How to get over posting anxiety

post all the posts you think are stupid in /c/badposting so no one is allowed to make fun of you for it

Uncle Ho’s guide to become a powerful poster:

From The Path Which Led Me To Leninism by Ho Chi Minh

The reason for my joining the French Socialist Party was that these “ladies and gentlemen” - as I called my comrades at that moment - has shown their sympathy towards me, towards the struggle of the oppressed peoples. But I understood neither what was a party, a trade-union, nor what was socialism nor communism.

Heated discussions were then taking place in the branches of the Socialist Party, about the question whether the Socialist Party should remain in the Second International, should a Second and a half International be founded or should the Socialist Party join Lenin’s Third International? I attended the meetings regularly, twice or thrice a week and attentively listened to the discussion. First, I could not understand thoroughly. Why were the discussions so heated? Either with the Second, Second and a half or Third International, the revolution could be waged. What was the use of arguing then? As for the First International, what had become of it?

What I wanted most to know - and this precisely was not debated in the meetings - was: which International sides with the peoples of colonial countries?

I raised this question - the most important in my opinion - in a meeting. Some comrades answered: It is the Third, not the Second International. And a comrade gave me Lenin’s “Thesis on the national and colonial questions” published by l'Humanite to read.

There were political terms difficult to understand in this thesis. But by dint of reading it again and again, finally I could grasp the main part of it. What emotion, enthusiasm, clear-sightedness and confidence it instilled into me! I was overjoyed to tears. Though sitting alone in my room, I shouted out aloud as if addressing large crowds: “Dear martyrs compatriots! This is what we need, this is the path to our liberation!”

After then, I had entire confidence in Lenin, in the Third International.

Formerly, during the meetings of the Party branch, I only listened to the discussion; I had a vague belief that all were logical, and could not differentiate as to who were right and who were wrong. But from then on, I also plunged into the debates and discussed with fervour. Though I was still lacking French words to express all my thoughts, I smashed the allegations attacking Lenin and the Third International with no less vigour. My only argument was: “If you do not condemn colonialism, if you do not side with the colonial people, what kind of revolution are you waging?”

Not only did I take part in the meetings of my own Party branch, but I also went to other Party branches to lay down “my position”. Now I must tell again that Comrades Marcel Cachin, Vaillant Couturier, Monmousseau and many others helped me to broaden my knowledge. Finally, at the Tours Congress, I voted with them for our joining the Third International.

At first, patriotism, not yet communism, led me to have confidence in Lenin, in the Third International. Step by step, along the struggle, by studying Marxism-Leninism parallel with participation in practical activities, I gradually came upon the fact that only socialism and communism can liberate the oppressed nations and the working people throughout the world from slavery.

There is a legend, in our country as well as in China, on the miraculous “Book of the Wise”. When facing great difficulties, one opens it and finds a way out. Leninism is not only a miraculous “book of the wise”, a compass for us Vietnamese revolutionaries and people: it is also the radiant sun illuminating our path to final victory, to socialism and communism.

a good chunck of posts are stupid. If you look at my profile its like 90% bad posts. dont worry about it too much

I think it's important to explore how closely your account is tied to your identity and sense of self-worth.

In some respects, you're the one they call crazy in a world that has gone mad - if everyone treated their interactions on social media as they do interactions in their community then everyone would be much more concerned about negative feedback, not being liked or appreciated, and not having their contributions welcomed.

That sounds like a bad thing, right?

But what if I told you that the way westerners approach social media, especially pseudo-anonymous social media, is generally a product of toxic liberal hyper-individualism. What if the degree of concern you experience, if it was universalised across social media, would make for a much more harmonious and supportive environment because everyone would be much more concerned with things like social integration and avoiding causing offence or losing face?

Unfortunately, being conscious of these things is a bit of a game theory (ick! Sorry for bringing this up) situation at the moment; because of the way that social media is structured, it heavily favours the worst sorts of behaviours and social interactions and it puts the people who have your approach at a major disadvantage.

Because of this situation, the adaptive strategy of not giving a fuck is the most well-adjusted but only in a relative sense. It's a well-adjusted to these specific conditions but it isn't inherently well-adjusted and I'd argue that to a large extent it isn't truly well-adjusted at all.

