I can understand the desire to get as many downvotes as possible on reddit. I don’t sympathize, but I can at least see where people are coming from. Because Reddit gives you that total and shows it to you.
And I’m sure it’s possible to use an API to really that number up on Lemmy, but “total karma” doesn’t seem to be something Lemmy cares about by default, so where is the motivation coming from?
Is it just the same reason people have always been trolls? Because I’ve never quite understood that, either
I’m not a troll on Lemmy, but there’s another internet forum where I let it out a little. That one’s a hobby forum, and it happens to be a hobby that a lot of people are trying to monetise. The forum rules are clear that you’re not welcome to advertise your product unless you participate in discussion as well. Of course, a lot of advertisers post without bothering to read the rules first. They’re engaging with us in bad faith, so I feel justified in doing the same to them. I like to ask disingenuous questions and pretend to be stupid while stringing them along with the possibility of a sale. So:
It’s fun to mildly bully people who’ve done something to deserve it.
You could have bought a banner advert, Scrooge.