I agree, but I think something the hn crowd misses is that a huge chunk of young people are invested in something like your Reddit bubble, or at least that's true with the mostly trans/queer twentysomethings of Seattle that I hang out with.
It's hard to ignore the tread that the younger a group is, the more being too online is just the default. You can't opt-out of the reality distorting effects of algorithmic content consumption when it is replicated by everyone you meet at school. This problem is especially bad with sex and gender relationships because of how well those topics perform on social media.
Its a depressing time to be a kid, and even more so to be a teenager. I think nerds (like you), queer people (like me and the author), and other terminally online people are canaries in the coal mine for what will become the new normal.
Queer in your 20s in Seattle is the prime demographic for a lot of these online subcultures though. If that's your crowd but you dislike the very online mores I definitely feel for you. A lot of the rest of us have the luxury of having friends not in these bubbles.
I have a younger sibling who is in their 20s but not very online and only one or two of their friends are, even though they constantly use social media. I think queer groups tend to be a lot more line than others. Leaving Seattle will probably help too but much of the US is unfriendly to queer folks so there's probably only a handful of other places to go.
Yeah I'm the same, I think I went to nine schools by the time I went to college in the fall of 2019, most of the school changes happening in elementary school. It really does effect your ability to make friends
I've found that I don't have trouble making friends, but I've put myself in situations where friendships come and go.
I went from moving around a bunch, and making new friends at each place, to living in Whistler, BC, where you've got an annual turnover of new people, then I settled down in Bondi Beach, Australia, which doesn't have the turnover of Whistler, but not far off.
at least in america I think it’s a consumer comfort thing. Like no matter where you are you can get close to the exact same sugar-coffee-cream-drink-thing at any starbucks on the continent, and it’s not really about having actually good coffee (their drip coffee is actually terrible).
But everywhere Ive lived (rural New England and now Seattle) there has always been cheaper better coffee available at local shops. It seems that people who like starbucks and people who are into coffee are consumer groups with little crossover
I’ve had less files that refuse to play using iina then vlc, also iina had none of that weird grey artifacting you get with vlc skipping/scrubbing through video (like actually how is that still a problem with vlc and vlc only). Those are the main technical reasons, but the ui is also much better/native feeling
I had a very easy/boring job and where during last few month I spent most of my time reading infinite jest after finishing the days work. I really loved it but I probably won't read it again anytime soon, there's a pretty substantial upfront time investment you have to make before it starts getting enjoyable to read.
Though once you lock in with the world and flow of infinite jest it gets pretty amazing, I wish I had more people to talk to about it without coming off as a pretentious jackass. Also it's far more enjoyable to read it as an ebook where you can jump instantly from the text to footnotes and look up unfamiliar words. Reading the physical copy seems torturous to me.
Yeah as a trans woman who lived in Vermont for awhile this lines up with my experience. The worst bigotry I encountered was teenagers calling me the f-slur, which is like fine, whatever. I think people dont have a sense of just how massive America is and how different states are culturally.
Honestly it still sucked to be trans in Vermont, it's extremely isolating especially if you dont have a car or live in Burlington/Brattleboro. The reason why so many queer people move to cities is that cities are really the only place queer people can have a semi-normal social life, and not because they're fleeing Westboro Baptist Church style bigotry
I mean as a trans woman who lived pretty close to how the article author described their life (rural town, no car, shitty housing, very low income), it's definitely possible to live without too much trouble. In the northeast there is definitely bigotry, but it is very uncommon for anyone to say anything. People keep to themselves, and your biggest issue is social isolation. Though when I lived like that in the south I got called slurs and threatened physically by complete strangers pretty often, so your point stands. I'd imagine its pretty similar for most other minority groups.
I remember reading this after Jaron Lanier recommended it in one of his talks, I think from around 2018-2021, really wonderful short story. So happy to see it on standard ebooks, easily one of my favorite things Ive ever found on hacker news
