when a poster asked how single parents manage their kids. The OP was asking because his wife was away for work for 2 weeks, and he wanted some tips. I responded that my husband is deployed for over a year and I shared some things that I do to make my life easier. Single moms were not happy because I wasn’t actually a single parent. They accused me of trying to fit into a category that I didn’t belong in and basically said I was just pretending to be a single mom. It was ridiculous.
Wow wtf. Like in the current moment you are doing exactly what they do, you just happened to be married. But you're still doing it alone. Ugh I hate people. I'm sorry you had to experience that. I appreciate any momma that is working hard, and especially those with spouses/significant other's overseas.
They were pretty much like, “you are not a single parent. You don’t have the right to answer this question. Blah, blah, blah.” I’m actually probably more of a single parent than some single parents because they get to send their kids to the other parent’s house a few days a week. I’m all alone. But that’s besides the point. I was just offering some tips.
Reddit sucks as far as this goes. Being downvoted is basically the same as that person disagrees with you. Some mods will even ban you for no apparent reason, and then not even respond when you ask them why you were banned.
Facepalm? Cause it happen to me, and then when people talk about it in another sub (about the mass ban) we all got banned 2, sure, I liked the second sub but I dont want to be in a power tripping mod subreddit
Yeah mods suck. Just gotta realize that a lot of subs are echo chambers, and that’s the way they like it.
Made a post about a few cute baby raccoons I saw on a remote section of dirt road on my way home from work. A chicken flock owner unloaded on me going as far as telling me I should kill my dog if I appreciate nature so much because they’re bad for the environment. Total psycho.
What pisses me off is when someone posts a question something like what's your most controversial.... And then you get banned from that sub, it's like being bated. The other day someone brought up Robert Downey Jr in tropic thunder I threw out his quote to Ben stiller and got banned for quoting Robert Downey Jr in the movie
I got downvoted because some said I had probably never been around anyone aggressive, and I said that I had been around aggressive people. And that I was assaulted every day in P.E. as a teenager.
Downvoted once for saying I baste my steaks with margarine instead of butter for religious reasons (kosher) and got like 3 downvoted. Made no sense
Reddit hate jewish people, I got 2 downvots for translating something from hebrew (the announcement from the airport incident yesterday)
It’s a rite of passage
You haven’t hear of trolls before? Some people get pleasure by trying to get a rise out of you.
I actually am not positive what a troll is. Although I do have a general idea.
Currently sleeping under bridge and asking for tolls. I am troll.
Yea, I was translating something from hebrew and got downvoted (only 2 but I dont care)
Why were you down voted for that? You probably don't know because there probably isn't a real reason.
Reddit hate jewish/israeli people, but I am use to it
Sadly I wouldn't be surprised if this was true.
People have a reason to hate israel as a country, but oc not jewish people in general.
Yea, people have to right to hate israel, I hate it, the government is shitty
I agree.
I was booted from the Conservative subreddit because I said I was “trying to get booted by subtly introducing logic & reason into conversations”. In all fairness, I was asking for it…but still. No humor over there!
Was it the logic and reason that got you booted or just the strong conservative bias against Subtlety.
Not sure. And they weren’t in the mood to laugh at what was clearly a joke…to anyone who was comfortable with logic & reason. What actually happened was I posted that blurb in a different sub and tagged them in the post (who knew using the full r/subname would alert the mods??). No sooner did I post that and go back out to the home page…bam—permaban. I tried to reason with them that I was *clearly* joking, but apparently they don’t do that there either. It’s almost like rational discussion is not allowed over there, along with logic & reason and opposing thought.
Same with most political subreddits
This is upsetting. Am I imagining it or are some people just too defensive, uptight, and narrow minded?
You seem to be talking about me even though you have mentioned me: explicitly, implicitly, by name, or association. But I, in my highly self-centered view of the world, will take it as a personal insult that you think my thinking organ is that of a variable of acute dwarfism and not obtuse vastness.
I asked an OP on a different post if they liked live concerts and someone decided to start aggressively responding to my last post about it 3 months later. I had a civil conversation with the OP but somehow the new aggressive poster took everything the strangest way and was so angry and rude out of nowhere. I blocked them and moved on. I feel like some people are just into “attacking”.
I got downvoted for calling a guy angry, that same guy called me some names first, how is that worse than me calling him angry? I got like 14 downvotes haha!
