Reddit used to be fun, a long time ago. Then one day I realized I'd developed a Pavlovian fear of the orange mail icon. It used to mean someone dropped me a comment that might be fun or interesting. Then it became a constant stream of trolls and insults and, occasionally, even death threats.

I know, sticks and stones and all that, but still. It gets depressing after a while when you spend some time writing up your viewpoint in a polite and articulate way, linking to reasonably objective sources that elaborate on your point, and all you get in response is, "It must suck to be such a stupid fuckwit like you".

Aw damn, you got me! I guess I need to rethink my entire political worldview because some random teenager ignored everything I wrote and simply called me names.

Then I tried just avoiding all the political subs in Reddit, but even that is now impossible. A fucking "Black Lives Matter I hate the cops hysteria" errupted in a sub about playing the god damn violin. The political obsession is almost cult like now. You can't just like topic X. You must like topic X...as it relates to whatever lefty political issue is the fad of the week.

Remember net neutrality? Remember how Reddit went apeshit over Trump removing the net neutrality regulations, which we were told would literally end the Internet? I remember seeing a ton of posts from people seriously considering murdering Ajit Pai, the FCC chair for daring to take away their beloved Internet. That's what he said he wanted to do, right? Do they know anything about market economies or computer networking, or anything else related to net neutrality? Of course not. But Reddit changed it's logo for a week and told everyone the world was ending unless they do something, so there must be blood.

And yet, I sat back and did nothing. I even had the nerve to argue that the Internet existed for decades without any net neutrality regulations, and seemed to thrive despite that. And now, here we are. The Internet's gone. Boy do I have egg all over my face.

So yeah, I totally understand you not wanting to get into US politics. It does effect me, but even I like to unplug from it every now and then, and that's not possible on Reddit.