To be fair, I did say “well established anecdote” and not “well established fact”.

I always hated the stereotype that Reddit was full of nothing but loser virgins trapped in their mom’s basement who had no friends and no chance of a fulfilling life.

I mean, sure there are a lot of people there (and here) that probably fit most, if not all of that stereotype, but the constant need to point out what losers we all are is problematic in so many ways. Namely that some of us do actually have friends, hobbies, and lives, but still can relate to the overall vibe of being a bit of a weirdo or a loner or whatever, but also it has a tendency to create this barrel of crabs type mental barrier where it just feels like the constant reminders of “if this is all I am, this is all I will ever be” keeps presenting itself. It’s tiring and is the reason why I always kept all the self-insulting subs like me_irl on my block list.

Many is not all. And by creating an us vs them mentality where I’m “us” for the most part, but not for the whole part, there’s situations where the need to choose is being presented. It’s gatekeeping for the sake of gatekeeping, and really isn’t part of a healthy community of people.

It’s a pretty well established anecdote that most of the time a McDonalds tells you the ice cream machine is broken, it’s because they’ve already cleaned it for the night and if they use it again they’ll need to reclean it. It’s easier to say it’s broken rather than make one dessert and then have to reclean it all over again.