this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2024
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the way I see it - "upvotes," "likes" etc are just a digital form of the verbal validation someone would get irl. Like if you told a joke, people would laugh, smile. If you made a good point, people would nod, say "uh huh" or something. A thread would look pretty weird if someone wrote something funny and there were like 30 people underneath going "lol" and "haha" so that validation is replaced with likes and upvotes.
People absolutely get too caught up with how many internet points they get, but idk I don't see that obsession as fundamentally different from being obsessed with social acceptance in general. We all have a desire to fit in and idk, I think it has the same root causes as someone who gets too caught up with trying to be funny irl or something. It's something we all have to work on, whether online or irl.
GOOD post. Sums up what I was thinking too. Since in this medium we don't have the kind of emotional ques we would normally get as a response in group conversations, upvotes serve that purpose. It is unfortunate that upvotes are so... quantifiable in a way that nods and grunts of approval are not, which really exacerbates any problematic obsession someone might have with getting positive responses. But that does not mean we should scrap the whole method we have for providing that kind of light social approval that is necessary to some extent to have real communal (as opposed to one on one) discussions.
I also think that what you said touches on something that seems to often get forgotten in discussions about the validity of upvotes: They're not just fir the person receiving them. Upvoting someone gives me a sense that I am participating even if I don't want to say anything. I very often feel like I have nothing really worth adding since much smarter people here say it better than I could, but upvoting others I agree with gives me, as a shy lurker, a way to feel like I'm genuinely part of the community too. People talk about the dopamine hit they get when they see they got upvoted. Well I get a dopamine hit by upvoting others and knowing they got a dopamine hit because of my doing so.
compersion
:porque-no-los-dos:
Upvote and comment lol or emoji
idk I think things would get cluttered if everyone was commenting an emoji under every single post they enjoyed.
Ik, I'm mostly joking but fwiw I have noticed here that people do tend to leave reaction emojis under threads more frequently than elsewhere on the lemmyverse and * spits * r*ddit thank goodness. I kinda like it
Oh really? I only ever browse two or three subreddits and rarely see reaction images. Maybe it's common elsewhere on the site
like "agree twinkles" which anyone who was tortured by a certain era of consensus meetings will remember. here is a great infographic i found.
it doesn't really come across but when agreeing you don't just put your hands up but you are also waggling your fingers around.
it feels silly but really does speed things up to be able to show support without getting on the speakers list.