I absolutely love Wikipedia. It has almost replaced a good chunk of my school books back when I was in high school and it is still very useful now that I'm in university. Wikipedia and similar things are a dream that comes true

I do not get enjoyment anymore out of being online, not at all. I used to really love being online; Gaming, Reddit, Discord and all that. Especially certain games and Reddit (games due to MMO and Reddit because of fun video’s, niche communities and such).

However, for the past several years I actually do not like being online and even sort of despise it. There’s no fun at all anymore, everything is either AI, ragebait, politics turned into fights and just overall misery around the world (wars, fascism, racism and general hatred).

Even the communities that should be fun end up often enough into the same things as mention previously (such as politics, ragebait and hatred). I have even tried different platforms (such Instagram, Tumblr, BlueSky, Mastodon). Even Lemmy itself ended up with a lot of the same issues Reddit has.

Yet with knowing this, I still end up being online. Reddit, Lemmy and occasionally Instagram. It’s this kind of FOMO thing: ‘’what if there’s news about X thing’’ or ‘’there might be something fun now’’. Not only that, life its self is also not so fun and kind of boring (office work, work from home and some life circumstances) and due to that still end up being online.

This post is kind of three things; a rant, offmychest and a question to the reader.

So I was wondering; do other people have a similar feeling about the internet not being so fun anymore as it used to be?

I used to enroll in a school where every week, you'll see students being whipped either by teachers, discipline masters or the administration. I tried myself to avoid being in trouble and not get beaten but that failed as I got beaten every year in the school for any small mistake I made. I remember the time I got 10 hard strokes on my palms because I assisted in cheating in an exam. Imagine those red throbbing hands and you're still trying to complete an exam. That's why I decided not to help people in exams.

If you enrolled in that school and you didn't get beaten, congrats, you're an anomaly. This is cuz every student during the whole duration of the school year get beaten at least once. And I'm saying this cuz my class was collectively punished by cane. Sometimes when there's noise in my class, a teacher or discipline master just decides to beat the whole class including the students that didn't make noise and I was beaten too.

I was beaten for either coming late, forgetting to do assignments and failing some subjects. Most of the time I come early, but when I come late, it's usually because of a short program that forces me to come to school before 6:30 AM and if I come after, 2 strokes of cane, even at 6:31 AM. I hated those times. I was beaten for failing tests, kneeling down and opening my palms to receive either 5 or 6 strokes of cane. One assignment that I didn't finish, I was flogged by holding my desk and the teacher whipped me in the butt 5 strokes.

Sometimes, I do manage to avoid canes but my friends and classmates didn't. They got beaten a lot for noisemaking, sometimes having to go out of class and receive strokes of cane on the school yard. Even in class, you get beaten for talking while the teacher's talking. Girls were also beaten too. Mostly on their palms but there were a few teachers that beat them on the butt sometimes. I would always feel sad when they start crying on the middle of receiving their strokes and the teacher would still beat them until they have finished with their strokes. Can you imagine being in that class, seeing grown ass men with canes hit the girls on their asses and then see them uncontrollably cry but you can only do nothing about it because you know that you could get a similar or worse treatment. Yeah, I saw all that and became a little emotional. They got beaten either for noisemaking, failing subjects or forgetting to do assignments. One time after the mock exam results were published, I managed to barely pass and because of that I avoided being flogged but majority of the class failed and some discipline master whipped them really hard on their palms to the point I saw visible bruises on their palms and hands the next day. I couldn't do anything about it.

When you trigger the teachers angrily, you could get beaten like an animal. That's what happened to a friend of mine who left the school before I did. He said something that got the teacher angry, teacher then uses chalk to draw a circle on the floor, takes a cane, tells my friend to lie on it and because he couldn't do it well, he whipped my friend mostly on the back and sometimes all around his body. He was crying, begging to the teacher to stop and he repeatedly said he's sorry. The teacher didn't care, kept hitting him even though he was crying, and my friend was 13 at the time, being beaten by someone twice his age. After all that, he went to his seat to continue crying cuz that was just brutal. I sympathized with him back then and this situation still lives rent free in my mind. He was beaten like an animal all because he said something that triggered the teacher or was talking while the teacher was talking.

