I honestly think you can see the difference in mindset just by looking at online forums. Personally, I rarely visit local boards, and what someone said about this specific community really hit home: that it's one of the more tame ones, which is actually the scariest part of the whole thing. People here seem to have a completely different way of handling written communication on sites like this; they treat everything like it's just some big game for entertainment.
Just like you mentioned, I mostly hang out on international forums, and this is pretty much the first American site😛 I've ever registered for.
That "tame" comment really caught me off guard 😲—if this is considered tame, then what on earth are the others like?
From what I've noticed so far, there's a significant amount of intolerance here, plus this weird vibe that feels like a competition where people try to be "funny" by picking on others.
You rarely see that kind of behavior happening on such a massive scale on foreign forums.
Maybe there are some upside to it, I don't know... maybe total freedom of speech without censorship😁 and stuff like that.
But I wouldn't say you shouldn't take forums seriously. Sure, if you don't like it, you can just stop coming or find somewhere else, but there isn't much of a difference between RL and these message boards. Because of that, I think this serves as a good indicator of how a little... Wild Little we Americans can be.😁
Well, I wouldn't say it's all bad; I guess it just depends on how you look at the issue.😉