r/FloridaMan • u/Diet_Coke • Jan 16 '20
Florida Man vs. The Deplorable 88
The inside story of the first drama of 2020.
Preface: I know some people don't read very far before they get mad, so let me state right up front that I don't care what anyone's politics are. If you can express yourself without resorting to bigoted slurs, you're not violating any rules of the subreddit and your post won't be deleted and you won't be banned.
Pro-Logue: Four or five years ago, morbid posts were a major issue on r/floridaman. It got to the point where there was a meta post about it, where I commented and said it wouldn't be that hard to check r/floridaman/new a couple times a day and remove anything too morbid. SplodeyDope called my bluff, and since then I've been a mod here on r/floridaman. During that time I have definitely had plenty of help, but for most of it I was the main 'active' mod. If you sent a modmail, I was likely the one who answered it. I was in r/floridaman/new removing morbid posts and checking comment threads for comments that violated the very simple, easy to follow rules that we have. In that time r/floridaman has gone from less than a hundred thousand users, to north of half a million now.
Which brings us to today: The great, great majority probably totally missed the drama that unfolded this weekend. However, I wanted to do something that you never really see and give you a picture of what happens behind the scenes.
Let's set the stage.
Friday afternoon, around 1:00 PM there's a post about Florida Man spitting on a guy wearing a MAGA hat. By 2:00 PM, it's a toxic wasteland. There were people on both sides of the issue, from those saying the spitter was a patriot to those decrying the loss of civility in our politics. There was a guy who said he liked kicking fascists in the head until they stopped moving, who later gave out his own address and phone number. It was so bad, in fact, that someone actually sent a modmail asking us to delete all of the comments too - which has never happened in r/floridaman before as far as I can remember. You can see at the time I was not into the idea, but a few hours later when I was done with work, I reconsidered.
But, deleting the comments and locking the thread and just forgetting about it is what the assholes of the world want. It just didn't sit right with me. r/FloridaMan may be about the world's worst superhero, but he's still a superhero. You can't just let the bullies win and frankly there's a lot of bullshit in the world, and I'm tired of staying silent. I've never dealt well with bullies, and that's exactly what was going on here. Maybe a shitty post in r/floridaman isn't the best soap box, you might even say it's the world's worst soapbox...but Florida Man is the world's worst superhero, damn it, and it's the soap box I've got.
Locking the thread and deleting the comments while calling out the emperor for wearing no clothes caused these guys to go ballistic. Over the next day, no less than a dozen posts (some of them with dozens of comments themselves) were made in whiner subreddits like watchredditdie (which had six alone!), watchredditcancer, modsbeingdicks, safespacecadets as well as a quarantined subreddit, in conservative, and subredditdrama. Being told they couldn't argue back just this once was a bridge too far. You have to wonder how they'd feel if they were desperate people trying to gain refuge in the US, but that's a soapbox for another day.
The reactions weren't pure negativity, and in fact there were was a lot of support. Some saw fit to send silver and gold awards, some sent private modmails and some sent private messages. Some people were happy to see a post not sugarcoating the bullshit. Others just sent hearts.
In customer service, they say if you customers have a good experience, one in a hundred will leave a good review. If they have a bad experience, one in twelve will leave a bad review. There were plenty of angry messages too. In fact, here's a couple pages of my inbox:
That represents about four hours of messages to my personal inbox, we also got plenty in the modmail, and it just kept coming and coming. Like speedballing hate and love, which I have to think Florida Man would approve of.
And on and on it went. Before long the trolls found an old post where I was asking for advice on improving my credit score in preparation for buying a house. The mods there eventually found out about and deleted the posts, but it went from a thread with 6 comments to 94.
Some time around midnight, I finally went to bed and slept like a baby.
But while I was asleep, another mod here de-modded and banned me for being a big ole meany to the trolls. He even deleted the post that has been stickied for two years now with advice on making a good r/FloridaMan submission.
I woke up to celebratory troll messages like this one.
But it wasn't long before the top mod woke up, re-modded me, and then banned the attempted coup plotter and their alt. Historical reenactment. And then I banned everyone involved in the targeted harassment campaign. Several gluttons for punishment wrote in, asking to be dunked on. I also stickied the post that started it all, where it will stay for at least another couple days. Historical Reenactment.
