One lingering thought on all the upheaval...

Submitted by caminandoennubes t3_11ymv1x in massachusetts

The /r/truerandomthoughts sub really unsettled me. I think most people reading this know what I'm talking about. I'm still processing seeing someone putting these long, detailed essays about their past relationships, next to "Grammarly can by annoying," next to "we should purge certain celebs from society," next to something about pets.

And I'm kind of uncomfortable that all of that just got deleted. It feels like there's someone really unstable and earnest out there, just seething.

How do you respond to that? Is it just one more drop in the bucket, tons of crazies out there, this is just one who happened to keep their diary public? (Damn, how many of them are there?!) Or was this the precursor to something happening in the real world, and we could do more to be forewarned and forearmed?

This whole thing was a perspective shift for me about people, and my & others' relationship with Reddit. I'm still evaluating. Would love to hear thoughts.

EDIT: This is about 7 hours after I initially posted at midday. I'm really grateful for all the thoughts that have been offered. Like I said, the things I read & the way they were presented shook me up. (Maybe it wasn't the things themselves, it was the way I took them...but let's not gaze at our navels too hard.) But this discussion has given me some comfort, catharsis, and closure. Helped turn the page personally, even if this probably isn't the last anyone will say on it.

Three things I think are helpful touchpoints:

  1. If you ever feel you need it, the federal suicide & crisis hotline is 988. You are worth keeping around.
  2. If you would like a reset on racism, here's an essay from Karen Russell, the late great Bill Russell's daughter. It's about growing up and facing racism, it was published in 1987, and it still feels fresh to me. (The phrase "making America great again" appears in it, it was a slogan then too.) https://www.nytimes.com/1987/06/14/magazine/growing-up-with-privilege-and-prejudice.html (Despite the NYT link I didn't encounter a paywall. Too old?)
  3. Boston Public Library has some mental health resources including "therapy cards" and free access to a editation app subscription ( https://www.bpl.org/mentalhealth/ ), and Worcester Public Library has a resource list website ( https://www.mywpl.org/health-medicine )
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ConwayPuder t1_jd8eo2e wrote

Mental health is the silent pandemic. This mod reportedly worked for Meta, a massive company, is probably paid very well and would fit this world's definition of successful, and yet made a very public sub showcasing their probelems as (perhaps) a therapeutic instrument. Most people's struggles are not so obvious.

I'm using this experience as a reality check. People I run across everyday are fighting battles I know nothing about. It's important to be patient, empathetic, and supportive.

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caminandoennubes OP t1_jd8kmqe wrote

Agreed, it was cool to see some people trying to talk directly to the person in an empathetic tone. It didn't seem totally effective but worth the try. I ultimately didn't do this, but I thought about submitting to the truerandomthoughts sub posts like "It is OK to take a tactical retreat" or "Even people trying their best to do good things can do bad, even especially when their values are compelling and pure."

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ky1e t1_jd8qf7t wrote

True random thought: A low activity subreddit doesn't need 10,000 Automod rules

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majoroutage t1_jd8lpnk wrote

"The most atrocious acts of humankind were committed by people who believed they were doing something righteous."

EDIT. How did I ever forget "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

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North-East1989 t1_jdadm8o wrote

Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster... for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.

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SheeEttin t1_jd8mg3c wrote

He himself had posted things like that. Like "true leadership is knowing when to step aside". I don't think you would have been able to reach him, unfortunately.

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majoroutage t1_jd8smps wrote

Remember, these are rules that only apply to other people.

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CertainlySmurf t1_jd8zq5e wrote

He told me he liked the idea that someone, somewhere could be readings his diary-like ramblings, said that you can’t just plop a diary in someone’s lap. He seemed to get some validation from the posts being public. I tried to push him on whether he had any sort of motivation for having more people read his posts—and he kind of suggested it was possible—but shut his account down shortly after.

I think this combined with the number of subs he moderates (seems to be grabbing up available sub names that could blow up one day) and the frequency of his posts indicate someone desperately needing to be heard. The details of his personal life he was posting were wildly outlandish and taboo, I can’t help but think he’s largely slipped by with a number of unresolved and untreated problems and no apparent support system. Stress from his job (if he’s even being truthful about that) really seems to have broken him.

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cimson-otter t1_jd9kean wrote

But at the same time, though their mental issues aren’t their fault, it is their responsibility.

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Devon-Shire t1_jdbb9e6 wrote

> This mod reportedly worked for Meta, a massive company, is probably paid very well and would fit this world's definition of successful

That’s not really the brag he seems to think it is.

