When I was a lot younger, on an old forum back in the early 00s, someone called me a "know-it-all". This sounds silly now but it really hit me in just the wrong way at the time, I was sincerely trying to fit in by showing off my knowledge of the subject with no idea that that's how I was coming across. I guess it was a learning experience.
From my experience people on the sites (lemmy, etc.), are way kinder, more respectful and accepting, than people, I meet in real life. That might also be my problem as I'm autistic and find almost any in-person comunication confusing.
Once I was told that I deserved to be fired and, another time, I was told that I am unable to think properly so I shouldn't work as a software developer.
Both remarks were quite painful because they were not questioning my ideas/opinions but my professional abilities. I confess that in my "down" moments those thoughts tend to pop up even years later.
I think it has less to do with the comment and more to do with how hard you are on yourself. Here's a, not so secret, secret; a lot of successful people suffer from imposter syndrome. I know you probably know all this already but i am here to attest, I suck too at times, but that doesn't mean I'm a sucky person.
I just had someone say I should not be using a steambox because I feel swapping the ssd was not super easy? If you don't know what a steambox is, it is a piece of consumer electronics (just fyi just in case). The fact someone thinks they can comment on your abilities to work your job based on one thing indicates they are likely not qualified to give that advice.
Honestly, one comment, no. But I did stop playing online multiplayer games because the toxicity of the chat box made the experience frustrating and annoying instead of fun and I decided that it wasn't causing the emotions I wanted to be having in my free time.
back when I was doing mmos I found after you blocked enough users the chat was not to bad. This is one reason im big on the fediverse options being very raw but having tools to filter and block completely in the hands of the users.
Not really, my skin is pretty thick. But I made a comment once that fucked someone up real good. I think about it every time I start to go “too far” and I reel it back in, because I never want to be that person again.
Someone was having a very bad day and took it out on me with unprovoked anger on Reddit (of course). Their comments were very pointed, unnecessary, and all around inappropriate for the work related sub we were in. I took the bait, and it got a lot worse. Any attempt to reason with them (my first mistake) just made it worse.
So, I found out who they were and where they worked based on their username. Called the office (with no plan, like what was I going to accomplish? Dumb.) But, I found out he was just fired the prior week. With surprisingly little effort, I was able to squeeze the dirty details out of the receptionist. It was bad—and it was the dirt I needed. I took that information and formed a comment that would shut their shit down for good…
What ended up happening was they responded negatively—as anyone would. But, there was weakness in it. I won. But I wasn’t satisfied. “They sucker punched me. I am the victim!” I convinced myself.
So, high on anger and craving the last blow, I dug through their comment history like a rabid animal, but instead of dirt, I found their life story. They were having a lot of mental issues dealing with anger. They were mid-divorce. They were having anxiety about finding employment. They were up to their eyeballs in debt. Etc…
Your wording makes me believe my comment came across as much more serious as intended.
Also, assuming you really did take that experience to heart I am not criticising you. I am criticising the actions of someone with less life experience, who no longer exists (they have been replaced with the smart you).
Well I tried and failed to find any other reason for your comment beyond plain spite. Maybe instead of trying to put others down you take a hard look at yourself, because you're coming across as a complete piece of shit.
One time I said on Reddit that I really missed my high school boyfriend because he genuinely was the love of my life, and things were so bad in my marriage I sometimes thought I would do anything to have him back, and someone told me I was like the show Crazy Ex Girlfriend. I was just lonely and sad and feeling desperate. It was fucking mean.
I'm sorry people suck sometimes. I hope you're in a happier place now. High school boyfriends are the best what-ifs because you can assume they grew up, imagine their potential, and not have to see all their screwups.
It ended up being dumb because he had evolved into a Qanon type person looking him up on Facebook, but I was just sad for a feeling I once had. Thank you. I'm not really in a better place, and never tie your finances to a crazy person or you'll never get free.
This guy I had a huge crush on in junior high tracked me down when I was in my 20s. I was thrilled at first, then learned he had turned into kind of a cultish religious nut. Instant turnoff.
Then there's my first true love from my early 20s. I can't remember why exactly we broke up but we stayed in touch and even hooked up again some years later. Then we both got married and eventually lost touch. He reached out to me again recently, and I was hit by that same old feeling. But I realize it's like what you said, it's a feeling I once had. People change over the years -- I sure have -- and I know almost nothing about him now. Plus we're both still married. Still flattering for me though.
Didn't really hurt but more like sting. I published a popular video and someone wrote they needed to switch from their usual 2x speed watching videos to 1x because of my accent.
I get it, English is my 4th language so it won't be very smooth. But I've been using it for 99℅ of my conversations since I moved to Korea 3 years ago and I feel I'm better in it than almost everyone I interact with here.
goign from 2x to 1x is not really that bad of a thing. Hes saying he can understand you but not at an artificially high rate of speed. I personally don't get watching things at multiple speeds but im someone who would rather read a doc overall.
I'm usually watching at 2.5-3.0 times speed. I turn down the speed either for A: entertainment (movies simply have a sort of pacing that is not so nice to interrupt (compared to any random YouTube video)), or B: because the content is sooo good and information dense that the limiting factor is no longer audio processing, but following the reasoning of the content. Those are the videos I love most.
Any time I watch settlers talk about Black people on the internet it reminds me we have made no real material progress towards liberation in the West, and likely never will until the West as we know it has fallen in. That's a regular pain; psychic damage, despair and rage at the same time.
I grew up in the world of BBS's and IRC.
First foray into a chat channel started with someone renaming themselves "34yrDude changes name to 15yrChick"
...and that set the tone for me what the internet is.
It's a entire world where you make absolutely zero assumptions. The 'things' responding in text could be anything. And I say thing instead of people because these days it may not even a person.
There's an entity that responds to my comments, and perhaps seemingly hurtful,
it could be some 10yr old kid who doesn't fully understand,
it could be could be some mentally challenged person,
it could be someone's crazy grandma,
and now it could be some bot that while not purposefully built to be malicious, through emergent behavior is trolling and insulting people because it gets a rise out of people that results in more and longer comments, which tickles its feedback loop to do more of the same.
So nah, there's nothing anyone in the vast internet could type out that I would personally hurt my feelings, because I make no assumptions as to where the comment is coming from, and those comments don't have a lot of weight to me.
this sums it up for me. Along with the fact you never see those guys talking to themselves at 7/11 but go check out whos using the computers all day in the library sometime.
On a forum, I was complaining about a troll and his friend roasting something i made, they responded with a picture of a baby crying. Moderators did nothing. It ruined my week. I was like 16 at the time.
How can you allow a comment to hurt you? Easy, by being human and having feelings. Comments can't hurt if you're an empty husk of a person who has no feelings; if you're hypervigilant about bracing for attacks; or if you never take a risk of being vulnerable and never share anything important about yourself. None of these options is particularly healthy. Having no feelings is a type of major depression, and living in fight-or-flight mode will lead you there, or to an early grave. The last option is at least reasonable online (but not in relationships), but not so easy in practice.
A common theme in the responses here is the element of surprise, comments and criticism that blindsided the person by hitting them in a vulnerable spot that they didn't know that they were exposing.
That certainly comports with my experience in receiving hurtful comments.
That’s easy for you to say, but you don’t have their experience and you don’t feel their emotions. I agree that we should strive for that, but expecting everyone to just brush off everything is unrealistic.
Plenty of comments hurt my brain trying to comprehend how utterly stupid they are, but I don't think there's anything an anonymous stranger could say that would hurt my feelings, that kinda stuff needs to be personal.