
How ‘Am I the Asshole?’ became the internet’s most profound query - starpilot
https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/am-i-the-asshole-aita-reddit-history/
======
namaemuta
> Nunberg can see how scrolling through AITA might be a “stupendous
> timewaster,” but he believes the sub has the potential to do some good in
> the world

I hardly believe so. Reddit is an echo chamber by itself and people's judgment
there is way far from perfect. In this subreddit you can see a similar effect
than the "fake news" one: present an emotional scenario in which you look like
the victim, no matter what you do, and the majority will get on your side.
That's why you need to hear all the parties involved in a conflict resolution,
otherwise you can be easily manipulated.

~~~
sowbug
_present an emotional scenario in which you look like the victim, no matter
what you do, and the majority will get on your side_

That is in some ways the point of the subreddit. Many people are acting
rationally, if not reasonably, from the facts and mental state available to
them. And whoever was making them feel like a jerk and driving them to the
site to get a second opinion either couldn't or didn't accept that second set
of facts and mental state.

But sometimes even if you tell the story from your own perspective, you're
still an asshole. Witness the large number of YTA resolutions: those were
people who told their own side of the story and still had the angry mob come
after them. The subreddit can't resolve all disputes, but it can identify
those cases.

~~~
austincheney
> That is in some ways the point of the subreddit. Many people are acting
> rationally, if not reasonably

I think you are mistaking commonality for rationality. That by no means sounds
rational.

It is this sort acceptance and worship of echo chamber nonsense that I deleted
my Reddit account. If I enjoyed being called names or slapped in the face by
ignorant fools I would go work in a child day care or with developers too
scared to death to read code in their primary language.

~~~
azhu
He's saying that at times the point is to demonstrate to an opponent that your
side of an emotional narrative makes sense to broad numbers of others. Just
about everyone is rational according to their own systems of reasoning, and
it's the reconciliation of those oftentimes implicit systems that the
subreddit is about.

------
meddlepal
One of the (many) problems with AITA is that given Reddits demographics you
get an enormous amount of responses from teenagers to late 20s and they have a
much shorter perspective to judge. Further, at least with teenagers they are
not exactly known for emotional maturity.

The definition of an asshole isn't universal, if it was, nobody would need to
ask the question. But biasing your answers from a largely 16 to 30 male
population is going to guarantee a certain type of response in many cases.

~~~
StavrosK
This is especially obvious in "relationship advice" subreddits, where the
answer to anything is "dump him/her".

~~~
hombre_fatal
I knew I'd become too old for Reddit when I saw a r/relationship_advice thread
where the top comment was grossed out that a 30yo man was dating OP, a 24yo
woman. That with an age gap like that, of course the guy was a bad egg. And
everyone chimed in with how creepy it was.

~~~
StavrosK
Anything over three school grades difference is disgusting.

~~~
dtech
That doesn't scale. A 40 year old person can date a 44 year old person.

The most common rule of thumb you hear is age/2 + 7. So for a 20 year old it
indeed 3 "school grades" (more commonly known as years) but for a 30 year old
it's 22

~~~
StavrosK
It was a joke on how young people think about age difference.

------
thrownaway954
AITA subreddit is full of fake posts that people use to generate fake internet
points. Seriously just go there and take a go look at some of the top so
called stories right now:

AITA for getting a friend kicked out of school?

WIBTA for telling my boyfriend he probably can’t achieve his dream?

AITA for peeing in places that are not the toilet?

WIBTA if I record the audio of my neighbours having sex and play it back to
them?

Really... do you people need any more proof. Those that think ANY of these
stories are real, are the same people who think Ancient Aliens is a
documentary.

~~~
trophycase
Another common one is posting a story where they clearly _aren 't_ the asshole
to get positive reinforcement from the comments and votes.

~~~
thrownaway954
Exactly... it's all done so that the accounts get enough karma so that those
account can be used to "vote up" actual content they want to get to the
frontpage of reddit itself or to other subreddits. Go follow the accounts that
post there and you'll see what I mean.

Reddit at face value is a fun place to find things, but like any place, you
have people that game the system for nefarious reasons.

------
twhb
It’s a respectable goal but a broken implementation.

Only one side of the story is presented, without opposition, without fact-
finding or evidence. A court that worked like that would be obviously broken.
The consequences here are only validation, but the decisions are equally
broken: virtually always, the poster is declared "not the asshole".