Facebook moderator is a crap job making lousy money and they’ll take pretty much anyone because of the high turnover rate. And most importantly, they don’t actually interact with actual users often, which explains a lot given the way he constantly behaved like a child.

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ky1e t1_jd8gt5t wrote

I found it hard to read that material, and I’ve been reflecting on my actions in all this. I didn’t know very much about them when I added them and I agreed when they asked for the full set of permissions. I put my trust in them. Did not do proper diligence, did not anticipate this situation at all.

The pseudonymous stuff has its advantages and disadvantages, I have met very genuine and kind people on here but there is always the chance that someone is not who they initially appear to be.

I am concerned about how many other accounts this person has and if they are doing the same in any more communities.

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caminandoennubes OP t1_jd8hc3k wrote

Don't beat yourself up! The way everyone fought & raised hell should show you how it was a community worth fighting & raising hell for, and I think that shows people appreciate your mod approach. (Also thank you for not taking this down, I was worried it was off-topic, this is so cathartic.)

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ky1e t1_jd8hrhe wrote

Sticking with transparency, won’t be removing meta posts. The account has been deleted so as much as I don’t want to amplify any harassment going their way, they have taken action to not receive more harassment, anyway…

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Girafferage t1_jd8jh1b wrote

Its incredibly hard to determine who somebody really is even in real life in your day to day with people you see constantly. I wouldn't be too hard on yourself about the situation. You did what was right and you are actively working to fix any lingering issues. Id say your actions were justified in trying to help your community and adding a new mod who you believed would do that, and as soon as you saw the situation in the sub you acted quickly, and even engaged in the side sub I created and let people know what was going on and what you were doing to fix it.
Don't put this on you. There is honestly not a lot of people moderating who would have been as diligent and respectful through this.

I would add however, it may be best to not ever hand off the top mod position so there is always an ultimate option to have somebody that I think we can all agree is pretty sane and reasonable who is able to handle any moderator related issues. Any new mods you bring in will be able to do anything you would anyway given the permissions, but they wont be able to remove you, and you will still be able to remove them. Its really nice to have that failsafe in place.

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ky1e t1_jd8q44l wrote

Reddit made a "code of conduct" for moderators last year, one of the things mods are not supposed to do is "camp" on subreddits. I don't intend to remain as top mod here "forever." I was made top mod when the last one decided to leave, this was pre-pandemic and I think before the sub count was above 100k.

I see the importance of having someone reasonable at the top but I don't wish it on anyone lol.

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Graflex01867 t1_jdagcky wrote

The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #2)

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Girafferage t1_jd8ubok wrote

Well, as long as they have been vetted and maybe been around for a good long while. I cant imagine how this sub would have degraded had the other mod been made top mod.

Maybe when the time comes you could have both the current mods of the sub and the community take a vote and then use the outcomes as a good starting point on where to go next.

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Mnemon-TORreport t1_jd8tss7 wrote

At the end of the day, I think the key is that the subreddit rallied, rebounded and is hopefully now in a better place.

Stuff happens but the key is reversing the mistake. And a lot of other folks probably would have yolo'ed and never come back. So cheers for keeping your ear to the ground.

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ky1e t1_jd9wgvo wrote

Cheers. Been on some extra long walks thinking on this stuff. It does not seem like Reddit itself has a functional mechanism for making sure that their generic subreddits like r/massachusetts have sensible leadership.

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majoroutage t1_jda3ekf wrote

Sadly I'm not even sure they have an interest in making sure subs like this have reasonable leadership.

Their approach may be subjectively "reasonable" to them, but it just seems like another avenue to help sway the opinions of the masses however it favors them.

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caminandoennubes OP t1_jdagr7w wrote

> It does not seem like Reddit itself has a functional mechanism for making sure that their generic subreddits like r/massachusetts have sensible leadership.

Does anything?

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caminandoennubes OP t1_jdagthi wrote

> the subreddit rallied, rebounded and is hopefully now in a better place.

PEACE ONLY UNDER LIBERTY!

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FrankWestingWester t1_jd8fhab wrote

I'm a bit of an internet deep diver. I don't like, dox people or go out looking for terrible things, or anything. I just tend to notice little weird things sometimes and then follow the thread for a while to see where I end up.

Linux-is-best was definitely off, worryingly so. I'm not even sure that the things they posted about their real life, like their job, was accurate.

They also were not possible to engage with. It's just not what they were doing here. Online, there's no way to force a genuine interaction. Like, offline? I could look at them in the eyes and tell them something and they'd have to at least consider it. Online it's so much easier to harden yourself against that, or to click away, or to focus on a different comment that you can argue with instead. There's not really much benefit to engaging online with someone who isn't there to engage, which unfortunately means there's almost no way to help someone who is slightly crazy.