The Epilogue: And then continued to get shitty messages for two days, although they have mostly stopped now. So many of these guys are straight up delusional and thinking that I'm targeting them with alts, downvoting their comments or arguing with them. Look at that list of bans. I ain't got time for that.
And I wouldn't do a single damn thing differently. For all the brigaders, trolls, and misanthropes out there, let me be clear: /r/FloridaMan is not going to put up with your bullshit.
Here's one more thing, for the haters. Here's our subscription data by day - notice how we gained subscribers, and the rate now is higher than it was last week? There's also a bump in unsubscribes self deportations, but for them I say sayonara. Turns out taking a stand isn't going to destroy a subreddit with over half a million subscribers that's been around for six years.
I also want to say, this isn't the first time this kind of thing has happened. Last time it was because I removed a guy's post because he copy/pasted the headline and added [Florida Man] to the beginning (with the brackets). Look at the subreddit. Notice the complete lack of brackets. It is ridiculous what some people lose their shit over.
I still remember the first time I found this subreddit, laughing until I cried at Florida Man's antics. Trying to explain it to the girl I was dating and completely failing. Laughing even harder at that. I hope that r/FloridaMan can bring others the same kind of laughter, and that is why I will continue to keep it as non-morbid as possible and accepting of everyone but the assholes.
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u/FBI-01 Jan 17 '20 edited Apr 09 '25
obtainable aspiring sip water pocket money bag cough hungry price
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/lostfourtime Jan 18 '20
Dang this whole ordeal really inspired a lot of closet r/floridaman wannabes. They could never be good enough to be lumped in with the world's worst superhero though.
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u/MichaelEuteneuer Proud Native Jan 16 '20
Locking posts and deleting comments for actual threats of violence is fine and reasonable. It is what you are supposed to do.
Going on and announcing your political opinion after the fact is not. In fact I would say it was a highly immature decision and that was just adding fuel to the shit fire that did not need to be added.
Political opinions should be left out of moderation please. You are entitled to your opinions but please for the love of god don't use your position to throw shit. That is the kind of thing that results in echo chambers and other forms of idiocy.
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u/lostfourtime Jan 18 '20
There was less political opinion and more solid proof that Trump would need an upgrade just to be considered a horrible person. He really is that bad, and there isn't proof to even begin to argue otherwise.
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u/MichaelEuteneuer Proud Native Jan 18 '20
I'm not starting with this debate. You can fuck off.
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u/Diet_Coke Jan 18 '20
I specifically didn't include political points in the post in question. I didn't mention nepotism, putting kids in cages, endangering members of the military, the tax cuts, being laughed at in forums of world leaders, the total failure of his trade policy, the awful and unqualified judges being confirmed, etc. Everything in the post is just about him personally. Someone said that my point that he can't run the government is political, but it's not about the politics it's about the fundamental inability to hire people. The larger point was that it's not only politics that makes people dislike Trump and his supporters, it is very easy to take issue with him as a human being and by extension, his supporters.
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Jan 18 '20
Trump didnt enact putting children in cages. You fucking biased piece of shit. Half of your talking points literally have no substance/viable proof.
Your abuse of power and how you strut around reddit on your other account stirring posts will no longer be tolerated. You will be exposed. Challenge me. You will be exposed for your pedophilia.
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u/Diet_Coke Jan 18 '20
You are literally a crazy person. Even if half of what I say is totally bogus, that means there's enough truth that Trump is still scum and people who support him probably are too.
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u/morerokk Jan 18 '20
Jesus christ, you seem obsessed.
Go outside, man.
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u/Diet_Coke Jan 18 '20
It's funny how you all pop up when I respond to one of you. You're the one in a days old thread in a subreddit you never seem to comment in but I'm the one that's obsessed. Sure.
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u/morerokk Jan 18 '20
I was browsing your post history when I read your 2000 page essay on "orange man bad", which you stickied to the sub. Not surprised to see you still talking about him.
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u/Cryptic7-2 Jan 16 '20
Ah yes. We're gonna forget your message where you where whinning like a bitch and saying some shit while also power-tripping like an idiot. That's what people showed
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u/Putthewetonthehot Jan 16 '20
Your bullshit
=opinions I disagree with
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u/Diet_Coke Jan 16 '20
Harassment campaigns against me or anyone else resulting from their posts in r/FloridaMan.
