Asklemmy

That kind of stuff irks me a bit as well, but I think it's human nature. It's a form of call-and-response where people can show that they're apart of the community. Friendships are built on shared experiences, and those kinds of memes are instant shared experiences that are being used to build camaraderie. I think the reason it is annoying to users like us is because it feels watered down, like a free ticket in, instead of becoming a part of the community organically. I get both sides, so I don't actively try to stop people from doing it, I just ignore it.

This.

I've seen the low-effort meme comments as well; I hated them on Reddit, and I hate them here. This topic had come up on Reddit many times over the years, and there's not really a way to combat it, from what I could tell. People with nothing to say still want to participate (e.g. earn fake internet points), and that seems to be a favored way do it.

Entomology subs like /r/whatsthisbug had a hard rule against comments like "kill it with fire", "nope", and "nuke it from orbit". It was explained in the sidebar, mods would actively remove the comments, and people would downvote them, but it barely made a dent. Scroll to the bottom of a post and you'd see the same stupid "joke" repeated over and over, verbatim.

These people don't even look at the other comments, they just drop their canned catchphrase and leave. This is why I like that we have to scroll to the bottom to comment here; at least the numpties have to put in slightly more effort, and hopefully they notice the comment has already been made 30 times. Ah, who am I kidding? Seeing the same comment probably reinforces their desire to post it.

The entire issue is lame as frig, wish there was a way to stop it. I know I'd be a bad moderator, because I'd just ban them.

Also: this is community-specific.

Many subreddits were fantastic about not tolerating insults or disrespect.

I expect the same here - some Fediverse communities will be a free-for-all with insults, some will be a welcoming place for people to disagree without getting insulted.

It's not anyone's goal to impose one set of rules of decorum for the entire Fediverse.

I have noticed this as well. I've made a few excursions back to reddit since it keeps loading old comments I haven't yet mass-deleted to my profile page, and on the two trips where I didn't immediately close the browser afterwards, both times I clicked on a thread and immediately saw some inflammatory bait, got a little annoyed, and then remembered "wait, I don't browse this shithole anymore" and came on back.

I'm not perfect, not even close, but I'm definitely trying to check how I say things while I'm here because I want it to stay this was for as long as possible.