Mind you, this school is in a country where corporal punishment is banned with the law explicitly banning it in schools. But of course, the law wasn't enforced and my school got away with it. Because of that, I had to see students being whipped at least every week, receive 10 strokes of cane on my palms, 5 strokes on my ass, seeing girls receiving the same treatment and crying. Most of us guys didn't cry when that happens cuz we were pretty used to it. They beat us since primary school. Lying on the desk and being whipped 5 strokes and trying to hold that same desk so that you don't fall is really brutal. Pain everywhere. Pain sitting down.

I really didn't like this school at all as the only benefits I got from this school was making friends and academics being good. Basically, if you avoided being beaten in that school, you're an anomaly and a good one at that. And you can't even protest cuz when you try to do that, you get heavily beaten. Something that happened to a friend of mine when he argued about a dumb school rule and a teacher went to our class, called him out and beat him like 10 strokes just for doing that and warned us not to do the same.

Children being whipped every week, sometimes outside the school yard, teenagers being whipped like animals, almost every week, I must hear a whooping either in my class or in other classes. I'm not sure you guys could make it if you went into my school. All these memories compelled me to write this post to show awareness of how bad we have it in africa.

This was just a way for home builders to save money by building fewer walls.

They convinced homebuyers and influencers that is trendy, that living in a house that feels like a Walmart supercenter was the thing to do.

I really don't think many homebuyers asked for a toilet next to their living room.

Rant mode engaged. I'm a state pencil pusher. I administer benefits for elected officials, their staff, with regular administrative employees. I'm 100% convinced that as a whole, Americans are functionally illiterate. I will spend 30 minutes to an hour crafting an organized email with TL;DR bullet points at the end to have people call me to ask me a question that said email already answered. Bro/sis, did you even attempt to read the words on the page? It's not an age thing, or an education thing either. It's old people and young people. It's elected officials, people with PhDs, masters, and JDs, along with highschool and college graduates. It's gotten to the point that I will make people pull up the email I sent out to read along while I point out where in the text their questions were already answered. I'm one person doing the work of 3, and god damn I hate doing the same task over and over because people can't be bothered to fucking read.

We trusted each other with anything. She was always by my side and we had similar interests... only for her to start acting dry and distant. When I asked what was wrong, she blocked me and then on an alternate account, told me to stop talking to her (which she did first, I already stopped) and that we weren't friends anymore. She then told me to kill myself and called me a dumb bitch. She also enjoys seeing negative and painful reactions out of me and knows I'm suicidal but told me that anyway.

A guy carrying a swastika flag's not a Nazi?

No.

A guy throwing a sieg heil isn't a Nazi?

No.

A guy saying "I love Hitler" - not a Nazi?

No. You don't know anything else about them!

I don't need to. So fuck that fuckin' Nazi, along with the rest of 'em.

This might make seem like a douche but so be it. I hate "ur" I hate "hi" basically anything that doesn't seem like it's written by a human being I hate it. I lose interest on Hinge when I receive a "Hiiiii"

It's petty yes but I don't believe I'm on a high horse.

It’s something I’ve heard a lot, and it’s obviously a compliment and meant to be nice. But I’m probably never going to have kids of my own and I just think of the father I could have been.

Started a new job back in July. Currently, the only shifts available to me start at 6:30AM. I'm 39 and for the past 25 years I've worked afternoons or nights. So I'm very used to not going to bed earlier than 2AM and now my days consist of:

Wake up at 4AM to make it to work by 6:30AM(morning constitutional and shower and breakfast)

Work til 2:14-3:30 depending.

Come home and nap til 7-7:30.

Wake up and cook dinner and wait for The Wife to get home.

Eat dinner and spend time with The Wife and engage in hobbies.

Go to sleep at midnight.

Repeat til day off.

Almost feels like I'm a Dreadnought.from WH40K. Being woken up to serve and then consigned to waiting slumber.

Or, you know. Whatever IP you like better. Point is I'm tired, and I'm going to go nap.

That's all there is to it. I started planning my PC build a while back, maybe 5 weeks or so, and budgeted carefully around it. Everything was locked in. I'm on a tight budget so I had to be very careful but I managed. Was quite pleased with myself for putting it all together in my 3rd language. Bookmarked relevant pages.

Forced myself to wait until my birthday, today, to start to order it all, and praised myself for being disciplined and patient.

