I understand that Beehaw is not a replacement for Reddit, and nor should it be. However, if I wind up ditching Reddit entirely, one thing I'm going to miss is the unbridled insanity of the "Thunderdome" discussions.
For those of you who aren't familiar, certain communities would handle major events with a serious thread for people who wanted serious discussion, and an accompanying Thunderdome thread for people who just wanted to make memes and blow off steam. In gaming communities, for example, there will likely be serious threads around Summer Games Fest, including Microsoft's upcoming presentation. But there are also people who will want to make fun of the pageantry of it all and to keep that out of the serious thread, there'll be a Thunderdome for that.
Politics communities create similar threads for election nights. Take it from me... if you work in Washington, DC and the outcome of an election could seriously impact your job two months down the line? Those are nights when you really need to blow off some steam. Mental health is important, and having an outlet to ridicule the oppressive, wall-to-wall election coverage really helps.
So, I'm curious if Beehaw communities (which I hope we'll start calling Yeehives) are the place for something like that, or if the users here would rather keep that kind of content off this platform. Genuinely curious, not just looking to start an argument. Thanks!
It is an interesting idea, but respectfully I will say I'm not fully into it.
I like a good laugh, but depending on the topic the direction of commentary could potentially breed toxicity... like how the GamingCircleJerk subreddit acts sometimes.
If I were to call the shots, tasteful memes, politics being as political as you expect within that yeehive, complaining about how election coverage is nonstop and making fun of how annoying it is, is all fine and may not even require separate threads on a topic.
But considering that it is easy to cross a line into offensive territory when it comes to certain drama, topics or personalities, my view is the kind of no-holds-barred thread goes against the principles of Beehaw (feel free to disagree with me). However, I'm sure that kind of thread could fit well within other instances on Lemmy that follow a different philosphy, perhaps through a politicalmemes community.
That's a fair counter-argument, and I appreciate you taking the time to write a thoughtful response! I do see how it might not be the best fit for Beehaw's stated philosophy. Taking it somewhere else on Lemmy seems like a reasonable alternative solution.
I must disagree on one point: gamingcirclejerk is one of the least toxic gaming communities on reddit, to me, especially ever since most of the others lost their shit over being asked not to buy the wizard game. There have been a lot of trans gamers taking refuge there since. And reports of r/gamingcirclejerk harassing the girlfriendreviews youtube channel/reddit account are greatly exaggerated and based, specifically, on a conveniently cropped screenshot of a comment chain about how girlfriendreviews reddit account sent one of the commenters a reddit cares message (aka, ostensibly a suicide prevention message, but commonly co-opted as a means of telling people to off themselves). The commenter reported their abuse of the reddit cares system, and girlfriendreviews' account was banned for it, like everyone who abuses that system.
That said, it's still not necessarily a pleasant place to spend time, since many of the posts are just taking screencaps of shitty comments, etc, and then making fun of them, but that means essentially you're now looking at a list of shitty opinions when you could be playing video games or something else much less upsetting. But, on occasion, it can be cathartic in moderation.
But regardless, in my disagreement I perhaps support the point of your comment here. Memes often aren't really meant for nuanced nor well-explained opinions, but more for playing to a specific audience. Hyping up, making fun, joking. We could post opposing memes about gaming subreddits and then have a fight about it and probably both end up feeling like we just wasted our time, I guess. I don't really want to spend my time on lemmy arguing overmuch about reddit drama.
But then, sometimes I see comics counted as memes, and sometimes those are actually quite good at succinctly making a point and inspiring discussion. There's quite a range within what might be considered a meme, with some being more thoughtful or discussion inspiring than others.
And stuff like "here is just an actual question, accompanied by an image" or me-irl style "here is a thing I relate to" memes seem pretty harmless in most cases. And I don't think every beehaw post or community needs to be Serious Discussions Only All The Time.
My tentative opinion is: the community is a baby right now. More posts and activity is usually good at this point, and if people don't care, they can ignore. If someone wants to make a meme thunderdome party thread about whatever, I think there's no harm in it unless it does end up going to shit, at which point action could be taken at that point. Maybe it wouldn't go to shit, so pre-emptive disallowing of it would seem a little draconian to me. But there's no need for it to be some official mod-post thing like some subreddits do, as yet. Nor for us to have a "memes friday" or whatever, like some subreddits do. People can just make the meme threads they want to see, imo.
But, perhaps the larger issue is where the heck to host the meme images. At least on the jerboa app, I cannot click on an image in a comment and see a full or zoomed in image. This maybe puts a dent in the meme plan until there's a good solution. Unless it just all goes on imgur or whatever in the meantime I guess.
Your counter-point is valid and they have had their good moments. I guess to condense my worry in a single run-on sentence: sometimes in communities that circlejerk to combat hateful behaviour in a funny way sometimes get in over their head (2westerneurope4u, balkans_irl), and can easily be interpreted wrong, end up being offensive, reinforcing stereotype or presented out of context in a way that makes it seem hateful.
I'm not the only person that makes beehaw, so I respect your view that engagement is valuable and it's worth taking the risk and fixing it if things go south.
Yes I experienced this, not to mention the app went crazy trying to load the images on the "show me your pets" thread.
For what it's worth, I did not buy the wizard game and thought r/gamingcirclejerk was justified in calling on people not to support it, or a certain TERF associated with it. But I'm keen to let the subreddit drama fade away when the rest of Reddit does.
I also agree that the community is a baby, which makes the use of the term "Thunderdome" a bit ambitious. If a meme party thread is allowed, I'd probably have to call it "Slap Fight in a Food Court" instead.