Imagine if you were in a room of people who all experienced no fear of public speaking because they had zero concern for how their community perceived them and they acted like it. Of course you'd feel like an outsider to that group but would you be problematising or pathologising your experience of anxiety related to public speaking? Or would you think "This room is filled with a bunch of ruthless assholes and even though I wish I could do public speaking without experiencing stage fright, if that's the price I have to pay to not be like them then I'm okay with that"?

Because that's kinda the situation you're dealing with - we are engaged in a form of public speaking, in a broader sense.

I know that "terminally online" is a bit of a clichéd punchline by this point but if you've ever encountered people who really do spend a lot of time on social media and who are really heavily invested in it personally, they are almost always really odd specimens. And this is coming from an autistic person lol. This type of person doesn't seem to demonstrate an understanding of how to relate to people and how to do irl social interactions. (Note that there's a distinction between people who spend a lot of time on social media and the terminally online type. Think about the distinction between a philosophy undergraduate who necessarily spends a lot of their time debating in a broad sense vs the classic debatebro for comparison; similar in some respects but entirely different in a qualitative way.)

Idk, I just don't think that you are necessarily maladjusted. Out of step with the people who are on the stronger end of the online spectrum, sure, but that doesn't seem like a personal failing to me.

If it's really prohibiting you from engaging more with the community here or from experiencing enjoyment from posting/commenting then I think that all of the basic strategies around social anxiety apply pretty well to that. You can find tons of advice for how to work with this - it's basically ubiquitous.

To answer your question more directly though, I definitely feel a fair bit of anxiety with posting and commenting. It's not uncommon for me to draft half a comment to then delete it before it would get posted. I am hyperspecific with my phrasing and choice of words because I really don't enjoy those combative sort of negative responses and it's a learned behaviour for me in all aspects of my life, so if you looked at how much impact my anxiety around social media has on me as a person it's actually quite significant.

I guess I just have a lot of things to say and with regards to things like mental health, history, and autism & ADHD I feel as though I can make contributions that are valuable to the community on those topics.

Except for posting photos of Basil because everyone here loves my communist dog I'm sewing a ushanka for.

by posting

Just post ska everyday.

if i get too nervous, i just make a new alt and post with that one

Same I only post if I'm 99.999% sure it's perfectly safe and won't piss anyone off. :)

The more I lurk the more I get the vibes of this place and what's acceptable and what's not, so I know what I can say. That's all I can do. My RSD means getting into any conflict is utterly intolerable for me and causes me to panic, even if it's just posting on a silly forum where it's not that deep.

I like your posts comrade, especially Basil. And besides have you seen mine? lmao, I just post whatever brain poisoned shit comes to mind.

Realize that every post you make spites the life of a mod.

Practice posting in the general megathread to build up confidence, everyone there is usually chill and nice

I was born a shitposter. I will die as a shitposter.

You shouldn’t be worried about if your posts are too stupid, you should be worried if your posts aren’t stupid enough

I've always felt a bit of that too.

"This was a great link/meme, thanks for sharing it!" is often enough to brighten someone's day, and gets you used to general engagement.

Good vibes are no basis for structuring society on a large scale, but when it comes to interacting with your own community, they're often enough.

I mean, look at my history as Hexbear's seventh(?) most powerful poster

Not all of my jokes land, not all of my commentary is trenchant and yeah, sometimes I'm high as shit and write some wrinkly gibberish

Nobody here is gonna hunt me down for it

And if they do, I am ready to either seduce them or die

I plug my brain straight into my keyboard, type the first thing that comes to mind, and then hit post.

make and discard accounts frequently so if you post bad then no one will know

I comment more than I post. It's not much but it's honest work.

Just use an account that's not tied to your identity and be your true self. Some people will or won't like what you have to say, no matter what you say. Dont take it personally in either case.

post. A real simple, easy thing to do is to refer others to our Posting Policy Bulletin.

Just post though it. I hardly used to post on the subreddit, maybe a few comments or posts, but that was it. Then I went to posting lots of nonsense on here, and I don't think anyone really cares. And if they do care, well whatever. They're on the other side of the world and I've never met them.

I’m a long time lurker and kinda have a similar anxiety, tbh. Whenever I think I have an insightful or funny comment, someone has already made exactly the same point but better. Hexbear’s posters are just too powerful lol.

I think you’re right that it’s a form of digital social anxiety. I don’t know if this will help you at all but I’ve personally found that trying to let go of my own expectations and just appreciate that this community exists at all makes it much easier to interact with.

I love your dog btw, please give them lots of pets!

