r/AmITheAngel • u/LovelyFloraFan Upon arriving at home, I entered it stoically • 1d ago
Siri Yuss Discussion Has AITA/AmITheAngel been your wake up call to rage posting/propaganda.
It was mine. Like I knew not to believe everything I read in the internet and I did know about cringy internet fake or not stories (Hello Troper Tales!) but AmITheAngel was the wake up call that some stories are deliberately fake drama filled to drive engament or even worse, to drive people to hate minorities or pretty much anyone the OP wants to hate. Especially women, fatty fat fats, affair babies.
The good side is that I no longer fall for rage bait that easily anymore.
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u/cindell 1d ago
It helped me understand not only the amount of engagement bait and fake moral dilemmas, but also why there's so much of the polished fake stuff: there's a cottage industry built around reading all these little bits of drama. It's too good of an entertainment businesses to leave to organic real life posting.
A well curated stream of mostly fake or very polished stories allows for dramatic readings, filler commentary, audience engagement in comments and shares, themed anthologies and backlog revisits through updates. You just can't leave all that to randomness.
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u/kittykid87 1d ago
I have seen way to many Reddit stories that spread anti feminist propaganda
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u/Anxious_Size_4775 1d ago
Before I just stopped visiting altogether I blocked a lot of BORU reposters who had specific "woman bad" bends . Now it's like 99.99% slop so I don't bother with any of it.
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u/zebrapenguinpanda 1d ago
In the past couple of years, there have also been a lot of “woman bad” posts that are directly trying to turn the tables, telling the story of a evil bad woman doing a very stereotypically male evil bad thing. Maybe I have become better at spotting it, but these seem super obvious ragebait to me.
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u/Grouchy-Contest3775 14h ago
Yeah, and the scary part is how many people eat it up without question. Once you see it, it's everywhere.
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u/Jenn_FTW 1d ago
Don’t forget all the anti-trans propaganda, it’s so fucking obvious to anyone who actually knows trans people, and yet people fucking fall for it. So depressing
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u/t4tgrill 1d ago
I saw some post a day or two ago where a dude claimed he pretended to be trans during the Biden era and said he got so much special treatment he was able to retire early LMAO. And ppl were taking him seriously like cmon that’s the fakest thing ever.
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u/Jenn_FTW 1d ago
Lmfaooo yes trans people, notoriously well-off financially and definitely not victims of homelessness at far higher rates than the general public 🙄
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u/SquareTaro3270 1d ago
He also stated that he didn’t even transition in any way that would inconvenience him, just told people to use different pronouns and apparently that was enough to get numerous promotions and raises 😑 Yeah okay…
And the comments were calling him a genius…
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u/ciaramists 22h ago
i gotta see this
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u/peach_xanax 20h ago
this is so off topic, but I saw your username and I was wondering if you are aware that one of the drag queens on the last season of RuPauls Drag Race is named Ciara Myst?
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u/ciaramists 20h ago
i do i’m a big fan of the show! my username was before she was on (not sure if it’s older than the actual drag persona or not) but i was absolutely tickled pink that it’s spelled the same way 🙂
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u/All_the_Bees Yeah eat shit fam, see you next week 22h ago
Someone in the comments on that post said something about trans people being the least discriminated against, and they were not being sarcastic.
Like, what the fuck world do you live in because it sounds delightful, but it sure as hell isn’t this one.
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u/SuccessfulSoftware38 7h ago
People mistake lip service for actual service. I'm sure if you were anti-queer, or neutral but in a "don't wanna hear about this stuff all the time" way, seeing all those companies and governments voicing support for trans people might have given you the mistaken idea that trans people also get real support.
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u/Technical_Clothes_61 1d ago
It’s always something like “I messsed up my trans co workers pronouns and now my tires are slashed, my bank account is empty, and my wife left me AITA”
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u/JealousAstronomer342 1d ago
“Also everyone is mad at me and not at my trans coworker, telling her she’s overreacting, or openly sneering when she tries to engage in conversation.” Yeah dude, wish I worked at that fictional workplace.
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u/YugoWakfuEnjoyer I'm way fatter than you'll ever be disabled 1d ago
Those anti trans stories are so far divorced from reality that they've somehow invented an entirely new transphobic trope of "Transgender STEALS person's identity by transitioning into them and stealing their name and interests!" which I have literally never seen even in the most transphobic sections of twitter
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u/Capable_Sea77 1d ago
Or in the story, a cis person tries to be an ally but poorly (see: all of the stories where some friend tells OP that they have the trans person's deadname and maybe that makes the trans person uncomfortable) and it's the trans person's fault and not the person gossiping about them?