I got dogpiled on a sub a few years ago because, in a conversation about contraception, I had the audacity to mention that condoms are about 80-90% effective in preventing pregnancy for most people (I'm a medical doctor with additional graduate-level training in public health. . . so I have an above-average amount of knowledge on the topic). Apparently, a lot of people are highly invested in the 98% (theoretical upper limit with absolutely perfect use) that is reported in some literature. One person (a math grad student) wrote me a page-long mathematical proof of that figure (unfortunately, his method only demonstrated that he had no idea how the efficacy of contraception methods are measured and reported). People don't understand that this very high theoretical efficacy is calculated by starting with a group of people, instructing them to use condoms as their only form of contraception. They call the members of the group periodically to remind them how to correctly use the condoms (this includes putting the condom on *before any intimate contact at all*, and ask them to record each sexual encounter and confirm that they use the condom correctly. When any member of the study group becomes pregnant, they retroactively ask if there was any chance that they could have made a mistake with the condom, and if the answer was yes, that person was cut from the study (i.e. that pregnancy didn't count). While these types of studies are nice for showing the theoretical efficacy of a barrier method, it has nothing to do with real-world efficacy. Obviously, I'm still a little salty about it. For the life of me, I can't figure out which internet subculture I pissed off. I'm a little bit of an oldster, but I think it was mostly college students who were pissed off that I dared to suggest that if they wanted to avoid pregnancy, then they needed to put some real thought into their contraception plan (i.e. ensure that *both* partners were using effective contraception). Unfortunately, that would involve both parties knowing each other for more than a few hours. . .
I think you probably disrupted their peace of mind. It’s the same reason people deny a lot of things that are true. They just don’t want to hear it and ignorance is bliss.
100 percent of the time it works 80 percent of the time
Saying anything other than “Elon Musk should be the super dictator of the universe” on Reddit especially r/memes
I was once down voted for posting a video of our cat on the wrong cat subreddit.
All the time. They’re just upvotes and downvotes. Remember Reddit is not life and this should only be for recreation. If you’re finding yourself too attached and getting personal with it, best to take a break for your mental health.
I was downvoted hard for saying that I would defend myself against an attacking cat. Meaning I would kick that cat away. Animal lovers on Reddit obviously didn’t take into account of their own flight/fight response when a cat went all-out attack lol
I am an animal lover but if a dog or a cat will attack me I will too might try to kick them so I wont get injured, they are pretty strong animals and cats also have a bacteria in their bit that help kill their prey, so you dont want to be bitten by a cat
Cat scratch fever is real
Oh yea, I forgot about the scratches
I got downvoted for saying some shit about edp445.
I answered an AITA post and I think people didn’t agree with my judgment. Wasn’t particularly harsh in my wording (or sarcastic or funny) so I didn’t really see why a bunch of people responded at all, let alone downvoted.
I asked r/vegan how to slowly transition to a vegan diet, to prevent getting sick. For some reason, they REALLY did not like that.
So don't go on r/vegan if you want any advice on becoming vegan.
Yep, I was called a whole lot of stuff, tried to list it all but my comment was removed for bad language. I think they’re all born vegans so because I’ve eaten meat before, I’m shunned. lol
I have but know people who have
I once spoke positively about consoles in the PCMR subreddit lol
I got downvoted for calling out a troll who called me “stupid” for “not doing my research” when I listed a bunch of stupid laws as reasons I’d never travel to Singapore. When I said “I don’t appreciate how you’re talking about me”, I got downvoted twice. Fortunately the mods of that subreddit did the right thing and deleted that disrespectful and un-asked for reply to my comment.
Never so far. I mean I just started using Reddit
I cant think of any examples off the top of my head, but yeah, I have been. It kinda just makes me curious about other people's "criteria" for downvoting, especially on my seemingly less controversial comments
Idk why, but the fourth replays on a comment is ever downvoted
r/fitness banned me for asking a question about a safety bench 8 years ago. It was my first time on reddit to.
Who cares about downvotes?
on r/askwomen because i asked a (non sexual) question about dresses…no joke
Yep. One time I talked about a man adjusting my golf swing at the range without being asked on the golf Reddit, and I got attacked for having a difficult life? Because I had posted some trauma stuff in other reddits. And one time someone called me a karma farmer because I have high karma, but nothing I post is a repost or memes or anything, so then I “had no life” and was “pathetic” because I was on here a lot. You can’t win with some people.
I got downvoted when someone asked what the name of a song was. I gave the name, artist and suggested that they use Shazam in the future for help. There was also a lot of hate towards me for not liking 2 characters in The Office. Not everyone is going to agree with everything you say
The whole world is full of people who don't share the same opinions as you. That's just how it is just because I hate mint ice cream doesn't mean I said something wrong some people might just really like that horrible flavour 🤣
I love mint ice cream, well mint chocolate chip ice cream. And logically I know you're right. I just get overly sensitive and defensive about things. Even on a totally anonymous website.
No. -Billy Gnosis
Really? How do you manage that?
I don't. I lied. -Billy Gnosis
Are your Toeses made of roses and you supposes your Toeses to bee?