Them deleting their account is probably the best case scenario for them, although they are definitely the sort of person who has tons of accounts on other websites they switch between all day, so... Really, my point is that there's not anything anybody can do from here. You shouldn't feel bad about it, but you probably will for a bit, which is good because it means you've still got perspective and empathy.

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BobQuasit t1_jd8dvyy wrote

It wasn't deleted. He took it private. My guess is that he didn't delete his account, and is just keeping his head down and dreaming of a comeback.

Given that he was such as well-known karma whore, it never made sense to me that he'd give up 161k+ karma by deleting his account.

As for the recent unpleasantness, that sort of thing happens all the time - at least on privately-owned forums, which is pretty much ALL of them these days. You couldn't see something like that happen on a truly free forum like Usenet. A takeover wasn't possible, because there was no central authority to corrupt or usurp. But when a forum has an owner, speech can never be truly free.

We got lucky this time. Usually forums die when someone like Linus-Is-Best takes over. But he made the mistake of assuming that ky1e wouldn't come back. Normally that would have been a safe bet.

I've seen a lot of subs which were taken over or even literally bought out. Not to be too specific, but in the run-up to the big primaries and elections, lots of political groups on Facebook and elsewhere were taken over and destroyed. Apparently the buying price for a decent-sized group was $10,000.00. Of course that was quite a few years ago, before inflation. It got to the point where there were literally no groups of more than a few people that covered certain political points of view!

Which was the intent all along, of course. You don't spend tens of thousands (realistically, hundreds of thousands) of dollars to silence dissent if you're not going to make a profit out of it.

Can I stop sounding paranoid now?

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majoroutage t1_jd8fgew wrote

His L-i-B account shows as self-deleted. But it goes without saying that he likely has alt accounts to replace that one.

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caminandoennubes OP t1_jd8k12v wrote

You're right, taken private. I just mean it's inaccessible and likely to remain so.

There was a true-crime sort of thrill reading it, I got sucked in. And I'm not generally a true-crime stan. Also there was a sense of control - I was reading & finding out more about somebody on what seemed like a personal level, even as it seemed even more sinister or threatening.

I doubt that was all fake, given the months-long engagement and more. More likely to be a professional group operation making a character, than one person writing from a fake personality. But just one person dealing with their issues seems most likely to me.

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LackingUtility t1_jd8h58m wrote

After looking at that subreddit and his posts, my assumption was that it was a karma farm: post a thousand 1-sentence new submissions, get them upvoted a half dozen times by bot accounts or other subreddit posters, and you've got several thousand post karma. Keep that up for a few weeks and you're into the hundreds of thousands, and then you leverage that to, say, ask to be made a mod of a legitimate subreddit.

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North-East1989 t1_jd8rfnk wrote

Its not a karma farm. I found him on facebook. He really is mentally ill.

A few of us keep saying it: the guy needs help

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Aesop_Rocks t1_jda4smf wrote

I'm not asking to identify him, I don't even use Facebook, but can you share some insight into how you found him? I'm guessing you were able to triangulate him based on posts in that subreddit of his? That kind of thing fascinated and terrifies me.

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Kriegenstein t1_jd8xohp wrote

I read through a few pages of his posts on Monday, and the vast majority only had a single upvote. The most I saw was 3 IIRC.

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caminandoennubes OP t1_jd8lpdn wrote

That's a really good thought! I'm mostly a lurker, I would never think of hacking Reddit karma like that.

That makes me feel better. Makes the behavior seem more rational.

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bix902 t1_jd8uxsq wrote

Not only that, he made a post that got like no attention about how much personal stuff he's allowed to read on people's fb accounts due to his job which is worrisome given how he responds to even having a little bit of control and power

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LookAtThesePericles t1_jd9cp83 wrote

If anybody still needed any more reason to quit FB and IG, this should have been an absolute wake up call.

He presumably still works there and probably will for some time. There are likely others like him.

Also wait until you guys realize how many of the most populated subreddits are moderated by the same mods that also "moderate" dozens if not hundreds of other subs. Reddit is broken as well.

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caminandoennubes OP t1_jda71jd wrote

Yeah that was an interesting one. I saw some comments calling that "terrifying," and I generally agree. One counterpoint is that I read it as a factual statement ("This website gives me these permissions/privileges"), and it was one more statement among many stream-of-consciousness statements.

