No, we're not talking about the equivalent of staying outside til past dinnertime, or failing to put your toys away. These aren't kids, they're bullies. The way you deal with bullies is not to ignore them, you must confront them at some point. Ignoring them as you suggest is being beaten. No, the helpless strategy you suggest is learned passivity. It will not starve the fires, it allows them to flourish. Bigots don't give up if you let them fester long enough. Fight back or run.
I would suggest that you don't understand bigots. Bigots are lazy, ignorant people and they need your constant validation to continue their world view. They crave attention. The KKK doesn't hold parades because they think people will welcome them. They know they're going to be shouted at. They thrive in that hostile environment and feed off of it. It's how they gain recruits for their imaginary "fight". If no one showed up or if they were ignored, it would simply look and sound pathetic. And they would all slink away to wonder why they bothered.
Reddit users ignoring /r/imgoingtohellforthis has yet to work as a strategy for boring bigots into slinking away quietly. They can get the attention they want from each other. The flavor of bigot you're describing might be more likely to be a Stormfront user than a redditor, but even then, I think you may be underestimating how much of outwardly bigoted behavior comes down to opportunistic bullying, and overestimating the effectiveness of simply passively enduring until the bully gets tired. As much as an anvil will wear out many a hammer, hammers are produced much more frequently than anvils.
Are you really going to equate the hardcore NeoNazis with some kid who wants to get rise out of you on Reddit by posting something in that subreddit? You're letting your emotion get the better of you. Of course the bigots are going to prop each other up. That's all they have! But I wouldn't call r/imgoingtohellforthis a bigot-only subreddit. I think you're overstating the threat tremendously. And just like the U.S. overstated the threat with groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda, you continue to overstate the threat at a stupid, pointless subreddit like that. Who cares what they say? It's about a relevant as what gets said in r/funny. It's stupid Internet chatter. Did you really expect a subreddit called r/imgoingtohellforthis to be full of nurturing, supporting wisdom for everyone? Shock value is exactly the point of that subreddit. You confuse being passive with being a grown up. When some kid yells something at me on the street, my immediate thought isn't to rally the world against that kid and drag him in front of the court of public opinion so I might make sure that all his thoughts conform to mine. My immediate thought is, ignore it. Words are not actions. And you're not going to teach anyone anything by responding to perceived threats on r/imgoingtohellforthis. You're just going to look like an overcompensating old person that's too sensitive for the Internet. You cannot expect to go through life covered by an invisible forcefield that will protect you for all the bad words.
Speaking up hardly seems like emotional hysterics to me, more like having the courage of conviction. That’s not me being too old for the Internet. Bigots are like mosquitos. Neither survives in the main channel of a swiftly flowing river. They keep to backwaters, need isolated little ponds, and reproduce where they're not interfered with. Given the choice to fight or run, you suggest running every time. The strategy you're calling ‘ignoring’ and I’m calling ‘learned passivity’ strikes me as being too broadminded to take your own side in an argument.
The way you position things so dramatically suggests to me that you're too emotional to confront these people without being suckered into a fight. You want to cruise for trolls, that's your business. I refuse to feed them anymore.
No, we're not talking about the equivalent of staying outside til past dinnertime, or failing to put your toys away. These aren't kids, they're bullies. The way you deal with bullies is not to ignore them, you must confront them at some point. Ignoring them as you suggest is being beaten. No, the helpless strategy you suggest is learned passivity. It will not starve the fires, it allows them to flourish. Bigots don't give up if you let them fester long enough. Fight back or run.
I would suggest that you don't understand bigots. Bigots are lazy, ignorant people and they need your constant validation to continue their world view. They crave attention. The KKK doesn't hold parades because they think people will welcome them. They know they're going to be shouted at. They thrive in that hostile environment and feed off of it. It's how they gain recruits for their imaginary "fight". If no one showed up or if they were ignored, it would simply look and sound pathetic. And they would all slink away to wonder why they bothered.
Reddit users ignoring /r/imgoingtohellforthis has yet to work as a strategy for boring bigots into slinking away quietly. They can get the attention they want from each other. The flavor of bigot you're describing might be more likely to be a Stormfront user than a redditor, but even then, I think you may be underestimating how much of outwardly bigoted behavior comes down to opportunistic bullying, and overestimating the effectiveness of simply passively enduring until the bully gets tired. As much as an anvil will wear out many a hammer, hammers are produced much more frequently than anvils.
Are you really going to equate the hardcore NeoNazis with some kid who wants to get rise out of you on Reddit by posting something in that subreddit? You're letting your emotion get the better of you. Of course the bigots are going to prop each other up. That's all they have! But I wouldn't call r/imgoingtohellforthis a bigot-only subreddit. I think you're overstating the threat tremendously. And just like the U.S. overstated the threat with groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda, you continue to overstate the threat at a stupid, pointless subreddit like that. Who cares what they say? It's about a relevant as what gets said in r/funny. It's stupid Internet chatter. Did you really expect a subreddit called r/imgoingtohellforthis to be full of nurturing, supporting wisdom for everyone? Shock value is exactly the point of that subreddit. You confuse being passive with being a grown up. When some kid yells something at me on the street, my immediate thought isn't to rally the world against that kid and drag him in front of the court of public opinion so I might make sure that all his thoughts conform to mine. My immediate thought is, ignore it. Words are not actions. And you're not going to teach anyone anything by responding to perceived threats on r/imgoingtohellforthis. You're just going to look like an overcompensating old person that's too sensitive for the Internet. You cannot expect to go through life covered by an invisible forcefield that will protect you for all the bad words.
Speaking up hardly seems like emotional hysterics to me, more like having the courage of conviction. That’s not me being too old for the Internet. Bigots are like mosquitos. Neither survives in the main channel of a swiftly flowing river. They keep to backwaters, need isolated little ponds, and reproduce where they're not interfered with. Given the choice to fight or run, you suggest running every time. The strategy you're calling ‘ignoring’ and I’m calling ‘learned passivity’ strikes me as being too broadminded to take your own side in an argument.
The way you position things so dramatically suggests to me that you're too emotional to confront these people without being suckered into a fight. You want to cruise for trolls, that's your business. I refuse to feed them anymore.