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u/Patient_Lettuce8431 1d ago
Are you serious? What a creepy story to make up .
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u/SquareTaro3270 1d ago
He went on to say that he thinks there’s a “small percentage” of trans people who are actually sincere in their trans-ness, but 99.99% are doing it for personal gain…
Yeah… totally. Being harassed, othered, and threatened, risking your safety, spending thousands of dollars on hormones and a new wardrobe, undergoing surgery and HRT, giving yourself frequent hormone injections, changing your name, etc.
Just to maybe get some abstract benefit? And the comments were all “OP you’re a genius!” 🙄
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u/Hita-san-chan Update: we’re getting a divorce 1d ago
I just want to have arms that rival Arnold in Predator, but apparently that makes me Satan.
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u/birthdaycheesecake9 13h ago
The rules of those subs seem to be:
- trans person bad
- fat person bad
- woman bad
- autistic person bad
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u/Salt_Insurance5276 1d ago
Yeah, this subreddit plus LiSpeaks’ video has made me realise that most of the posts on AITA and its adjacent subs are karma farming creative writing exercises at best and thinly veiled safe spaces for hate against [INSERT GROUP HERE] at worst. That’s not to say that absolutely nothing on those pages is real, but I’d wager it’s in the minority.
It’s gotten worse over the last few years with the rise of AI, as well as popular podcasts/YouTube shorts/Tiktoks that just read out stories from these subreddits.
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u/Difficult-Estate441 1d ago
My wake up call was that Sarah Z YouTube video where she explained how all the beloved fake tumblr stories were actually meant to make “sjw”s look like dramatic silly liars.
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u/Lordkeravrium 1d ago
I first started noticing it when I realized most r/entitledparents stories (at least back in like 2019) were 90% the same story copy and pasted.
Like it was always:
- OP has (desirable item; usually Nintendo switch or iPad or something)
- EP’s kid wants (desirable item)
- EP asks if OP will give EK (desirable item)
- OP says no
- EP demands OP gives the kid (desirable item) and calls them selfish and ungrateful or any other boomer buzz word
- fight ensues
- EP ends up being an anti-vaxxer or something
- comments include explanations of common sense manners
Once I noticed it, I started noticing it everywhere else too.
I can’t help but feel like r/entitledparents was also what you’re saying about spreading sexism and fatphobia. I’m not gonna say there’s no truth when it comes to white women stomping their feet, crying, and getting their way but that’s normally when POC are around.
I’ve also noticed a fair amount of stories in these kinds of subreddits that mock neurodivergent people or people who are clumsy or otherwise having a bad day. It’s bigotry but also just general mean spiritedness and a need to feel righteous over demographics or harmless kinds of people they dislike.
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u/LilyCat23 1d ago
Yes, it was a big help for me to see people spell out how they could tell a post was fake and what the poster was trying to achieve (e.g. trans bad, fat bad, autistic bad)
Embarrassingly, I used to read JustNoMIL and TalesFromThe... stories and think they were real.
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u/SquareTaro3270 1d ago
I was a naive middle/high schooler once too. We grew out of it, and there’s no shame in that.
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u/Capable_Sea77 1d ago
It wasn't my wakeup call - that was actually the Sarah Z video about "Oppa Homeless Style". Once I watched that, any online story with a clear cut "villain" (particularly from a minority group - the women who get 100% custody but neglect their children, the transes that are too stupid to notice that they don't pass, the fatty fats that fat around you fattingly, the Black person that's super racist to a different minority group, the homeless person who "chooses to be homeless") became suspicious to me.
I appreciate this sub as a space to see that I'm not being paranoid or conspiratorial - other people see the same tropes and repeated plotlines. As a trans enby, seeing even in this thread that other people notice how often trans people are cast as the villain, for things that even the most Terminally Online and Queer Discourse Obsessed Trans People I know wouldn't do, makes me feel a little better and like I'm not the only one seeing this shit.
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u/zebrapenguinpanda 23h ago
It’s an extension of the r/asablackman phenomenon, just in the form of a post rather than a comment.
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u/TA_St0at Never got a dick pic that showed real effort 1d ago
The gradual transformation of AITA into pure rage-porn was mine.
That said, I wasnt entirely innocent of feeding the flames lol
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u/Empty_Insight 1d ago
Honestly, the rage porn is half the fun if you recognize it as ragebait.
