A Hitchhiker’s Guide to Imgur

Welcome to Imgur! We’re glad you’re here. Times be changing, and it helps to have a guide to help navigate Imgur and customize your feed to make it the best for what you’re looking for here. If this is tldr, I get it; I just couldn’t sleep. Don’t forget to bring your towel!

My mental health be fluctuating - and my brother told me to have active awareness of what media I consume each day. I’ve been very cognitive of what swipes past my screen on Imgur recently, and I’ve paid attention to interesting patterns with usernames.

1. Politics

Modern discussions are grouped into the category politics, and there’s a good way to discuss, and there’s a bad way to discuss.

Good:
-Cite your sources! If you post to this community, you make it a better place by citing your sources. If we all hold each other accountable, we can attempt to battle misinformation and emotional manipulation, and filter good content to the top.

Bad:
-Bright yellow and red backgrounds with large 1-2 syllable text about something trivial or something we already fucking know. There’s ~5 posters total who constantly post this drivel, and when you start to pay attention you notice usernames repeating ALOT. At this point in time, you can block these users that either dumb down the discussion or spread false stories or both. They’ll keep popping up as new users, but keep beheading that hydra and you can find yourself less mad or lost when browsing Imgur.

2. The Culture

We’ve followed this community’s leadership and owners, and it used to be a bit different. Has it changed drastically in the past 15 years? Kinda, not really. There’s a lot less people here - front page is no longer an accomplishment, and videos show 20,000 views with 200 upvotes. That’s a 1% engagement. It seems like a smaller community, but it’s ours, and we don’t like reading small text.

3. Is it AI?
If it’s interesting or inspired AI, then that’s good content added to the community (unpopular puffin here). AI isn’t going anywhere, and it can be used for interesting outputs. Is it bad or lazy or manipulative AI? Get that shit out of here. It’s a hard new topic to navigate and it can have you feeling like you live in a dystopia.

4. Is it an ad?
If someone shares progress of their paintings, typically they’re upvoted. If someone shares a link to buy their stuff, many feel this crosses over into an ad. We’re not looking to get solicited here. If someone shares progress of a video game they’re working on, this is typically downvoted nowadays, with a few champs giving encouragement. You’d think this community would support members creating their own video games, but most see these as ads at the end of the day.

If someone asks for money - this is no longer the supportive community to come to with this ask, it is what it is. Nowadays 99% chance it’s a scammer. I know you want to help, and helpful Imgurians post links to good resources.

5. Is it a girl?
Let’s face it, this community is majority male, and it kinda shows. I’m not sure how the women of Imgur feel about the undertones of this regular ogling , but I’d imagine those bothered by it have left. It’s not malicious, sex sells. There’s a theme for every day, and soon a frog in leggings will give someone odd feelings.

6. Respectful discourse:
If we remove our heads from the toilet bowls of modern manipulative media swashing around us, you can remember that the majority of people are just trying to live their lives. Republicans aren’t idiots, half the US is not made up of idiots. Democrats are not idiots, half of the US is not made up of idiots. We’ve all watched over the past 10 years as our modern media landscape has let antagonistic, incendiary content shoot to the top and become mainstream, because the modern dollar is Views = $.
There’s a whole modern industry of bad faith, loud antagonizers, and business is booming. To be exposed to this negativity and constant smearing of your fellow man, whether it be political or religious or whatever bigoted dichotomy these shills have taken sides on, it’s best to tune them out. Don’t react to them. When they’re speaking, recognize that they’re speaking in bad faith, for money, and remember that humans = smart, and the majority of people see through this ruse. It’s EXHUASTING when you get swept up in it, and it doesn’t make you feel good about the world.

So here on Imgur, where it is admittedly a majority left-leaning community, don’t downvote that discussion opener. Downvote the bigoted hate, send them to hell where they desire to go, but encourage respectful discourse.
We are as advanced and as powerful as the complexity of our language and communication, and to get the world back to sanity, we need to have positive assumption about the people around us. Don’t get me wrong - the minority of hateful, loud racist people don’t deserve your patience. They just show up at a very misleading rate on modern media.

So go forth! Customize your feed, keep discourse intelligent and accountable, and remember the world is filled with smart people just trying to support their loved ones, no matter how many times you hear otherwise. We’re a small community nowadays, but we’re glad you’re here, and there must be a reason you stuck around.