It's left to the reader to interpret to what degree that power was abused / could be abused, so I'm left wondering if people actually have different images in their minds. Even though they all call it "worrisome," or "terrifying." No one elaborates so we all feel in agreement. IDK if it helps at all to get into specifics, but if we did I wonder if we'd all have different interpretations of that thread.

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Hilarias_Glucose_Cup t1_jd951ir wrote

If you have ever dug into the world of Reddit super mods none of the behavior this person engaged in would be the least bit surprising. It’s happened over and over again with mods on most of the top level subs. Many of the dog walkers are whacky. As an example, I got banned by the Boston subreddit mods this week for making this same point on the r/subredditdrama post about Linux.

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Mnemon-TORreport t1_jd8grm4 wrote

The blessing and curse of Reddit has always been the people creating and running subreddits.

Some subreddits were created by folks who saw a need for a place to discuss, educate, explore and truly celebrate a topic that didn't exist before.

Many others are created by folks who have no business having power over anybody or anything, and are elevated to a position of authority because they got lucky and grabbed a now coveted subreddit topic because they just got their first.

The piece that's most concerning to me (assuming it is true and I'd love to hear from u/ky1e on this) is the story bopping around that Linux did an end around and essentially convinced Reddit to elevate him as a moderator based on some dubious Facebook job he holds.

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ky1e t1_jd8h45d wrote

They did not mention any job with Facebook when they applied to be added as mod, that was first I heard of it yesterday.

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OkayTryAgain t1_jd8hz9y wrote

The curse is that like every position of power, the people who seek it out the most often are generally not the best of the bunch to hold the position.

Many large subs are moderated by the same network of mods. These people don't get paid for the position. Why do they want it so bad? Having a sense of power has to be one top reasons.

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caminandoennubes OP t1_jd8lg6s wrote

Yeah, for me what was unique was the online diary. But in my personal life I've had times facing people who were 100% committed to seeing things a certain way, and acted against me like a black sheep, or against me and a group of friends. The power-trip aspect of this was disappointingly familiar.

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ahecht t1_jd93v4e wrote

L-I-B said that he was appointed as moderator to twice, once by /u/ky1e and once by the reddit admins (probably applied at /r/redditrequest saying that the existing mods were inactive). Not sure what happened between those times.

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ky1e t1_jd94ao5 wrote

that is simply untrue, admins never appointed them. Why would they do that and keep myself and NightProcrastinator here?

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ahecht t1_jd97brb wrote

Yeah, his story didn't really add up.

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oceanwave4444 t1_jd94r5u wrote

So.. this is what I get for staying offline for a few days lol... now I gotta figure out what happened hah

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majoroutage t1_jd9jaoj wrote

Here's some help getting up to speed. Two lists of links I made. The first has reveddit links. The second is normal links, totally forgot I made the first list lol.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Massachusetts_US/comments/11wnjsk/removed_by_reddit/jd4z7gk/

https://www.reddit.com/r/massachusetts/comments/11xw44r/linux_is_gone/jd6bvr8/

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[deleted] t1_jda0zp8 wrote

[removed]

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majoroutage t1_jda21ij wrote

TL;DR: Auth-left mod whose dayjob is narrative crafting for facebook loses his shit at anyone who doesn't agree with him. Bans people trying to discuss racial issues like helping an Indian couple find a community they will feel safe in. Also goes off on anyone who questions the relevance of continuing to post Ukraine news in this sub. Eventually just starts banning anyone who isn't lockstep with his agenda. Super meltdown mode as the exiles start to organize, lies to everyone about what's going on, recruits mods to help protect the sub from the nonexistent threat of a bigot brigade. Then ky1e comes back and saves the day by kicking them all out.

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cimson-otter t1_jd9k94j wrote

Gonna say that they also never worked where they said they did.

People like this tend to live in a fantasy and that’s what their power trip was all about

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mhhkb t1_jdb5lul wrote

Someone said they did know who he is in real life and he's actually just the moderator of a Facebook group, not an actual employee.

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swoldier_force t1_jdbfwef wrote

This is sad, hilarious, and more believable than being an actual employee.

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bigredthesnorer t1_jd98i8m wrote

Is it really a mental health issue or is the dude just an a-hole? There are plenty of self-aggrandizing a-holes in the world that are mentally ok.

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SileAnimus t1_jdafy8o wrote

Every day out there somewhere there is a selfish person being told by a therapist that it's okay for them to be a bit more selfish. It's not a matter of mental health as much as just outright lack of personal reflection, values, or any other humbling experience. Everyone by default would act the way he did unless they've had some experience in their life teaching them otherwise. It's entitlement.

