It wasn't even so much the D&D thing, but the thing where leftists are much more likely to not be friends with conservatives. I've known him for almost 5 years now, and I was always curious when that boot was gonna drop. I avoided talking politics with him, because politics hadn't come up when we were playing IRL. He posted leftist shit on his personal facebook page when we used that to plan game sessions, but I tended to ignore that. It was only after the coof hit when we started playing online and moved from facebook to a discord server that we started to get into some actual disagreements. Like he got pised at me when I said last year that masks don't really do much and that people shouldn't be required to wear them if they don't want to. But it's only been in the last few months, when he expanded his discord server by inviting a lot more people than who were just playing the one game that political shit got posted more. So yesterday, on the designated shitposting channel, I started shitposting. His wife got really upset at me, lol.
It wasn't even so much the D&D thing, but the thing where leftists are much more likely to not be friends with conservatives.
It's interesting. I grew up with a a mix of friends who were atheist, Christian, Jewish, etc., Chinese, Indian, American, etc. We had some pretty different political viewpoints. One of our teachers--a huge literally hippie leftist--actually set up a classroom debate in 7th grade to allow the "sides" to put their viewpoints out there and make arguments. We never cared. We argued about poltiics, and then we played ultimate, ate junk food, came home and played vidya.
Something changed.
One of my friends who I have known since literally about first grade completely cut me off. Why? Well, this guy moved out of state, so we only kept up from occasional Facebook messages etc. We kept that level of relationship up for years, would see each other when he came back to town, etc.
Well, he posted a word salad rant about how regressive and racist our home state is because it passed a Voter ID bill. I posted back, literally, one sentence, "Good thing you made the decision to move a non-racist state that doesn't have voter ID" -- the state he moved to has Voter ID and has had it for quite some time. He's never ranted about his new, blueish state, so it was total hypocrisy.
I have not had one response from him since then. Not one Facebook message back. I heard his wife was pregnant, I sent congratulations. Nothing. I heard his dad had cancer, went and talked to the dad at his store (he ran a local store for 50+ years), sent a note to my friend, nothing.
The internet and social media has had the un-intuitive effect of making people more isolated and cold towards one another.
Actually getting to know someone personally is no longer important. We've substituted knowing someone's ideology for knowing them personally. People are no longer human beings to one another, they're just a representation of an ideology or identity group. If you don't check the right boxes, you're no better than a stranger, or worse, you're an enemy.
The Left has created a new religion to navigate this cold and impersonal reality while the Right is still clinging to the pre-internet conception of people as actual living, breathing persons, and the two are fundamentally incompatible.
It wasn't even so much the D&D thing, but the thing where leftists are much more likely to not be friends with conservatives. I've known him for almost 5 years now, and I was always curious when that boot was gonna drop. I avoided talking politics with him, because politics hadn't come up when we were playing IRL. He posted leftist shit on his personal facebook page when we used that to plan game sessions, but I tended to ignore that. It was only after the coof hit when we started playing online and moved from facebook to a discord server that we started to get into some actual disagreements. Like he got pised at me when I said last year that masks don't really do much and that people shouldn't be required to wear them if they don't want to. But it's only been in the last few months, when he expanded his discord server by inviting a lot more people than who were just playing the one game that political shit got posted more. So yesterday, on the designated shitposting channel, I started shitposting. His wife got really upset at me, lol.
It's interesting. I grew up with a a mix of friends who were atheist, Christian, Jewish, etc., Chinese, Indian, American, etc. We had some pretty different political viewpoints. One of our teachers--a huge literally hippie leftist--actually set up a classroom debate in 7th grade to allow the "sides" to put their viewpoints out there and make arguments. We never cared. We argued about poltiics, and then we played ultimate, ate junk food, came home and played vidya.
Something changed.
One of my friends who I have known since literally about first grade completely cut me off. Why? Well, this guy moved out of state, so we only kept up from occasional Facebook messages etc. We kept that level of relationship up for years, would see each other when he came back to town, etc.
Well, he posted a word salad rant about how regressive and racist our home state is because it passed a Voter ID bill. I posted back, literally, one sentence, "Good thing you made the decision to move a non-racist state that doesn't have voter ID" -- the state he moved to has Voter ID and has had it for quite some time. He's never ranted about his new, blueish state, so it was total hypocrisy.
I have not had one response from him since then. Not one Facebook message back. I heard his wife was pregnant, I sent congratulations. Nothing. I heard his dad had cancer, went and talked to the dad at his store (he ran a local store for 50+ years), sent a note to my friend, nothing.
The online rants just get crazier and crazier.
The internet and social media has had the un-intuitive effect of making people more isolated and cold towards one another.
Actually getting to know someone personally is no longer important. We've substituted knowing someone's ideology for knowing them personally. People are no longer human beings to one another, they're just a representation of an ideology or identity group. If you don't check the right boxes, you're no better than a stranger, or worse, you're an enemy.
The Left has created a new religion to navigate this cold and impersonal reality while the Right is still clinging to the pre-internet conception of people as actual living, breathing persons, and the two are fundamentally incompatible.