Today I went to start placing orders and found out ram has gone absolutely off the chain. I guess I shouldn't have waited, but that's what you get for trying to be mature and adult about this kind of thing rather than mad impulse buying.

And I realize this all sounds like a roundabout way of e-begging, so I'm putting the disclaimer right here that that's not what I'm doing. I am literally just getting this off my chest (as the sub name demands) because I have nobody else to complain to this about that would really get it.

Lately I've been trying to put into words a strange pattern that's followed me since I was about eleven. Every five years or so, whenever I'm overwhelmed or deeply stressed, I end up hallucinating a being I've made up in my head. It's based on a mythical creature that's usually portrayed as dangerous or cruel, definitely not something meant to offer comfort especially to someone vulnerable. It appears almost like a normal human, close enough that at a glance, you could mistake it for a person. There are tiny details that give it away every time though.

The most recent time, a pair of them came up to me during a depressive episode. They spoke to me calmly, gently, and somehow pulled me back from that dark place. They told me they spent time in the exact spot where I saw them, and said reassuringly they were there every day if I wanted to talk to them again. But even though I went back daily for weeks afterward, I never actually saw them again. I can still picture their faces and voices as clearly as if I saw them yesterday. It wasn't like a dream where some details are fuzzy. It was like they were really there.

I even asked one for his social media handle after I asked him if he has one, to which he said yeah. When I got home that day and searched it, I could've sworn a real profile showed up. But now, when I look, it doesn't exist, there's not even a "this user deleted their account" message. It's just…... nothing like it was never there at all?

It's happened four times so far. The first time was right after I'd seen something about that creature in the news and a magazine, and I remember feeling incredibly lonely. Each episode happened in a public place, once it was at school and one time, a few years back, the one I mention with the social media question, I lost about thirty minutes of actual time which is the amount of time I was talking to them. Every one looked slightly different, like another individual of the same species rather than the same guy, and once there were two of them talking to me and also chatting with each other as if they were completely separate.

I haven't had hallucinations of anything else in my life, just those four, and part of me feels conflicted and guilty that I miss them. This creature is supposed to be evil, something that harms or even kills innocent people, yet the versions I see are the opposite, they're quiet, kind, and grounding. It's comforting and unsettling at the same time. I catch myself searching for the creature in movies, shows, books anything. It comforts me yet it also leaves me feeling strangely sad and just empty. I spend about an hour a day looking up information or stories about it. It's like some part of my brain is always itching for more, even though most portrayals paint it as monstrous instead of compassionate.

That's also the reason why these people looked so familiar. The school one looked very much like me in the face, except he was a boy, and when I "encountered" the pair a few years ago, one of them eerily resembled my cousin, even down to his build. I have a hostile family, but I remember reading somewhere that your brain cannot create new faces from scratch. It has to base them off of people it knows.

I don't think I'll get over the fact the people who were there for me to comfort me when no one else would never really existed.

All my gay friends have turned out to be bi. All my bi-curious friends have turned out to be straight or have a preference for the opposite gender. I know like one bisexual guy who is with a dude, and that's my ex's friend. And all my bi friends end up dating the opposite gender. I do not criticize this, but I do find it funny, as this happened to myself included.

I may have said I'm trans and a woman, but I really mean "trans" as in non-binary, yet still connected to womanhood, but I am technically cis in my womanhood. I now identify as a cis woman with she/they/it pronouns.

A lot has happened. So my ex I kept talking about was a trans dude. Now "he" is a girl again. She is omnisexual and I am bisexual and we are best friends. I deeply regret my past actions and realize I've been really shitty, so I went to work on myself a bit.

Anyway, we are in happy relationships now!

I used to criticize gay relationships, I'll admit, but ever since I became more accepting of my preference for men, I became more accepting of gay people. I guess I would especially get upset when my crushes or boyfriends were bisexual because there could be a chance that they won't be attracted to me, so I solved this by only dating straight men.

My happy relationship is with Jimmy, a straight ally, and my ex's Renee is with Chris, who is definitely an ally because Renee used to be only attracted to women and Chris didn't mind and now they're dating because Renee is omnisexual.

My attraction to women is very slight, but I am still bisexual. Renee's attraction to men is very slight, but it's still there, and she is still omnisexual. I think it's funny how we're on opposite ends, best friends, and how all this works. I also sincerely, deeply apologize for my actions. I know my mental health was not an excuse.

