Every time I see that little red number in my inbox, my first thought is: Did I mess up? My brain jumps to the worst-case scenario—maybe I said something controversial, and now everyone’s correcting me and downvoting my stupid comments. Even though, most of the time, the messages are actually helpful and fun, that number still triggers some sort of insecurity and anxiety. The bigger it gets, the louder my worries grow.

Logically, I know I don’t screw up that often, and most feedback is neutral or even positive. But deep down, my insecure monkey brain panics at the thought of being wrong—or worse, publicly called out. Even when I’m right, the number still makes my stress levels spike up. What if people disagree with me? What if they don’t like what I wrote?

And yes, I see the irony in posting this. Writing about it is basically asking for it and feeding the very anxiety I’m trying to ignore. Maybe it’s my version of exposure therapy.

    • chaosCruiser@futurology.todayOP
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      6 hours ago

      LOL. There are surprisingly many people like that. There should be a community where you can post these pictures. It could be like a competition of sorts.

  • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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    7 hours ago

    I cringe actually, because sometimes you get troll comments or condescending response like “akshually, or this is not that or this, and you are,” so I end up just putting them as read all and not respond

  • kepix@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    its usually cause the communist gang or the linux gang has discovered my opinion. no need for alarm.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    Someone disagrees with me.

    Someone is pointing out an error I made.

    Someone is arguing an exception to prove me wrong.

    I made an agreeable statement.

    In that order of priority.

    • Tollana1234567@lemmy.today
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      7 hours ago

      I will answer the first one, if it’s not condescending, but most of the time it is, so I just don’t respond to it.

    • chaosCruiser@futurology.todayOP
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      8 hours ago

      Wait, so you’re primarily expecting the responses to be written by people who disagrees with you? You must enjoy politics.

      • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        Haha, yeah I do comment a bit in politics. Here it’s not too bad, I tend to have similar views as many here so the disagreements are the “genocide joe” type more often than not.

    • chaosCruiser@futurology.todayOP
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      8 hours ago

      The number of comments, likes, upvotes, responses and other metrics rarely tell you about how interesting you and your comments are. Let’s say there’s a post with 100 upvotes, and the top comment has like 50 upvotes. If you drop a comment there, you can expect to get 10-30 upvotes. Not more than 50, because the the parent comment already has 50. In some rare cases, the child comment can get more upvotes than the parent, but don’t count on it.

      You are still a wonderful person even if you get only a handful of comments or upvotes. Even if you got zero, that doesn’t change who you are or how good your comments are. These metrics usually tell you something about the time and place of the comment.

      The content matters too, but to a lesser extent. If the comment is all middle fingers, don’t expect many upvotes. Although, there are always exceptions. Posting the classic “fuck spez” is the kind of hostility people can get behind.

        • chaosCruiser@futurology.todayOP
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          5 hours ago

          That makes me miss the old forum days where everyone had some fancy bonus text (a signature) at the bottom of each post. Why don’t we have signatures any more on any platform? Was it really such a bad idea that it died with the forums?

  • frostedtrailblazer@lemmy.zip
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    11 hours ago

    I feel I need a few weeks to respond when I notice people dog piling me. It’s not common, but I don’t want to deal with all that negativity out there gate with people when I’m just looking to have a conversation.

    Some people are looking to jump on you the second you even broach some topics which can be a bit frustrating.

    Thankfully most of Lemmy has been so friendly, it’s other places that actually have gotten to me more.

    • chaosCruiser@futurology.todayOP
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      10 hours ago

      Judging by some of the other comments here, there are surprisingly many people who try to have a civilized conversation in a places where things escalate very easily into a flame war. I prefer to avoid conversations that lead to that much negativity, which highlights yet another interesting usage difference. Because of that, I don’t face anywhere near as much hostility as some other people. If I used Lemmy that way, dogpiling might occur more frequently, and I might approach it exactly the way you do—by neglecting those messages for a while.

      Speaking of the friendly vibe, I think that’s just one of the many benefits of being a small platform. If Lemmy got like 100x the number of users, that vibe would probably shift in a more negative direction.

  • Krudler@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    No, because I use Boost and I do not let it check notis. I revisit comments that I would like to have a conversation around and I look for meaningful responses. I really don’t care what the average person says as most of the time it’s the player piano music in their head, or some logical fallacy.

  • AmericanEconomicThinkTank@lemmy.world
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    14 hours ago

    Lol sorta. For me, I run official accounts in these sorts of circles mainly because I despise modern corporate social media platforms, I’d still be on newsgroups if it weren’t so much work lol.

    So, I do enjoy seeing notifs, mainly in the hope (like every other boring ass economist) that I get to have some dialog on an interesting topic.

    • chaosCruiser@futurology.todayOP
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      7 hours ago

      Wait, you’re an actual real-life economist?

      Don’t mind if I do. I’ve wanted talk to economists for such a long time, because that’s one of the many areas I couldn’t include in my formal studies. Yeah, you gotta graduate eventually, and you can’t keep on adding more and more courses that have nothing to do with what you’re really trying to achieve, LOL.

      Anyway, I’m really curious about the state of economics as a discipline. Do you see it as a mature science, or do you think economics still has a long way to go? Are there widely accepted solid theories that no longer change? You know, like a solid foundation you can confidently build upon? Is every new recession a hurricane that tares through the walls and buries the previous foundation under a mountain of mud?

    • chaosCruiser@futurology.todayOP
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      7 hours ago

      Mission accomplished! Now I know that I’m not alone with these confusing feelings. It’s a journey of self-discovery we can all embark on together. Well, maybe not all, since some people use Lemmy in a very different way.

    • chaosCruiser@futurology.todayOP
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      7 hours ago

      This is the way. Basically, the rule 1 of internet.

      Always react based on the title, ignore any news articles or long explanations the post may have. Never click the news article, since we all know journalists are very good at conveying the core message in the title without implying anything even a little bit distorted. On top of that, the average Joes posting their random ideas are also professionals when it comes to crafting descriptive post titles.

    • chaosCruiser@futurology.todayOP
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      19 hours ago

      Yeah, anxiety is a pretty strong word, but feeling worried is what I’m really talking about. You know, that uncomfortable feeling that you may have said something wrong and you’re worried about what people might say. It’s in the the same general direction as anxiety, but nowhere near as extreme as actual clinical anxiety. Maybe “worrying for nothing” is a more fitting expression for this thing.

  • Coskii@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    1 day ago

    I would have to post something that people interact with… I’m not that kind of person. I usually get none to one reply to stuff I post, I think the highest mine has ever gone is three. I also couldn’t keep up with it.

    • chaosCruiser@futurology.todayOP
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      1 day ago

      It’s mostly about time and place. What the post actually contains matters far less. Post in a big community or at a time when most people are awake, and you’re guaranteed to get lots of upvotes and comments. Post in a niche community, and you’ll be lucky to get a handful of upvotes, and maybe even a single comment.