Sub-tooting Discourse
Positive or joking sub-toots aside... what even is the right thing to do in response to a negative sub-toot directed at you?
They hurt to see- especially coming from friends, and if they get popular they turn into something incredibly cruel in a way unique to these sorts of platforms.
I get that everyones' timelines are their own, but it's incredibly disheartening to see those ultra-toxic elements of Twitter culture repeated here. Didn't we come here to escape that?
Sub-tooting Discourse
@mawr Usually, I let the subtoot go. I tell myself that many people have gotten into the habit of treating their public communication spaces like private environments and work to maintain the polite fiction that I didn't see what got said or that I wasn't hurt by it. It's emotional labor, but it's worth doing for people I care about. Sometimes I can't quite manage it and I speak up anyway, even when I know doing so only escalates the tension. I make mistakes too.
Sub-tooting Discourse
@literorrery @mawr okay yeah, this bit--"the habit of treating public communication spaces like private environments"--yess. I mean, it was a thing even back in LJ days, when you *could* make a group that consisted of "everybody *except* X" to vent/flail/ask for explanations in, or you could make a public post calling-out-but-not-naming X, and plenty of people chose the latter. but the fact that there *was* that viable alternative made it much more obviously drama-mongering.
Sub-tooting Discourse
@mawr @literorrery I understand the impulse to sub-toot, but I also understand the reasons why not to, and having the tools to do literally anything else, it's vanishingly rare for me to choose to do it. but I think that's a mindset that I was able to develop in LJ days, and I wonder if Kids These Days, never really having been a part of the LJ culture, just don't see viable options.
Sub-tooting Discourse
@literorrery @mawr of course, one of the people I know is particularly prone to subtooting is also an LJ veteran, so *shrug*?
I think part of the reason I avoid it so much is that I have a *strong* aversion to anything that even slightly resembles passive-aggressive behavior to me, For Reasons, and subtooting pushes all those buttons. I can usually shrug it off when it's directed at me, but actually doing it makes me feel icky. :|