I'm not here to advertise for them that's not the point. It was for a suicide prevention / awareness clothing brand. The shirts are kinda corny, but well meaning. The thing that got me was the voice over. It was basically validation that things can get tough and that the listener could handle it.

No one in my life does that. The only person who ever did was my mom and she died (too young) a decade ago. I haven't had any substantial emotional support since she passed. My dad is an abusive POS. My wife is stuck in her own head. My kids aren't supposed to do that, it's too much for a child. My friends... Never call first. It's always me starting anything. Literal months have gone by if I don't start anything.

I'm surrounded by people but I feel so alone. I don't actively wanna "check out" most days, but damn that ad made me realize how much I crave validation. I really want someone close to me to tell me on a regular basis that I make their life better.

I don't think anyone gives a shit. I know if I ended it, they'd miss the paycheck I provide, but I feel like that's it. I know my kids would be worse off, by far, and that's probably a large chunk of why I'm still here. I love them so much. They're the best.

I'm struggling to post this because I know y'all internet strangers will be nice about it, but that just feels like I'm fishing for validation which makes me feel guilty. But didn't I just say I wanted validation? What the fuck is wrong with me.

I'm not going to pretend that early 2000s or 2010 Internet was better, but I recently switched to the fediverse because of the harassment I was receiving online.

I had gotten into a small argument because someone essentially stole the background set dressing for a weird thing they tried to do in their creation, when I pointed it out they responded by going through my post history and telling me that I should have committed suicide.

when I responded it was childish to go through my post history because of an argument, someone completely unrelated sent an image of a child's skull split open and they were very obviously dead, just in an attempt to get a rise out of me.

like, I dunno, I feel like when I was younger people would either just call each other names and then leave it at that or complain about it night and day, but it wouldn't ever progress to the point that people would just outright post gore in my messages.

am I alone in feeling that over the past 8 years people have gotten a lot meaner online?

I mentioned liking the wicked movie once to my grandma and now she's always sending me wicked merchandise and she got me the dvd. It makes her happy and I don't want to make her feel bad but I can only eat so many boxes of wicked cereal. It weighs on me.

(Names will be fake, this is not his real name)

"Dear 18-year-old self,

I hope you're reading this, your old journal from third grade. I have the cutest secret crush, and since you're 18 and probably in high school, you know how to deal with secret crushes, even your own! This is the exact and sweetest confession ever! Steve said 'I'm very sorry I let that popular girl manipulate me, and that I thought she was better, prettier, and superior to you. I realize who my real crush is, but I never told you until today, because I thought you'd hate me.' Also, how is it between you and Steve?

(Drawing of me with an arrow saying "as cute, cool, pretty, and popular as me" and Steve in a tuxedo saying "Steve, at 17 years old!"

Sincerely,

Nine-year-old self

P.S. Do not read until 9 years from now"

[Too late for that]

I was a very arrogant 9-year-old who thought she was the main character of a romance book :,)

Original post: https://lemmy.world/post/38350973

I hope update is allowed.

Today I talked to my boss. Surprisingly, she was very accepting. I told her what happened over the weekend the aggressor and I worked. How the aggressor was passively aggressively rude to me. She was laterally commanding me ("Go home!","Go eat!) when she was just my peer, my equal, not my boss.

She was constantly over my shoulder trying to catch my mistakes. When i did, she would sneer. She thrives on the power of superiority. That just made me unable to focus. When I didn't make mistake, she looked like a dear caught in headlights.

She was harassing me to the point I couldn't concentrate.

My boss asked if I noticed any interaction between the aggressor and my co-workers. Luckily, I did remember and I told her!

Yes, I have proofs. I am a popular person. I even told my boss to ask anyone at work and they would back me up. This how confident I was.

Needless to say. The bully is not so brave now.

Lesson learned. Speak up! I wasn't going to tell my boss until I learned that I wasn't the only victim. Silence is not the answer.

I was harassed at work and I am going to file a complaint on Friday. I am scared as hell

Over the weekend, I worked with a well known harasser and she kept giving me passive aggressive comments to the point I couldn't focus. She even texted me, "What is your compacity to work?" What's even supposed to mean? I am not a lazy person. I am very hardworking and i am very likable and popular.

