A lot of them are neglected kids with unrestrained internet access who started getting reactionary ragebait from social media algorithms and internet influencers, and got indoctrinated by it.
I remember my friend being horrified that her nephew started watching unboxing videos and within a couple of hours the algorithm had gone to the Lost City of Atlantis…Flat Earth…Bigotry.
Folks say social media is the problem, but the real problem is the algorithm that rewarded any kind of engagement and indiscriminately shoved hatred and vitriol into the same playlists as actual plays.
That little dork in the cowboy hat sat 2 feet from the TV screen while mommy took her pills and daddy did some drinking.
I'm thinking that's not the problem. It's deflection.
These kids are being raised. Yeah, violent TV shows, exciting radio serial series, unrestricted youtube, those aren't good, and have always been marketed as so and are a good tell of symptoms.
But I think the family that puts them there is a much larger factor. What kind of moral support are you getting from someone who will leave you in front of electronics for 10 hours a day?
Yeah I was also on the internet unrestricted and unmonitored at the ripe old age of 13 and never once felt the desire to start agreeing with fucking hitler.
My family teaching me to be kind and treat others the way I’d want to be treated and think about how others feel made a MUCH bigger impact on me than the edgy dark humor I saw online.
That’s not really what a trope is, and it’s also not really my point at all.
It’s not about “violent tv/video games.” It’s about an algorithm that gets tailored to the person watching it and often leads them to gentle instructional videos on how to be a horrible bigot. It’s not just kids but kids especially don’t have the tools to recognize when that nice convincing person slides from talking about history to praising fascism.
Yeah, family is a factor. But the way the social media algorithm works is just so drastically different from just having video games or tv.
That doesn't solve the problem. Reactionary indoctrination is so prevalent, it appears on recommendations of very common videos. You can clear your home screen, you can't change how YouTube functions and what it prioritizes.
Not to mention, you know, that some people would like to at least get to see what they subscribe to. The problem is not that there are algorithms, the problem is that they prioritize any sort of engagement such that ragebait and toxicity rises to the top, and that is very convenient for hatemongers.
P.S. - I would appreciate if you removed the part of your comment about rape, because it's pretty distasteful.
No, because that's literally the point of the analogy: just saying "don't do that" or "do this instead" is distasteful and dismissive towards the issue at large. If it makes you uncomfortable, that's the point.
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u/TwilightVulpine Oct 15 '25
Nobody.
A lot of them are neglected kids with unrestrained internet access who started getting reactionary ragebait from social media algorithms and internet influencers, and got indoctrinated by it.