Wasting time analyzing strangers' social media posts

I and other members have complained about this ad nauseam, and how it’s impacting collective experience, but it hasn’t really been addressed.

One of the main reasons I come here is to escape the cacophony of lies and noise spouted by mainstream media, and to see this platform devolve into a dump for low value low effort drivel from the same libfem outlets we seek reprieve from is quite disheartening. It’s the reason I stayed away for months bc it is upsetting. @creamtart has spoken about this as well.

A separate thread was made for dating app fails, but that was ignored and the screenshots spam prevailed. It's far more impactful and productive to come together with high value thoughtful posts, life lessons/problems we can all learn and benefit from, and real stories not media ne

Ws.

We all have access to mainstream media, a lot of women here are not even American, and there's a particular account that sees it fit to post celebrity drivel here endlessly. There's an aspect of this that shows how the American experience is centered, and also the presumption that even US residents are concerned with keeping up with random celebrity scrotery that is not even analyzed in a way that contributes to the conversation.

Just "oh a scrote did this he's terrible". What? FDS is NOT a news outlet. This is a very very diverse group of women with different value sets who are aligned on female advancement.

I understand this. I think FDS was originally designed for women to share real-life experiences and level up in a personal capacity. Sometimes the screenshot posts can be overkill, and we’re already bombarded with this negative content in the media as it is. I’d love to see more field reports, strategy posts, success stories, and other pertinent information so we women can support each other in living our best lives.

This has been my issue for a while too. I've been less and less active on here because we're bombarded with low effort content such as OLD screenshots and (the ones that infuriate me the most) reddit screenshots. Yes, it's fun to see those screenshots now and then but it's becoming more and more frequent. I don't use reddit precisely because I don't want to see the fucking clownery men and women post on that site, so why post it here? It makes me angry, sometimes it sours my day entirely.

When FDS was on reddit, there was a point near the end where there were so many Male Depravity posts that the mods had to regulate them and allow them only on Mondays. It was a dumpster fire, to see how our beloved female only space online would turn into this place of trauma dumping, low effort and incredibly depressing content. I had to take time off the subreddit because browsing it was affecting my mental health. Yes, men are shit, we all know it and yes, the screenshots could be a case of study but fucking hell, most of us don't learn anything from them. Those posts only make it more difficult for us to remain optimistic and in the abundance mindset. It's almost like sabotaging ourselves by constantly posting screenshots from other platforms about the most disgusting and disturbing shit men do. I don't think that's the true purpose of FDS at all. The podcast has such a great energy, such a fun vibe, and then I come here and see all the low effort content and it's just disappointing.

This is a big rant but I need to get it off my chest: I love this space. It's the only place (on and offline) where I don't feel like I'm living in a dystopian novel. The women here are wise, I wish to learn from them, they're the only ones that don't make me feel like I'm crazy living in these current times. So it saddens me to enter the forum and see more and more posts about scrotes on OLD, reddit and shitty relationships *sigh* I know we don't have to click on them but they seem to be the most popular on here anyway. If we don't express clearly that these posts are useless and a waste of energy, other users will just continue to post such content.

What I'm most upset about is seeing women posting OLD profiles because I really thought that FDS explicitly state that OLD is a waste of our time, there's no HVM on it, and it is really just a prostitution catalogue for men to use to find free sex without strings attached. Sure, some of the OLD profiles are funny and I recall posting some replies to it, but in the back of my mind these past couple of weeks of seeing them is, "Come on, girl, why are you on Hinge? Is dating offline really that hard that you gotta stick yourself to an app that forces you to make the first contact with a man?"

James Baldwin wrote, "I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain." I understand that it's easier to outrage post than sit with the stark reality that we are all dealing with as women. It feels like you are doing something and maybe it provides some temporary relief. Just be aware that the longer you gaze into that abyss, the more it maintains its hold on you.

This is how I’ve been feeling lately. There’s a particular person that I notice has been posting daily, sometimes multiple times of the same content — OLD profiles / Reddit screenshots. It gets old. Like, FDS has already mentioned many times how men on OLD are trash, yet they keep posting as if it’s a surprise!! I noticed that these posts get many replies too, maybe that’s why they keep posting it? Either way it’s focusing too much energy on trash men… much like you mentioned.

Not much I can add. Just want to lend my voice of support to everything you've said. I'm not sure what the solution is, but it feels like there are two competing camps on this forum at times and we have very different ideas about what we'd like FDS, as a space, to be like.

I have a suggestion. This is meant with good intentions to both newbies and experienced users alike. Ladies who are new or still unlearning pickme behaviours should be grouped and given a space to: work through their urge to “demystify” N/LVM behaviour; emotional/internal levelling up; subsequently realising that “demystifying” shitty behaviour is a pointless waste of time, just don’t fkn engage w bad faith actors- boom all your problems solved; reading the handbook posts; reading the recommended books. Experienced FDSers who have done the foundational internal work get a space for real talk, ruthless strategy, growth mindset discussion, or just general fun wholesome self-love/ self-care talk. I’m just spitballing ideas. Maybe pinned forum rules/ mandatory reading section where it states the rules, and women can only participate where they’re designated. And an opt out feature of groups/forum sections so that experienced users don’t have to even see the newbie posts? Then people engage with their respective section of the forum? Newbies can read the experienced user section, just not allowed to comment or post till they’ve levelled up and instilled core values consistently (i.e. learn self-respect, self-acceptance, self-love). I have no idea how the site has to be designed for this to work or how it’s moderated? Just putting my ideas out there. Another idea is for the discord to be expanded to allow experienced FDSers on. That way we all get what we want.

Edit to add for clarity re how blunt my comment is: obviously I'm just speaking black/white terms in relation to emotional growth and levelling up, I'm just referring to the baseline FDS values. You're either new or you're not, you get it or you don't. That is okay. We just all need to know our place with where we're at on our journey. Goes w/o saying that personal development is a neverending lifelong journey, experienced FDSers are in no way superior. We all just need a space.

Yes, thank you. I think we should keep the "some BS some lame scrote has posted" posts to a minimum. Random strangers say all kinds of crap online. And most of us have already heard it.

Coming back here to add an observation. I now see why those trashposts don’t get taken down, even though they’re not useful or productive and actively go against FDS principles of not engaging with bad faith actors (a la block and delete). It attracts another demographic to FDS which increases website traffic. Those posts get a lot of interaction. I hate it but I get it. It sucks bc they clog up the feed and interesting engaging posts get lost. I wish I had a load of money to donate to the cause so that we could just focus on producing quality content. Another part of me wants to produce content for the website but I am wary of doing free labour when I’m not sure whether the intellectual property would still belong to me if I submit strategy here? As is the case with Reddit.

I mean you could think of them as case studies to help people understand theoretical ideas that are discussed on FDS. It's one thing to say 'if he wanted to he would' - obviously that's true - but I think for a lot of people (especially people who've only recently recognized that they've lived life as a pick-me) they could totally subscribe to that on principle while not recognizing its relevance in practice or in specific practical contexts. These posts show the insane "reasoning" and manipulation tactics LVM use so women can recognize them more readily in the wild.