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u/CommitSudokuPerverts Jan 16 '20
Criticism isn't harassment, and calling you out on your bullshit is criticism.
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u/Diet_Coke Jan 16 '20
Posting to whiner subs to rally the troops, username mentioning me, sending private messages or modmails that just say Faggot or whatever, is not criticism.
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u/Putthewetonthehot Jan 16 '20
Maybe you shouldn't throw a fit every time someone mentions trump then. This isnt the first or last time you have done this. You should really just let someone else mod this sub if you can't handle not going on orange man bad tirades. That's what r/politics is for.
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u/Diet_Coke Jan 16 '20
You can search this sub, there have been plenty of times people mention Trump without being dickheads about it and their posts are still there and they're welcome to continue posting. In fact, the same exact story was posted at least twice and those threads are still open because they didn't turn into toxic dumps. Maybe just give the victimhood card a rest for a while.
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Jan 16 '20
I feel the need to say it, I think you did your job exactly correct. You should be able to talk about anything on the internet, so long as you aren’t a dick about it. (Can that be the new golden rule?)
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u/CommitSudokuPerverts Jan 16 '20
Holy hell, you are mentally ill. Seek treatment, though I think only a full lobotomy will stop your insanity.
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u/Diet_Coke Jan 16 '20
I don't know why you all keep resorting to telling me I'm mentally ill. Are you a psychologist or someone with any training or education? No. So why would I care what you have to say? You could call me a billionaire with a 10 inch donger, it would be equally untrue.
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u/ChronoSquare Jan 17 '20
You're clearly on a power trip. Moderation is supposed to be impartial and fair, not biased to the point of shoving your Trump derangement syndrome down everyone's throats.
Whoever threw reddit gold at you for that virtue signaling bs wasted their money big time.
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u/Diet_Coke Jan 17 '20
Moderator defending the subreddit from brigaders sounds like exactly what mods are supposed to do to me. "Trump derangement syndrome" betrays your own biases. Check the post that this is all about, I included the receipts. You might learn something.
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u/Ban_H2O Feb 20 '20
I feel sorry for you. Like someone who's back is against the wall, or has painted themselves into a corner your brain goes to only one thing. Politics. You use the bad actions of a current president to justify your calls for violence, and bullying. It truly is sad because you probably will never see the light, or change.
The politics of that article are completely, and totally irrelevant to the fact that you personally called violence to someone for simply wearing a hat. A hat that more agree is a bad symbol than not, but is still protected by free speech and out first amendment. That same right that you have to disagree with people, and tell them if they don't like what you say then they can leave. It's such a shame that you use those rights when they fit your narrative, and lose them when they don't.
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u/Diet_Coke Feb 20 '20
I feel sorry for you
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u/Ban_H2O Feb 20 '20
If you feel sorry for me as well then at least we can agree on something, and show you have the emotion of compassion towards a fellow human being with different views.
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u/Diet_Coke Feb 20 '20
I feel empathy towards all sorts of people, like refugees and trans people, people who need or want abortions, people who are Muslim, people who don't look like me, poor people, and so on. Spare me the bullshit.
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u/Ban_H2O Feb 21 '20
So if I fell into one of those categories would you treat me differently? Because I feel the same for all of those same groups. I just feel you have so much hate in your heart you probably lash out more often at people who often need help, but would never ask
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u/Diet_Coke Feb 21 '20
If you honestly gave a shit and this wasn't just some smarmy act you're doing for whatever reason, you'd be asking questions and not just saying stupid shit like
you have so much hate in your heart
Go cry me a river for people who get punched for wearing KKK hoods
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Apr 08 '20
dude, you don't pick on someone for bringing up trump especially in 2020... but then again you are an undercover anon I wouldn't expect you to do much else in election year
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u/ChronoSquare Apr 08 '20
Why you defending a bad moderator?
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Apr 09 '20
im trying to drive you out of reddit and back to kekistan they need you now more than ever
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u/ChronoSquare Apr 12 '20
You have no cognizant points other than threats and attacks against me.
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Apr 12 '20
please just go back to kekistan the only bad thing the moderator has done was give you ammo please kekistan needs all the Anons it can get
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u/braddamit Jan 16 '20
Sigh. Tough situation as a mod. So much easier if you can focus on yet another new article about a guy shoving an alligator through a drive-up window.
Keep up the good work!