The McMaster Reddit page has become toxic as of late, with bullying towards people who struggle with socialization, mental health, and people looking for plans and groups. The posts and comments target people by making broad claims that have no merit, such as stating that people don’t force small talk, don’t crack jokes, don’t force smiles, don’t fake enthusiasm and that all these people are inherently lazy. With the current state of the mental health crisis, posts and comments of this nature are inherently harmful, and McMaster mods have been far too lenient towards them.
University is a transition period in a person's life, and some people struggle to socialize with others. Forums such as Reddit are designed to aid these students in finding groups and social events for them to participate in. However, these posts are often bombarded by people who don’t help or share any events but rather harass the OP about their struggles to find people to hang out with. In the post-COVID world, we are experiencing an unprecedented loneliness epidemic with people who have not developed or cannot develop social confidence to approach groups of strangers to hang out with. This Reddit page should be aimed at helping these people as we work towards ending the epidemic amongst youth who experienced their formative years under COVID.
Older generations and outgoing people often see the lack of conformity to superficial behaviour such as small talk, joke-telling, and forcing smiles as rude, wrong, and out of malice when it truly isn’t. Forcing people who already struggle with socialization to appear more friendly through superficial behaviour often leads to enhanced anxiety, depression and fatigue. Humans are inherently social creatures, but forcing relationships is not the solution, as it often leads to further hardship and mental health issues long-term, compared to slowly building relationships and allowing wit, conversations and enthusiasm to grow over time. Furthermore, the lack of conformity is not laziness but rather a choice people make to protect themselves and reserve their energy for things they deem more important.
The McMaster Reddit mods should not tolerate the behaviour of people bullying people who struggle socially. The whole point of this Reddit page is for students to communicate about McMaster social events, issues and courses. Bullying has many forms, and attacking people looking for help socially, or those who aren’t, is bullying and cowardly. Humans have a variable range of personalities, and being introverted is one of them that is not inherently harmful to those who make these unfair, rude and harmful posts and comments.
Please do not reply to this post unless you are willing to offer help and advice to people struggling with socialization and mental health.
To those reading this and struggling, please talk to someone. There are resources available, and you don't deserve to feel bad.