And even if the story is presented even-handedly and thoroughly, Reddit's
algorithm guts responses. It filters out thoughtful comments, nuanced stances,
and minorities like experts and older people, it promotes split-second
judgements, and over time it drives away people who resist those biases.
Besides normalizing feedback, presenting only a single opinion instead of
revealing that different types have different takes, the mentality it
normalizes on is pretty immature. For example, tit-for-tat behavior is
reliably supported (I've seen them OK destroying a man's life because he
repeatedly spoke to the poster disrespectfully), and marriage is treasured
only about as much as a second date ("other fish in the sea" comes out the
moment somebody raises their voice).

------
andybak
Reddit often gets criticised for it's toxicity but I wonder if it's worthy of
note for the number of places that it avoids toxicity. It's a huge petri dish
of different communities with different moderation rules and community norms.
If a subreddit is failing you then start another one.

~~~
ddingus
This is why I love Reddit.

People like to fixate on the toxic, and that's often because, drams.

Every so often, a bunch of them get together and start some non-toxic. And
that's great. More please.

~~~
azhu
Totally agreed. As I look back at my reddit usage over the years is that
reddit provides a structured view into shifting social sentiment. Any
sufficiently massive, long-lived, and topically comprehensive discussion
community will give you the same thing, but I have yet to find one that gives
as much of an overall view into what everyone else is thinking than does
reddit, mostly for the simple fact that you are shown all the content by
default.

I know that it inadvertently helped me learn a lot about what factors can make
people feel the way they do and behave the way they do. As I follow juicy
comment threads and such, I also see this happening for others. That is indeed
cool as fuck.

~~~
ddingus
Yes it is. Well said.

------
IceDane
Most profound? Is this for real?

You don't need to spend very long on that subreddit to see that it's just as
susceptible to the typical narrow-minded, black and white Reddit justice as
every other subreddit. When it's not crystal clear whether the OP is asshole,
there is little room for any kind of nuance and people pile on. It's very
similar to relationship_advice. Full of people who should be well aware that
they don't have the whole story and that life can be complicated, but don't
really care, since it's not their life, so it's easy to tell people they're an
asshole or that they should break up with their partner of 5+ years or some
such.

------
ecmascript
Although the number of 'white knights' on that subreddit is very high which
leads to very skewed opinions on who is the asshole for relationship advice.

Pretty much the same as /r/relationshipadvice. I would advice everyone not to
listen to __strangers__ opinions on the __internet__ on behavioral subjects
based on a short description.

------
delinka
> He says the criticism he received was harsh, congruous with some of the
> other feedback he’s seen on the site where people are eager to pass judgment
> and diagnose others, armed with only 3,000 characters of information.

Is this about someone learning the harshness of internet judgement for the
first time? If you've been on the 'tubes for any amount of time, you
understand that forum mobs are fickle and you probably don't want to invite
attention to your psyche (even through an anonymous throwaway) without
presenting all the facts and angles.

And _then_ you get to the demographic nature of the particular forum (as
sibling comments point out, those with little life experience.)

~~~
s1artibartfast
I think what I found fascinating and disturbing is how frequently posters will
completely disregard the facts presented and construct an imaginary narrative
for events. Depending on the group identification of the poster, this
counterfactual narrative is either extremely exculpatory or damming.

The whole experience gives me a lot more sympathy for those who are judged a
jury of their "peers"

------
ww520
It's interesting for a while but got boring and repetitive real quick. The
stories are similar. The comments are predictable.

~~~
whoopdedo
Reddit in a nutshell.

All subs with more than 100 subscribers are either (1) karma farms (2)
egoposting no different than r/gonewild without the (explicit) nudity or (3)
sports.

------
dandersh
In my admittedly limited perusing of the sub I've found that often the exact
opposite result occurs: the OP is called out for their behavior and then
actively defends themselves in the comments or is completely oblivious to why
they're seen that way.

------
ncmncm
I had only one question coming in here: what was the verdict on the
thermostat?

Anybody?

The only hint was "institutional misogyny", but that is not conclusive. If
they overcame that bias, it ought to mean something. If not, I will have to
look elsewhere for enlightenment.

------
zck
Weirdly, the reddit Android app sent me a push notification this morning
suggesting I subscribe to r/AmItheAsshole. I've never seen a push notification
from the reddit app before.

------
kpU8efre7r
AITA? If you need validation from strangers by posting your problems online
then yes!

------
austincheney
Oh how I tire of profoundly sensitive people. There is something supremely
adult about receiving negative (qualified) criticism well.

As a senior developer this is perhaps most evident when trying to mentor a
developer who cannot read code (or refuses to do so) and any suggestion along
the lines of RTFC (read the fucking code) must immediately equal asshole. This
is the bane of my career. This is what causes me to look for new employment
and cry into my pillow at night.

~~~
Zhenya
>>Oh how I tire of profoundly sensitive people

>>cry into my pillow at night

People management is a job as much as writing code; arguable harder since
there is usually no right answer.

