They created a platform that optimizes for trolling, insanity and outrage porn because it's the cheapest way of inducing engagement. It's hardly a reality check.
A reality check would be going to a conference and realizing that twitter isn't a representation of the general public.
An interesting counter(? corollary? Neither?) to that is when you go to a conference and the SAME INSANE PEOPLE from Twitter are there, acting as one would consider "normal".
I don't know what to think about the immense gulf between how we as a species behave behind a screen vs face to face. And how we also react to others doing it.
"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth - Oscar Wilde."
Giving a mask gives you a new contextual facet of a person, but hardly the truth. Few are those who can even know the truth about themselves. I don't know if I do.
Maybe you are not so blandly stereotypical after all? Your mini bio doesn't sound bland at all. Maybe you fit the formal criteria for group membership (in the group you describe), but aren't an average exemplar? Maybe people in general tend to think of themselves as more typical than they are? Or maybe that's true especially for guys in the group you describe? That would certainly explain political rhetoric talking to regular Joes who aren't so regular anymore.
Also probably true: the group you describe is so large that the variation within it is large, and stereotypes have little predictive predictive power for individual members.
The likelyhood of being average in all dimensions plummets with an increase in dimensions.
People in my industry who I have known for 20+ years dedicated 100% of their online presence to spewing out and promoting such incredible hate-filled garbage that I was in shock.
Otherwise intelligent educated people got sucked into amazing resonant chambers of hatred. It was beyond belief.
I finally unfriended everyone on FB but about a dozen close family members. This was an experience I don’t care to repeat.
Like, uuh, the president of the United States?
My conclusion is that what is asked is so low effort that it is inconsequential for cisgender people and improves the quality of life for people that felt marginalized and increases their productivity.
Twitter/Reddit are always, Always, ALWAYS wrong about everything.[1]
... and thank God for that.
As one whose political and cultural beliefs are, like yours, mostly opposite that of Twitter/Reddit's as a whole, the sites' existence (including subreddits like /r/politics, /r/news, and /r/worldnews) is gratifying and validating.
If the mass of Redditards/Twitter users agreed with my opinions I'd carefully reexamine every one of them.
As bloodraven42 wrote in response to a pretty cringe-inducing example of a Redditard (who was agreeing with an even more cringe-inducing example (http://np.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/urodq/british_guy_...)):
>Please note the fact that you've gotten this impression from "reading Reddit". I assure you, reading Reddit gives you about as accurate a portrayal of reality as reading North Korean "news". Did you know Kim Jong Il is literally a God?
As Anal_Justice_League added:
>So wait, your world view comes from reading Reddit?
>Do I even have to explain how catastrophically stupid that is?
And as 1foryes said in another thread (https://np.reddit.com/r/canada/comments/be2p5a/cbc_predicts_...): >But fortunately, reddit does not represent reality. If it did, the ice caps would have melted years ago and we'd all be fighting in WW6.
[1] Except bacon
What you've described is something I experience in almost every facet of my life. I'm so blandly stereotypical it hurts yet somehow the rampant generalizations that are used to describe me, my values and my motivations are so hilariously wrong the vast majority of time that I don't even bother to argue because there's nothing to even work with as a ground truth.
The most recent reality check I've had is this year when I finally started using Twitter. I loaded up on folks in my industry only to be blindsided with a barrage of insanity. Honestly think that 75% of the people in my feed in serious need of a wellness check. I can't imagine the damage being done to young folks observing the behavior of adults on that platform.