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Comment by nodamage | Hacker News Reader

> There's a poster on reddit who typifies this to a T.

The Seattle subreddits (both of them, because drama) are particularly toxic as far as city forums go. Not exactly sure why, but there seem to be a lot of people who have nothing better to do than post angry rants all day. I had to unsubscribe.

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Perhaps because it's not acceptable to be toxic in person?

Acting like that in person yields a much higher chance of getting punched in the face than acting like that on the internet. :)

I get the stereotype, but disagree. An awful lot of people are toxic IRL, that’s been the case for forever and nobody bats an eye. “old people rants”, “neighborhood gossip”, “backroom talk”, you call it what you want.

It’s mostly accepted. Growing up we learn to ignore it, avoid these people, or enjoy getting caught up in sterile discussions.

Most city subreddits seem to be for the most part. I think people rant there instead of their street corners.

I theorize that city subreddits are always terrible because in these we talk about issues due to our proximity to them rather than our expertise in them. Everyone in the /r/flying subreddit is interested enough in airplanes to read about them independently and then have intelligent discussions about them. That's not the case if a single-engine plane crashes in your city and we talk about it in the city subreddit.

The culture there nurtures a nasty, cynical, mean-spiritedness into otherwise lovely people. What is the reason for it? No idea, but I know it's true because I grew up there and it took me forty years to (mostly) purge myself of that impulse. If I had to guess the reason, I think it is looks like a Venn diagram of small-minded, provincial people who harbor a deep, unfocused rage vs. people who use Reddit and similar message boards.

Every local newspaper comments thread is basically like this. It's 4chan for old people.

You should see the Vancouver, BC subreddit.

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