Anything involving a picture gets way more replies regardless if it's a troll attempt or actually real? Most often the meme threads are garbage like people throwing random pictures to see what sticks on the wall or not.
I have given up on forums except here because it's the same thing. Only 'treeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeendy' threads ever get noticed. If you complain or call out on it BOOM INSTANT BAN!!!
How far do you think most people would read what you wrote?
Well, if you had to go by the metric of what the highest number of people did, I would say they got 0% of the way through. That is, they saw the length and thought, "There's no possible payoff worth that" and their eyes slid right off. I'm sure it's all taking place at a subconscious level.
When you start paying very close attention to people's interactions, you can see how very little actual engagement there is. The vast majority of conversations are simply intersecting monologues.
The more closely I study what people actually do, the less surprised I am that the world is the way it is. Still an optimist, though!
You'll like this then! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INMpsFfhaVk
Thanks for the link! I'd heard the name before but never looked into it. As frightening as Dead Internet Theory is, and I'm sure there's more truth to it than we guess, I think there's much truth to the opposite and it's terrifying.
That is, many real people behave at no higher a level than bots, and NPCs are way more prevalent than is comfortable to think about.
I was recently DMing with someone from Reddit and asked him 4 yes or no questions in a row, the last one being, "Do you understand what a yes or no question is?" I got zero answers of yes or no. Would anyone write such a malfunctioning bot? I don't think so.
But do some human brains actually work more poorly than malfunctioning bots? I fear so.