view the rest of the comments
Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
Guy was my best friend in middle school. We reconnected after I graduated from college, played and beat L4D and L4D2 together. Then he started sending me political memes, and they were all fascist.
I tried to reason with him, but then he refused to engage with anything that was longer than like a page, or any video/audio source longer than about five minutes, but didn't seem to have any problem sending me stuff way longer than that.
I still wonder if there was more I could have done. But I just didn't need that in my life. I'm not some hero, I'm a downwardly-mobile working-class schlub who's pretty good at playing piano and riding a bike. I shouldn't be responsible for dragging this dipshit back from the depths of fascism just because he sat next to me in seventh grade history class, and honestly, with some of the things he claimed to believe, I probably didn't even want him on my side anymore.
That's what I tell myself, anyway.
You did good. Don't underestimate how valuable just telling a leer their behavior is unacceptable is. So many folks with horrible views have them in part because no one is challenging them.
I think it's kind of a lost cause most of the time. My parents spend hours a day watching fox news and right wing youtubers. I'm not going to change their minds, I don't have the time. You aren't going to offset however much time his beliefs are getting reinforced with whatever time you spend with him.
If not you, then who?
I don't think it's your responsibility to cure him, but as somone close to him I think it's your responsibility to try, because if not you then who? But it sounds like you did that to some extent
Oh, I did. I argued with him for months, and he just kept getting more and more toxic and more and more spiteful.