At this point, everyone knows I'm hugely into books.
It's just so depressing how even book people are about nothing more than intentionally creating this self-perpetuating "community" of anxiety.
You can't go to any freaking book-related online space without people asking for permission to not finish a book. "Is it okay to DNF?????"
Same with doing shit to your own books. Do not write into them, do not open them too much or the spine will crack. Get a panic attack because two fucking photons touched the book and how it will be DAMAGED.
"I am having a panic attack because maybe I didn't get all the references in this book."
The same with every hobby. Cooking? You are not environmentally friendly enough, you are not authentic enough, this is wrong, that is wrong.
Hell, I am kiiinda thinking about a Switch, I looked at Animal Crossing and people are freaking the fuck out at others for not playing the game "right". Others are having depression because their islands are not aesthetic enough.
How did the internet turn everyone so fucking neurotic over the things we were supposed to do as FUN? And I am not even just talking about SJW things, but every community is about "doing it the right way" even though it doesn't matter and there doesn't exist a right way?
It's a bit too easy to say people have always been this way and the internet has just exposed them. It's still a possibility that people truly are different now. Hell, even during the internet's short history there has been a distinct evolution in people's behaviour on it.
Evolution, as in the development of novel and clearly distinct traits by random mutation, generally takes many hundreds of generations. Natural selection, as in the balance of already existing genetic traits in future generations by outside influences, can eliminate a trait in a single generation if the imposed force is strong enough.
After two world wars and several smaller ones, it's possible the bravest men have been significantly culled. And after 50 years of prevailing corporate drudgery and cronyism disenfranchising those outside the system, it's possible that independence and self possession have been economically disfavored in the middle class who don't forgo kids to break free of the servitude.
Maybe all the societal rot we see currently is purely just the result of cultural/environmental factors in their lifetime, but it's not impossible that the average person now is actually also just fundamentally quite different from the average person just 100-200 years ago.