Today I talked to my team leader and she told me to file a complaint to my manager on Friday. I am scared as hell. The bully has been there since day one and I am new. I don't mind getting fired but someone needs to speak up. This will be the first time I will be filling a complaint. I work in a state with no anti bullying protection. People can be fired at will. I am not of any "protection" group. The only thing I have is I am very popular

Episode 1: Pilot (Mayumi Oniyama is a Ball of Rage)

[We see a girl with reddish-pink hair working at a desk]

Girl: [sighs] Another day at the store.

Girl, voiceover: My name is Mayumi Oniyama. I guess you could say I’m a typical young adult. However, I wanna be more than just typical.

[Shows “sprite” of Mayumi leaning on her elbow, daydreaming]

[Shows drawing of Mayumi in a racecar]

Mayumi, voiceover: I want an awesome racecar!

[Shows drawing of luxury home]

Mayumi, voiceover: I want my own house!

[Shows Mayumi sitting on a pile of money]

Mayumi, VO: I want to be wealthy!!!

Mayumi, VO: But of course, I’m stuck at this crappy store job, especially since I decided not to spend my money, which I didn’t have, on college.

[Mayumi quickly checks her phone]

Mayumi: (Of course no one has texted me…)

Mayumi, VO: That’s right, no one even bothers to text me, my life is so depressing.

[A customer approaches and she puts her phone away]

[Mayumi listlessly scans the items, which are canned corn, eggrolls, sushi, and rice crackers]

Mayumi: [Bored and tired-sounding] That’ll be 2,310 Yen. Would you like your receipt?

Customer A: Sure!

Mayumi: [Doodles a smiley face and a flower on Customer A’s receipt] Have a great day, sir.

Customer A: Thanks! You too, ma’am!

Mayumi, voiceover: [Mayumi is scanning more items as people are in a line] I just wish I had a break soon…

[Customer after customer comes by and Mayumi has the same monotone “Have a great day” over and over]

Customer B: [As the old lady walks out the door] Keep smiling, honey! You got this!

Mayumi: [Half-smiles back] Thanks…!

Mayumi: [Thinking again] (That’s right, I do got this! I’ll be the nicest employee ever, with a nice car, a house, filthy rich, and…)

[Suddenly, a buff guy approaches Mayumi, trying to act “cool” but being rude.]

Guy: Yeah, woman, I don’t have time for games. [He sets down the items forcefully]

Mayumi: What?

[Mayumi scans the items and bags them, one by one]

Guy: [Crossing his arms] What’s taking so long? Even a kid could do what you’re doing. All ya have to do is scan and bag. Move those pretty hands, sweetheart.

[The camera zooms into Mayumi’s face, her eye twitching]

Mayumi, VO: But one thing most people don’t know about me unless they’re a certain group of people is, my patience is running thin.

Mayumi: [Screams at the customer, slamming her hands down on the counter, her face red] Oh, come on, dude! Can’t you see I’m trying my best over here!? You look like the type who doesn’t have to work and can’t get up off his lazy ass!!! So people like me, unlike you, actually understand how hard it is to have a freaking job!

[Mayumi starts panting, realizing what she said]

Guy: [Stares in stunned silence with a shocked expression before walking off] Fine. Whatever.

Mayumi: [Stares at the customer as he walks away, surprised at what she just did]

???: Mayumi!!!

[Mayumi jumps]

[We see a guy with dark brown hair, fairly muscular]

Mayumi: Hiro.

Hiro: Is there a problem? [Smirking]

Mayumi: [Gulps, looking worried] N-no, sir!!

Hiro: C’mon, princess. You don’t have to call me “sir”. We’ve worked together for what, a year and a half now? I’m just Hiro Hayashi.

[Hiro leans in to Mayumi]

Hiro: I saw what you did over there. That-That guy’s face! [he starts laughing]

[Mayumi starts nervously laughing, too].

[As Mayumi stops laughing, the screen pans out]

Mayumi, VO: Maybe my life isn’t so dull.

I know it's impossible to judge oneself fairly, but believe me when I say my entire way of thinking revolves around fairness & the actual "right thing to do" after all sides are considered. I always try to look at things from every angle I can think of to "get the big picture," and decide what is the best, most correct answer to any situation. It's pretty much what I'm all about.

