Nah, it looks more like you run a contentious community and are playing shocked that people who you know disagree with you downvote your posts when they see them in all. And some posts have 0.

Some might even just dislike the food presented, like the boiled in butter video.

And to be clear I am far from a vegan, I really like to sautée vegetables* in butter. I don’t need meat for that to be good, but meat and vegetables are so much better prepared in a meal together. Also too-tall burgers that need to be deconstructed are a failure.

*= recently found out even celery and radishes are good this way, much better than raw

I can detect that kind of activity with database scripts. They run on a schedule and, after a user hits a certain threshold of strictly negative “participation”, the script will ban them from the community

A while back (on a different instance) I got messaged by a user doing something similar after I downvoted something like 3 posts with weeks+ of span between votes. This was also a “community” of just them posting comics daily (and not an obscure one, so there was another user doing the same). They said it was in error but still silently blocked/banned me after (this was with very little interaction beyond the explanation).

I understand if it’s every post or if it were original heartfelt content/multiple genuine users in a niche community etc, but without that context it just seems silly like it’s an ego thing.

To me, if it’s worth a reply it probably isn’t worth a downvote and vice-versa. Also it seems perfectly fine to me to judge content or posting context/habits if not taken to the extreme.

I need the most cynical take you have…

…nooooh, that’s too cynical.

In fact, those same pastimes are still available today.

That is glossing over a lot of context, a big one being that club membership is down (that’s a big point of Bowling Alone). I would not be surprised if many clubs relocated or shut down due to low membership, especially after raising membership fees. Or y’know that they were already a middleclass thing, thus canaries.

Pubs are also going to rely on prices, but the most social ones likely are accessible by free public transit or are located in a walkable/mixed-use area (particularly cities designed before+not-bulldozed-for cars).

I don’t think this is about awareness, especially when most people have less friends and less (or no) social engagement.

See Bowling Alone.

Personally (and from a US shut-in perspective!) I’d take it further: the social contract is broken. When society has been molded to almost exclusively generate money, the closest to winning there is when you’re broke is trying to spend the least amount of money possible which surely will be solitaire confinement.

I don’t think there’s any easy fix, moving to a better area is an individual thing yet is also the core issue when it comes to transportation+rent+cost-of-living.