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Icy-Neck-2422 t1_jd8d6tt wrote

I'd like to think they are no more dangerous than Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons.

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caminandoennubes OP t1_jd8kslo wrote

That's what I would hope, what I'm trying to come around to. The questions that bubble back up are like, the behavior was different from other CBG people types, and why?

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majoroutage t1_jd8gean wrote

I don't know about that. The whole thing kinda felt like a sneak peak at the next Matthew Harris.

(apologies if the link isn't the best, just looked for one quick on mobile).

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caminandoennubes OP t1_jd8kzuy wrote

That's pretty much the sum of my fears. Or that incel guy, Eliot Rodger.

Or is that just paranoia?

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Snoo52682 t1_jd98plo wrote

Seems like reasonable caution.

Even if you turn out to be incorrect, that doesn't mean it was paranoia.

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[deleted] t1_jd945a5 wrote

[deleted]

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majoroutage t1_jd97yx7 wrote

When you hear the saying "never let a good tragedy go to waste," these are the people who take it to heart unironically.

They actually think they are doing society a favor by censoring everything but the approved opinions.

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caminandoennubes OP t1_jda791l wrote

You know what this reminds me of? Daniel Radcliffe's movie "Guns Akimbo."

"I spend all my time off work drinking and playing video games. And What else? Troll the trolls."

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The_Pip t1_jd972wv wrote

His parking those AOC subs has me worried he's got some John Hinckley Jr in him.

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Beck316 t1_jd9lllf wrote

I read his personal thoughts posts when I first got banned there were a lot around his birthday which seemed to be very close to my birthday. There were posts about how he liked to stay up for 24 hrs the day before his birth (which was preceding the day of the ban or pretty close to it). Multiple other posts he mentioned his insomnia. IF he was factual about his job, factual about how much time he spent on his job, with his post history he was online close to 18-20 hrs/ day essentially doing the same thing for work and not work. That's enough to make anyone's mental health tank let alone someone with insomnia. If he was on meds for insomnia, it's entirely possible his sense of reality was altered or very different from yours or mine. His more recent posts he was convinced that the first post he locked and banned everyone from was edited after he locked it. It wasn't. It was edited before he locked it to clarify with "the everyone's opinions welcome" but the tenor of the post was the same edited or not (in my POV). Had he been willing to have a discussion at that time instead of muting me (us) maybe he would have realized that it was possible he interpreted something wrong in his potentially sleep-deprived state. If he's factual about where he lives, he's fairly local to me and I low-key wonder if I'm going to hear something on the news because someone had a mental break.

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CertainlySmurf t1_jd9p5ii wrote

I’ve done a little digging through his older posts in the archives out of curiosity, he claims to remember his birth and lying in the baby ward. He’s been through some very traumatic events throughout his life based on his claims, I just hope he gets the help he needs as his primary coping mechanism seems to be posting his problems to Internet forums.

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nixiedust t1_jd9elty wrote

The depth and amount of human crazy is unfathomable. I just assume everyone is either stupid or insane and a lot of the time I'm not wrong. Try modding any big community....then you really see the extent of the rot. The level of mental illness and just plain agner is about 10x worse than what you see on the surface.

I've spent 25 years working in digital media and it's madness all the way down. I once managed a large military website and the stuff that came through my inbox was terrifying

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IVGen_67 t1_jd9l34w wrote

Guy is a "fact checker" AKA he hates the truth and loves trying to suppress it (he can't though.)

His "mental illnesses" are self-inflicted for continuing on in his "good fight" against something that's impossible to defeat.

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majoroutage t1_jd9phsz wrote

It'll be 2025 and he still be going PrincipalSkinner.gif over wuhan lab leak articles.

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warlocc_ t1_jdb82h5 wrote

I didn't read much of his personal sub, I just saw a couple and saw how he behaved overall.

I was banned much earlier than when the big mess started, and at that point didn't realize what kind of guy he was- I went out to subs for/by sub mods to see if I could get any feedback or thoughts. I was honestly confused and trying to figure out how I got banned and how I could reach out.

He wound up stalking me to those subs even though he had me ignored so he shouldn't have been able to see my posts (or mine his), lying, editing posts, and doing everything he could to slander me out there. By then the drama had started here too, so it became really obvious how unhinged he was.

These are the types that the FBI says to the news "We had him on our radar for some time" after they've done some horrible nation wide headline type stuff, is my take.

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[deleted] t1_jdbygjz wrote

What r u talking about? If ir talking about the racists purging a new mod and championing it go ahead and enjoy your peers. Thebrest of us trying to enjoy a community arent interested.

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