As such, I've long proudly considered myself a bit of an SJW. I've got too many issues and responsibilities of my own to be much of an activist, but I feel I've done my reasonable best to figure out the truth of things while still trying to remain open to new information.

But fuck this. I've had enough of how shitty humanity can be. I knew from Israel's actions that even those historically known as victims can be shitty, but I've just had my own personal revelation from an extremely marginalized group I've always supported. And I'm fucking disappointed as hell.

This post in a transgender community was about AOC knocking on Riley Gaines by saying "Maybe if you channeled all this anger into if you channeled all this anger into swimming faster you wouldn’t have come in fifth." I adore AOC, but felt this response was a bit below the belt because it came off to me as attacking Gaines' physical performance rather than her shitty take. IOW, attacking the body, not the mind.

I made the mistake of saying this, thinking that a community that one might reasonably expect to be among the most sensitive towards topics like shaming physical aspects of a person that they only have so much control over would at least give it some consideration and thoughtful responses even if they didn't agree.

Wow, was I wrong.

I was pulled upon mercilessly as if I had said Gaines' was absolutely correct, which in no way had I done. I was deliberately misinterpreted so people could attack without any logic, reason, or any semblance of open-minded discussion (from a group I would expect to be among the most open-minded out there).

I tried and tried a dozen different ways to get my point across as respectfully as possible, but nobody seemed to care about any of that - literally calling me a "shitty person" and refusing to provide any justification or examples where I had fit that description.

Ultimately, many comments were deleted - most unjustly, IMHO. Then I was banned for "misinformation." WHAT misinformation?

I feel more alone now than ever on this planet full of incredibly crappy humans on all sides. And I'm just done. Fuck you (almost) all. I'm already only still bothering to live because my disabled spouse is dependent upon me, but I just don't think I can do this all alone anymore. I'm so tired of trying to be reasonable and fair in a world that not only doesn't respect me for it, but actively tramples on, takes advantage of, and otherwise screws me over for it. I'm done.

Good night. Maybe I'll feel better in the morning, maybe I just won't. Anything

Fuck this.

You, a lonely person in their late teens/early twenties, go to the cemetery in the middle of the night with a friend Mike as a dare by him, as he suggests the place is genuinely haunted and you'll be able to speak to dead loved ones/people. You and Mike end up getting yelled at by a worker there who is in charge of many things, specifically burying the dead. They ask what you're doing here and chase you and Mike out of the cemetery.

Despite this and the fact they don't seem to like you much, you can't seem to get them out of your head and have the desire to learn more about them.

You keep going to the cemetery each day in the middle of the night, this time without Mike, just to see them.

They react with hostility at first, and are confused as to why you keep coming back. They just don't want you there. Just as you're about to leave, however, they show a warmer side and seem to want you to come back!

You find out their name is Kanami Yamamoto and that they are agender (main pronouns they/them), which of course, you don't have a problem with.

Kanami starts to show a friendlier side to them and starts to REALLY, I mean, REALLY take a liking to you.

They even tell you that they're a sentient AI created by their "father", famous developer Charlie Yamamoto.

Kanami invites you to their house that Charlie bought them and in it is a secret room in the basement labeled Kanami's Safe Haven.

I’m doing a bathroom remodel for a customer and after being finished with the demolition I posted before and after pictures in a group chat with a couple of friends. But WhatsApp flipped the order, so it looked like I had started with an empty room and “remodeled” it into a disgusting, moldy 1980s bathroom - cracked tiles, yellowed sink, ancient toilet, the works.

And one of my friends actually replied with, “Looks great, good job!”

It annoyed me more than it probably should have, but it really did. The picture obviously looked awful. I can only assume he didn’t even look properly before commenting, just fired off a reflexive “nice work” because that’s what people think they’re supposed to do when someone shares something.

I’ve told these guys before: if you have nothing to say, don’t say anything. I’d rather get silence than meaningless approval. I value honesty and attention to detail in what I do, and I expect my friends to show at least a bit of the same when responding. A true friend should hold you to a higher standard, not just dish out empty praise for the sake of being polite.

If someone can look at something that obviously bad and still say “good job,” then their stamp of approval becomes completely worthless to me.

At this point, I don’t even know why I keep sharing things in that chat. I seem to care about authenticity and effort way more than they do, and I keep ending up feeling stupid for expecting more.