This is a bit of a vent, I’m sorry in advance. I’m still a little bit triggered honestly. If this type of post doesn’t fit for this community I apologize, I don’t really have anyone to talk to about this.
Reddit has been pushing me away over the past year, mostly because of how antagonistic people are becoming.
The straw that broke the camels back for me was encountering a user with the “r” word in their username, being used in a derogatory way. I am autistic, and that triggers me based on my past experiences. It’s a slur against autistic or ND people, and it violates the reddit content policy that states “Users that promote hate based on identity or vulnerability will be banned.”
So it turns out on Reddit there is no way to report someone for using slurs in their username. I tried all the other avenues for reporting and nothing worked. I tried to contacting a handful of admins but was ignored over several weeks.
This was all very frustrating for me and I thought I would post about it on the autism subreddit, but I was met with rude responses that boiled down to “Get over it.” or “Shut up.” I posted on a few other autism related subs and was met with similarily harsh responses. Some of the subreddits actually deleted my post.
I honestly didn’t expect that kind of response from other people on the spectrum, and its at this point I realize reddit is unhealthy, regardless of the subreddit.
I have deleted my account and wont look back. I am thankful that a place like beehaw exists, its a shame more spaces online don’t try to cultivate a friendly userbase.
I can’t believe anyone is still using and even defending that word as a slur in 2023. It’s been over a decade since the push to remove references to it in federal law and honestly, even 20 years ago I felt seriously uncomfortable with any use of that word in an offhand or derogatory manner, and I didn’t even know about neurodivergence then.
I feel like the culture around usernames on Reddit really enables this kind of behavior, like it’s a game to be as offensive or lewd as possible for some folks there without “technically” breaking the rules. I deleted my account back when the Apollo drama happened and I definitely don’t miss that aspect of the culture. I’m sorry you encountered resistance to bringing this up, because you are right - it is not okay and it hasn’t been okay for years. I suspect a lot of the “just get over it” is folks who wrongly feel like there is no other option but to tolerate this culture in exchange for the ability to communicate and find support online, since the power you have as a user there is pretty much limited to “I’m leaving”.