Taking a (possibly indefinite?) break from Reddit

(TW: Suicide, death, murder)

Hey guys. I know I may sound like a broken record. But over the past few months, I've gotten heavily addicted to this site, especially from doom-scrolling, that it has impacted my mental health. Particularly, I've saw some post showcasing the absolute worst humanity has to offer - parents using AI of their dead child forgiving their murderer, a trans child taking their life and having their death celebrated by nazis, a gay man getting murdered by a homophobe (at the beginning of pride month, no less) and having his death brushed aside by the police (who ignored the other shit he's been going through for over months now, including his house burning down, his murderer retrieving the scull of his dead dog, etc.), and lastly, the suicide of Mikayla Raines of SaveAFox, caused by months (if not years) of bullying by the performative animal "activists".

The last one was the straw that broke the camel's back, since it was tied to a subreddit dedicated to "snarking" her, when in actuality, it was little more than a clique of bullies who wanted to ruin someone's life because she was supposedly taking the credit from them. The incident was more than a "Reddit controversy", a literal crime was committed, and the people who committed that crime are now hiding like cowards. The incident not only marred the perception of the rescue community, with many people now seeing them as a bunch of performative activists, but also (and deservedly so) snark subreddits that dedicate most of their time bullying people they don't like. And unless legal action is taken and the admins respond to this situation, Reddit may as well be dead to me, because they will rather protect bullies instead of victims of bullying. I didn't even have much of an attachment to Raines' prior to her passing, but as someone who has heard a lot of stories of people contemplating, attempting, or has lost a loved one to suicide, this one stings the most, alongside the suicide of Charlotte Fosgate.

Now, normally when I take a break on a specific social media platform, I'll occasionally still trot around in the comments, check my notifications, etc.; I'll just stop posting on the platform. But here, I was a frequent commentor, and would comment more than upload a post. But after this incident, I'll no longer comment on any new post AT ALL. I'll still check for notifications, but I won't reply to any of them. It's tough, since I was so heavily addicted to this site, but it was the right choice to prioritize my mental health over my social media usage.

In the end, the one wish I want for this world is for it to get better. I'm sick and tired at the amount of bad news, controversies and tragedies that are happening to this cursed planet. All I want is for things to get better, someone that can aspire hope to this world, anything nice would be a good change for once. But at the end of the day, we can't always ask for nice things.

Anyways, I hope you all read this post and understood it. This was longer than most of my other posts, and it was also tough to write, given it was more than just an ambiguous "taking a break" post. Reddit has impacted my mental health for the worse, and unless they do anything with the current situation, I don't think I'll ever look at this site the same way again.

This is ToonAbby, signing off.