The Internet is a big place. There are lots of cat memes that don't depict any suffering at all.
this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2025
84 points (90.4% liked)
Showerthoughts
41486 readers
688 users here now
A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
Rules
- All posts must be showerthoughts
- The entire showerthought must be in the title
- No politics
- If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
- A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
- Posts must be original/unique
- Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS
If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.
Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
And for everything else, you can try to mask the suffering with Doom music.
People talk about echo chambers a lot, but I've found it nearly impossible to keep politics and general doom content out. I'm rapidly losing my interest in the Internet as a whole simply because it seems to bring mostly pointless suffering to myself.
My lemmy client lets me filter out posts based on words or phrases.
I found my mood improving when I started filtering out the clickbait and doom.
Don't sell the Internet short. It also brings a lot of pointless suffering to others as well
Maybe prune your feed a bit, block the communities you dread.
So it's either be uninformed or miserable.
I've struggled with that dilemma before, but in the end I think it's not really an either/or. Sure, it's easy to 'stay informed' by reading about upsetting shit on social media but it's not the only or the best way.
Encountering upsetting and infuriating headlines and news stories at random among more 'fun' content adds to the background stress of modern life "don't relax, a horrible thing is just sound the corner!". And memes or posts about stuff often simplify complex events and emphasises the emotional horror of the events.
I don't always suceeed, but I've tried to keep away from communities and sites that share politics / world events, but then spend a specific time each week actually reading articles and deeper dives on these issues. When I read a real article, that adds nuance and historical context I'm not less horrified or angry, but it's in a calmer and more productive sense than just "aaaa the world is fire and everything is awful".
I found a good rhythm for myself. I'm still subscribed to many political communities but I don't get involved in every post. Might sound self-evident, but it's something about letting the first reaction subside and spend just one more second looking at the thing before I decide to click or not.
Also: headlines suck. These days, it seems 99% of media outlets - including the good ones - make clickbait/kneejerk headlines. Most cases, when I read the first paragraph of the article, I go: oooh, that is much less dramatic than I first thought!
Well, yeah. But that's a consequence of [gestures broadly at current events] IRL, not the Internet.
You won't be able to avoid being informed about the bad stuff, it's in your face every day.
Keep the feeds open that give you hope we'll survive it all, and the strength to do what you can. And the cute sweet stuff that gives you a joyful reason to go on.
You already know to avoid the fascist propaganda, and you can head on over to the factual sites or turn on NPR whenever you feel up to a dose of grim reality.
The world, and most of the things in it are not black and white.
Tbh its mostly U.S. news that make me lose sanity because i have to watch our allies speedrun fascism. And i know we are following suit (Germany and i would say most western countries).
The suffering in palestine should not be ignored , especially because we hold so much power in the war on palestine.
What the hell cat memes are you looking at bro? I don't think I've ever seen one that mandates "you must watch X number of people suffer before viewing this meme". That just sounds...utterly unhinged. I've got a TON of cat memes I could send you and you don't have to watch anyone suffer for them. Totally free.
Maybe he is hallucinating cats on the posts
there’s some good stuff in the various c/internetisbeautiful/ communities
Yup. The most satisfying beauty is found in nature.
What I've found helpful, specifically to the threadiverse is to occasionally scroll through all and find communities that sound fun, interesting, or uplifting to subscribe to. And otherwise browse by Subscribed. Makes it a more pleasant, less doomscrolly experience.
It's not perfect. This is still a pretty niche place so that's not a huge amount of content. And it doesn't solve the problem of the vast, soulless modern internet as a whole. But still, it makes one thing a bit nicer, and that's not nothing.