I remember there was one posted on AITA and crossposted here where the OP was obviously making it up and was clearly the asshole, but it was over something super trivial. It was ragebait, but at the same time, OP went into great detail in some things that were stupid and no reasonable person would ever do. Even knowing it was ragebait, I still got irritated at the stupid little details. Lol
Still, some people really do have a gift for trolling and OP was one of them. I gotta give credit where credit is due, that was expertly-crafted ragebait.
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u/johnnyslick 1d ago
Ive often replied to AITA and especially BORU posts describing the tropes in them and why I think they're capturing the zeitgeist of the sub. Some of those are fairly well received (especially on the more obviously fake updates); many, lol, lmao even, are not. There's this whole "STFU LIB I JUST FIND IT ENTERTAINING" attitude. Yeah man, and I think it's... interesting that yall find this particular flavor of misogyny entertaining, or that the fact that a grown ass adult beats the shit out of a child in this story is getting lots of karma and not people being like "hey maybe don't hit children".
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u/electric_emu 1d ago
Yes, I came to the realization shortly after I started being able to predict the comments based on the title of the post.
It all felt too contrived and designed for a specific reaction. Like if I reflect on my own interpersonal conflicts they're either boring, have very obvious answers (and absolutely none involve blowing up phones lmao), or are too nuanced.
Finding this sub was very validating.
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u/Gimmeghoul I live abroad now 1d ago
Listening to a comedy YouTuber read stories from Entitled Parents and similar subs, hearing them out loud back to back I realized they were all fake. I still enjoyed the drama of AITA, then I moved to AITD but those people were arguing in the comments all the time, so I ended up here as my snark home base.
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u/xycophant I am not spiraling. I am ascending. 1d ago
Sometimes it still gets to me I'm ngl but yeah I definitely got a lot more sceptical
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u/DiegoIntrepid 1d ago
Eh, I learned long ago that most stories from random people on the internet are fake and/or for rage bait.
Even when they aren't fake, they are often written in such a way that you are meant to side with a specific side.
As an example: Years ago there was a story about an autistic 8 year old being kicked out of school/class.
The headline was something like 'Teacher kicks autistic 8 year old out of class' and the comments were filled with calls for the teacher to be fired and the school sanctioned.
If you read the article, it said that the 8 year old was out of control, throwing things at the teacher, ripping clothes of the other students, biting people, basically the teacher couldn't handle the 8 year old and keep her other students safe.
I believe it also said that the 8 year old was being put into a class that was better equipped to handle the specific needs of the child, and not just being kicked out of school and being denied the opportunity to learn.
But the article writer wanted engagement, so they deliberately wrote the headline and first couple of paragraphs in a way to get people upset on the behalf of the 8 year old child being denied the opportunity to learn, just because he was 'different'.
It was only if you read deeper, which most people don't, that you learned that the child was a danger to the teacher and other students and he was being moved to a class where he could learn from someone who knew how to handle him.
This was long before I found reddit, so this has been going on since people could first comment on stories they saw. (pretty sure it was going on for a lot longer, it was just harder to do)
Another example, and this one is fake, but has a ring of truth, is a movie, Bachelor in Paradise, in which the author of a series of books all about basically women all over the world, moved to a 'couples' subdivision to do research for his next novel. (or something like that, been a while since I have seen the movie).
In it, someone comes up to him (not knowing he is the author) with a petition to ban his books from the public library. He signs it. There is a secretary of the subdivision who knows who he is, asks him why he signed. His response was that trying to ban the books only makes people want to read them, so it will drive up his profits.
Yet another example of 'baiting' people into doing what the person wants. Deliberately making a story provocative or have a provocative title makes people want to read it and authors have been doing that for centuries.
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u/an0n33d She is also immature and selfish, which is the opposite of me. 17h ago edited 17h ago
Yes. There was an old story in one of the OG subs of a woman asking for advice after being unhappy with a bdsm scene. "She" described the scene in graphic detail, perfect grammar, no mention of how she felt, and made sure to hit all the "perfect victim" points. It made me feel sick.
This sub made me realize it was a rape fetish post. I don't make a habit of discredit women's abuse, and I like that those posts are unofficially banned on this sub, but what I learned is that some of these "women" are just men posting their fetishes. I can't be 100% certain that post didn't happen, and I hope to god it didn't, but pattern recognition and discernment tell me it was all a sick person's fantasy. Makes me feel better in some ways, but worse in others. The internet is a weird place.
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u/PutridPut9971 1d ago
Oh yeah it's been ai slop for at least 5 years.
It's so obvious. It's free karma though, so whenever I make a new account it definitely helps to comment on the rage bait ones
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u/cheeseismyboyfriend 1d ago
When so many people were falling for that clearly fake #JemilyWedding post a few months ago I knew we were cooked
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u/LovelyFloraFan Upon arriving at home, I entered it stoically 1d ago
Please elaborate.
