You likely hold many such superficial judgements, we all do about something or other. I don’t think I would frame it as “mental illness” without expecting a lot of pushback from such an inflammatory statement. Normal, healthy people make judgements all day long based on the most superficial of ideas and perceptions, the question is how much you personally care.

If it’s strangers on the internet you’re just bullshitting with, I can’t imagine caring about how some stranger perceives you. But these things can become self-harmful if you’re genuinely trying to be heard and understood about something that’s important to you. If you’ve spent any amount of time on social media (including forums like this) I’m sure you’ve seen this play out over and over, where people end up deeply stressed because they’re talking past each other and dismissing each other’s actual feelings about things that are important to each other.

This is what I decry, the lack of effort to be heard about important ideas, even if subjectively important, we’re all collectively really neglecting effort and embracing anti-intellectual catchphrases (just put the X in the bag, the curtains were just blue, I ain’t readin all that, etc.) and making our lack of effort to communicate other people’s problem when it goes wrong.

If you think none of this matters, end up in a role of responsibility and have to spend a month interviewing people for a role of great responsibility and sifting through the masses of young people who make zero effort and feel entitled to rewards for it.

It absolutely makes my day that you think this is a fight. Have fun out there.

You don’t have to agree with me, the topic is about people generally and their perceptions, if this wasn’t something shared by a number of people this wouldn’t be a post. You can disagree with me all you want, you will still encounter people who will judge in different ways depending on how you present yourself online. If you don’t like it, go change the world.

Sure, and I do, but anime profile pics come with extra baggage and we all know it.

Do you think this is a shouting match?

Then congratulations, now instead of engaging and interacting it’s just an immature schoolyard shouting match which could have been avoided by taking more care in how you present yourself.

But I am gathering that there are a lot of people who really enjoy schoolyard shouting matches and invite them because it makes them feel superior to fight others over trivial nonsense.

The topic is about the perceptions of others, it’s not deep to you but someone else might read into, particularly if you find yourself having a serious (deep) conversation and don’t want to be judged unfairly. If you don’t care about your self-presentation or how to manage the impressions others have of you, then great, no need to even comment here.

If you do care, and yes you do, then think about it from someone else’s perspective.

This “the curtains were just blue” or the “just put the X in the bag” anti-thinking mentality is eroding our whole world. Try to avoid doing that.

Yah but we quickly all learn to just avoid tankie communities.

I used to shake my fist at how many people had really shitty hand-drawn furry profile pics and often made the judgement that they drew furry shit just because it’s harder to draw people’s faces.

Now I instantly praise anyone who has any kind of low-quality but obviously non-AI made imagery on display to the world. I don’t care if it’s ball-point pen on lined notebook paper. You rock on with that artistic bravery king or queen.

If you witness that kind of exchange taking place, you can probably toss the entire convo out.

Although, I would lean more towards the furry pic than the anime pic, at least furries are largely autistic adults who consume a ton of information and may have more educated opinions on some topics. At least from my experience working adjacent to the tech sector.

Whereas a suspiciously large percentage of people who choose anime profile pics are just saying “this is a cartoon girl I want to bang” while also being a raging nazi online.

I love that you’re getting downvoted for this accurate assessment of how adults engage with each other.

Honestly, I realized a while back that Lemmy is largely kids. Like, to me at least if you’re under 25 you’re a kid, and I think most users here are even younger. Maybe across the social internet broadly we have massively misjudged how many adults actually shape our global conversations.

Counterpoint: sometimes it’s just a funny picture I like,

Fully fair, likewise it’s also fully fair for someone to make judgements on you based on that funny picture if you choose to engage in different kinds of conversations outside of the space where people joke about funny pictures.

Fully agree, you choose profile pictures based on how you want to present yourself to the world. It does communicate a message. A message that if not chosen with some level of care will signal different things to different people.

If you come to a party wearing a stained shirt and haven’t showered I will assume you don’t actually care. Likewise, if you are arguing politics or mature topics and your profile pic is some obscure, underage anime girl, I will also make assumptions about how much actual media exposure you have that you choose to present yourself to the world with that image.

This isn’t persecution or discrimination, this is just how people relate to each other, particularly in an information world where we can’t judge the rest of you.

edit: based on the replies and threads in this post, it’s wild how many people do not give a shit how they are perceived by others in any regard and are angry at the idea that someone might judge them for how they present themselves. And then we wonder why everyone is so lonely and angry and cynical. These are related concepts guys, you HAVE to learn to socialize better. Seriously, this avoidance of accountability is eroding the whole fucking world.

This but also unironically.

Yah at this point I do associate anime identity association with immaturity, and I’ve enjoyed a great many animes.

I just cannot imagine connecting so much that I want others to see me and think it’s part of my own identity. It feels like the hallmark of someone with very limited media exposure.

When the corporations start dividing your population and guaranteeing their own interests over democracy, look at what happened to us and learn from it. It doesn’t stop here.

You’re right, and what you need to understand is that the reason half of our idiots voted for an idiot is because we allowed corporations to atomize society so people didn’t mix anymore, we don’t have shared perspectives of the world anymore, everyone gets their information about literally everything algorithmically. This atomization of society is what took down the USA and it’s coming for you next if it’s not already happening wherever you are.

Almost every American just wants to stay home and play video games, we didn’t want any of this. We wanted healthcare.

You have just spent too much time talking to the chronically online individuals or whatever the term is.|

I have, and I know it, and those are who I am speaking to the most because that’s who are here in sites like this in the most numbers. I am here trying to rally people, even if it’s out of spite and anger and offense, to stay involved.

The last presidential election we had has had some of the highest voter participation and youth participation in history, and they still voted for Trump, so the problem isn’t exterior, it’s coming from inside the house, and as long as we’re lamenting and feeling like shit about it, we’re falling into their trap.

Except talking to people I don’t agree with is exactly what I do. I am doing it to you now! Think about that!

It’s literally ALL i wanted out of this.