I originally joined Reddit in 2011, and in the beginning it was dominated by cat content. It was rare to see a post about dogs. Sometime in the mid 20-teens this phenomenon reversed. It’s always been a “pet theory” of mine that this reversal was due to Reddit becoming mainstream, and that it’s initial nerdy/techie user base preferred cats to dogs.
I think my theory is further supported by Lemmy. It’s pretty clear that most of Lemmy’s user base are techies, and currently it’s dominated by cat content. Just a shower thought. May be wrong.
NOTE: I love dogs and cats. This post isn’t arguing favoritism.
Completely agree on all points. I think that cities dealt with this quite a bit early on as they grew and they largely have not solved internal conflicts outside of causing people to leave and go to other cities/areas. If we cannot solve it or mitigate it in real life outside of creating dedicated spaces, how can we get after it virtually? Maybe there are some lessons learned from real life that would be easier to implement on the internet.