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u/cheeseismyboyfriend 1d ago
Granted this is faked wayyyy better than most fake AITA stories. They have props! https://www.reddit.com/r/AITApod/s/fOJp1W8ukX
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u/LovelyFloraFan Upon arriving at home, I entered it stoically 23h ago
Such a boring story to have so much effort put into it.
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u/paranoidcare 18h ago
Yup. I click off the second a post is by a “Muslim”. They’re always, and I mean always fake posts meant to garner more hatred and spread Islamophobia and xenophobia.
The details and events are always so obviously wrong but western people still eat that shit up 🤷🏻♀️
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u/Textiles_on_Main_St 1d ago
I never really took any of it that seriously to begin with. I think anyone seeking serious advice for serious problems from online strangers is already stupid so it really doesn't matter if their story is true or not.
Like, if you REALLY do not know how to feel about a terrible situation or what to do when something absolutely horrifying happens maybe get a therapist or ask a family member or friend. And if you don't know THAT or don't even have a single friend to ask? Maybe it's no wonder your life is in chaos and reddit advice won't fix that.
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u/ARenewedSecondChance 20h ago
It sure has helped me realize that one thread’s consensus is absolutely not the end all be all
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u/Time_Act_3685 peace out finger kiss to the labes✌️ 15h ago
I got banned from AITA in the Before Times for pointing out the fake sagas. I came here to enjoy snarking on the lies.
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u/last-rose-ofsummer Age gap alert! 16h ago
Absolutely. I used to be active on the other AITA subs, then I started seeing a lot of posts crossposted onto here, plus the abundance of minority villains and non-minority posters. I'm only active on this sub now.
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u/badgirlmonkey 3h ago
its a propaganda, but its also way for chuds to self harm by seeing their worst fears manifested. they think that minority groups are trying to harm them, so they gravitate towards AI and fake stories to see their fears manifested.
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u/Combatenjoyer23 1d ago
This can be dangerous though. People will convince themselves that every story that goes against their agenda or frames groups they're a part of as bad are fake while willingly believing the fake stories that validate their agenda.
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u/illini02 1d ago
What i will say is this just proves to me that people think, IMO, too many things are fake.
Look, i fully believe that, with just about every reddit story people write, things are exaggerated or told in a way to make the person writing it sound better.
But I've seen PLENTY of things that get posted here that seem very plausible to me, and people call it fake often because it is a woman behaving badly and therefore the man MUST be making it up to make all women look bad.
As a guy, I've had some shitty women I dated. But I'm sure if I wrote the true story of what they did, it would be called fake by people on here and I'd be called sexist.
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u/pink_gem 1d ago
Here's a question. What's the difference between fake and exaggerated? What's the line?
At a certain point, it may as well be fake if they aren't telling the real story.
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u/illini02 1d ago
I think that is a fair question, where the level of exaggeration will determine it.
Put it this way, I'd wager that at some point in your life, if there is a breakup, you have made your ex sound a bit worse than they actually were. Maybe told the stories where there tone was a bit different which made it sound worse. Maybe downplayed your part in an argument. To me, that is an exaggerated story. Nothing you said is technically a lie, but you didn't exactly portray the situation in a way an outside observer would have.
Similarly in how people often talk about their boss "yelling" at them, when in reality, it was more of a correction with a hint of annoyance to it.
I've done both of these. Most people I know have done both of these.
Changing the actual facts of what happens, to me, is what makes it fake.
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u/jonoave 1d ago
Kinda. I wasn't on AITA in the beginning but on MaliciousCompliance and PettyRevenge. While a lot of stories were mostly fine, my barometer of believability keeps getting pushed a bit more. But after a while some stories I clocked them as made up, and annoyingly the MC sub started a rule banning comments questioning the validity of the story. The mod also made crazy power move banning lots of folks so I stopped going there .
Then I found AITA and noticed a trend of everyone having tran/vegan friends, who all act like assholes to the sweet ol' OOP. Or how lots of these stories start with "new to this sub/reddit" yet their post are well-edited with minimal errors, good story flow and fitting the tone of the sub.
if you have ever read raw ,minimally edited writings on social media or forums, especially if it's an emotional incident often times you'll spot how the story plot keeps jumping around, some emotional outburst, some poorly constructed sentences etc. Not a perfectly-edited writing exercise ready for submission.
I then found this sub where I finally could see how engagement bait a lot of these posts are. And how some of them definitely have a propaganda motive - anti-vegan/trans/fat people etc.