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  • Jack William Belljackwilliambell@rustedneuron.com
    Jun 25, 2026, 5:48 PM

    This means if you have 100 followers the chances at least one of them is just such an asshole is pretty damn high. But it isn't really a problem — they poke their head up and you block them, done. It's not like you have to do this constantly, because you can double your number of followers before you are likely to have to do it again.

    But if you have 10,000 followers? Now you might see a hundred of them. Except no, at this point you get more!

    [contd]

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Replies

  • Jack William Belljackwilliambell@rustedneuron.com
    Jun 25, 2026, 5:53 PM

    That's because by simply being popular you have become a magnet for the kind of performative asshole seeking a wide stage. And, in fact, blocking them becomes a burden and a chore. Hell, some of them would even be motivated to create new accounts just to get another bite at the apple.

    All of this is basic human nature stuff. Some people are simply assholes. Some of them are assholes for fun and recognition. And the latter represents a problem in any social space; online or not.

    [contd]

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  • Jack William Belljackwilliambell@rustedneuron.com
    Jun 25, 2026, 5:57 PM

    And one of my principles is this: You cannot fix people. (Sometimes they can fix themselves, but most often they go to their graves still broken.)

    By choosing to be popular you are choosing to be a target of assholes. And, at least for Social Media, popularity *is a choice*!

    I say this because you can do things to stop it. You can use a nym and not reveal your true identity. On some platforms you can lock your follows at a reasonable number. You can simply not participate.

    [contd]

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  • Jack William Belljackwilliambell@rustedneuron.com
    Jun 25, 2026, 6:03 PM

    Now, if you go up thread on the conversation linked at the top of this thread, you will find someone calling popular accounts 'victims' of the assholes. And I guess that is a valid way of looking at it. Except, short of somehow eliminating them from the human herd, these kinds of assholes are going to be there and are going to seek out the popular to 'victimize' no matter what you do.

    Is it 'blaming the victim' when they deliberately walk onto a busy highway? Or is blame fungible?

    [contd]

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  • Jack William Belljackwilliambell@rustedneuron.com
    Jun 25, 2026, 6:05 PM

    So I'm here to argue the underlying problem is popularity. And here's where you find out this long thread is actually the kind of shitpost someone makes when they are trying to make an unpopular point:

    Maybe the problem is allowing people to become popular in the first place?

    [fin]

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