Start by posting random shit on /c/badposting lol

Or post some new articles in /c/news

Or ask something on... oh wait

People like to receive notifications, they will be happy to see your comment. On the other hand it’s easier to not get addicted to social media if you don’t post.

I guess you just kinda comment first, then post...

That being said, for me, the real worry is the inbox.

I just delete my account and start over if I've made too many comments that are stupid or too personal. This is like my 20th account, I'm a really bad poster

I'll go weeks just lurking, often takes a hypomanic phase to break into interacting again

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I made a post about God being a conservative and Jesus being his rebelling, liberal son who can’t fully eliminate the conservative brainworms he was taught. I also called God a Democrat for allowing evil to exist and competing with it instead of just permanently purging it.

I don’t think you can make a dumber post. But sometimes there’s like 5 piss jokes on the front page.

I don’t think you have anything to worry about.

But if you want serious advice, when I was in high school I used to ran various ironic meme pages and popularized a few formats. What made me more confident was

1. Learning how to use photoshop and proper video editors because learning new, real skills and applying it to fucking memes was absurdly funny to me
2. Deconstructing existing trends and memes until it becomes extremely meta and post-post-post-post ironic that eventually the comedy comes from me knowing my true intentions while everyone else only thinking they know it

Basically, I made myself laugh, and somehow other people found my trash amusing as well which made me confident that my posts would do relatively well. And if they didn’t? Oh well. I got my laugh.

To you and all lurkers: I had a similar anxiety at the beginning, because it feels kinda like you're letting complete strangers evaluate your self-worth through the prism of a single comment. So, in my case, I was basically like "If I can't post anything worthwhile then I might as well not post at all," and in that situation, forums turn into like... university Blackboard forums, I guess, where you have to be like "Great comment, X! I particularly enjoyed your comment about how the protagonist of the book symbolizes the ennui inherent to the human experience! If I might add further..." And it feels stilted, and I felt like I had to read a shitload just to bring in knowledge to add to a post or comment or they might yell at me for being wrong and/or stupid and/or not well-read.

But I think this forum strikes a nice middle ground between very intellectual discussions and very casual ones. You can be reading a post about Soviet economics in the immediate post-war period and then the very next post, you're looking at a cat meme. So I would either stick to the more casual discussions (the general megathread is good for this) before you feel ready and not as intimidated by all these people who know all these facts and have read so many books on a subject, or if you want to feel more "productive" online, I would go and read literature and articles etc beforehand, especially stuff that's outside the usual basic reading lists, and then you can become the effortpost Blackboard person (and perhaps from there, move to more casual discussions as you get more comfortable with just shooting the shit).

nowadays I have almost no anxiety on here. There are still definitely comments or posts that I make where I'm like "Oh god, this one's a little controversial, I'm gonna go do something else for a few hours and dread reading the responses," and hell, sometimes I leave comments with no intention to ever read the responses (mostly when the odd lib finds their way in), but nowadays I'd feel totally fine with leaving a shitty joke or uninformed opinion on more casual posts, and you too can get to this point.

Don't. There's too much stuff on here as it is.

Kidding of course. Get over by it by getting in the comments and writing things you think are cute. People enjoy positive reinforcement, so an easy way to get over yourself and get some positive feedback is to comment on stuff that makes you happy. If I make something you enjoy and you comment some variation of "hey this is really good" then I'm going to feel good and I'm gonna reciprocate that feeling back to you. Then you feel good about posting, which makes it less scary and so you will slowly feel confident enough to comment different things and also make your own post. You will also realise it's nothing to worry about, since its just text on a website. Also delete comments you make that regret. Then you don't have to look at them.

Probably just focus a lot on it but don’t do it?

Idk, that’s how I’d get anxiety over posting…

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Just never bother to look at your responses.

I have this irl too, so I'm positive its social anxiety related. One tip is ignore notifications, another is don't log in very often and third maybe roll a bunch of alts so you never feel too attached to one name and its consequences, going to xth its unlikely you'll ever meet anyone here, so you'll be perfectly fine.

I can't quite use the 'they're all just bots in Eglin' line I do to get myself to post at reddit, then again I don't even like asking chatgpt questions, have to set goals like 'I need that resume generated by the 2nd' or 'I need to ask how to change legal name on hellsite by whatever day'. A digital version of the audience is naked that people say helps with speaking and no, it doesn't.