"Come to Jesus" moments you've had on the internet

[NewDonkStrong]

I was never a right winger or a big 4chan troll, but I remember getting annoyed about people complaining about the E3 marketing for the Tomb Raider reboot and how it was being sold as torture porn and how some people found her moaning a little creepy. I had been a fan of Giant Bomb for a while and they had started bringing these issues up on the podcast and me being an asshole, I went on Jeff Gerstmann's formspring(R.I.P.) to complain to him, saying stuff like "people are being too sensitive" and "it's just a video game".

Jeff actually responded by telling me something like "if you still don't understand why it's important to talk about this stuff or why women feel so poorly represented in games, then you're a FUCKING IDIOT." I don't remember the exact quote, but the FUCKING IDIOT was seared into my brain that day. I deeply admired Jeff and here he was seriously calling me a FUCKING IDIOT. It was all text, but I could still hear it in his voice and the disgust he had for me. I turned over a new leaf that day, I started listening more to women and PoC and I slowly became a more empathetic, progressive person.

Two years later, Gamergate happens and I find myself in crippling depression over all of it, especially since Zoe Quinn had become an awesome friend to Giant Bomb. I'm getting banned on a daily basis trying to ward off the Gamergate presence in Giant Bomb's community and I'm begging the guys on twitter to say more. So, basically, if not for Jeff, there's a chance that I might have become one of those people I now deeply, deeply despise.

 

[Fart Master]

In the old forum I said something incredibly dumb about BLM and I got dog piled/ called out by a mod. I was around 16/17 so my views where still forming so anywho after getting banned I took some time to ponder on why I was wrong and ever since then I've become avid supporter of BLM.

 

[Fj0823]

I was a misogynistic asshole before GAF/ my first girlfriend happened in 2012

 

[Kinggroin]

Insulated childhood. I said all the bad words, and thought it was funny. They're just words.

Then I saw what my words did to people. Saw how it marginalized them. I realized too, that I was projecting my own insecurities that came as a result of me being bullied.

I don't want to go into specifics, but mine was related to rape (and my insensitivity to it).

 

[loquaciousJenny]

I was pretty fucking brogressive and Boogie tier fence sitting garbage until I found out that trans people weren't Drag queens and Rocky Horror characters. I realized that I had been lied to my whole life about myself and went on a sorta soul search for what I believed rather than what I was a told to believe.

 

[Simon Belmont]

I made a tasteless joke about furries and it made me realize that being against racism and homophobia didn't mean I didn't have prejudices. I apologized in the thread and still think about it a lot.

 

[Kevers]

I don't think I really have a single event that really changed me at all. I basically went from a forum where anything goes except for posting porn to 4chan to gaf and eventually here. I was 17 when I joined that forum and the fact that any language was permitted was a bad thing because it allowed me to say whatever the fuck I wanted with no consequences, I eventually moved off there to trolling on 4chan. The things I said on those websites weren't things I'd ever repeat in real life but I had the total freedom to say whatever and not get shit for it. I eventually dropped off of 4chan when I was like 22-23 because I had had enough. I had met other people from the internet that became some of my closest friends and I saw the things they were dealing with in their lives and I no longer found the racist, homophobic, transphobic, and sexist shitposting funny any more. It wasn't funny when my friends were being targeted and I realized that all I was doing on 4chan was keeping the jets running in the cesspool.

I'm 32 now and I've been very vocal about the fact that words can hurt. I've gotten into fights with my mom because she's big on using the word "retarded", my stepfather is a racist prick who I've gotten into massive arguments with only to be called a "faggot" because I had the audacity to care about other human beings. I'm a big proponent that people can change for the better if they honestly want to.

 

[Sadsic]

I was a Ron Paul truther in like 2007 until I saw the light of Obama and then I moved to being a hard leftist because of how fucking inspiring he was in primary mode

I also had a polyamorous relationship when I was like 21 with two genderqueer individuals and that really opened my mind to a lot of the social left -- I identify as genderqueer myself now

 

[Bradbury]

I was a beliver that SJW and feminazi were out to destroy my hobbies because of my high school friends.
Then I went to college and met new friends and realized that I was full of bullshit. Now, I wish I could go back and punch myself

 

[Deleted member 1570]

I was really anti-PC/censorship between my late teens and early 20s. If things had gone slightly different, such as not joining this community on the old site, there's a decent chance that I would have found myself going down the GamerGate rabbit hole.

 

[iworkatjunes]

I realized most people online and either idiots or just doing stupid stuff for fun so I ignore most everything anybody says that is over a paragraph long and spam emojis when I don't have anything better to say.

 

[Jombie]

I grew up insulated in the south, so probably several moments.

 

[Rassilon]

For a long time I thought Marmite was bad.

And then I tried again and it was really good.

No regrets.


/s

I think I was ruder when I was a younger person online, but I feel art school did the most to encourage my progressiveness, rather than any internet interaction.

 

[Mozendo]

long story short, I had a few gamergater friends who obviously hated "modern feminism".
When one of my friends told them that I was hispanic one day he said "I hate mexicans, you're joking, he's too cool etc" after that I wasn't invited to play with the him when he was playing with my best friend, or when I was invited it was more like " Oh you don't have this game? I'd buy you this game to play with us but you wouldn't play it"
I had enough and just unfriended him.

He would post links to pro GamerGate stuff, and I read the articles, didn't really think too much of it. But then I started to look into GamerGate communities to see if it was toxic as it really was, and it was so much worse than he made it out to be.
Pretty sure if I kept in contact with him I would have been indoctrinated. Thankful for that incident because it really opened up my eyes to being more cautious with the people I trust, politics, etc

 

[deadman322]

all of you deserve to be fired from your jobs.

 

[Kevers]

all of you deserve to be fired from your jobs.

Click to shrink...

Joke's on you, I'm unemployed

 

[I Don't Like]

Someone on a forum verbally bitch-slapped me about a dumb comment on transgender and it changed my thinking.

I think I was like 20 (bunch of years ago). I had been exposed to and was completely accepting of gay people as my mom had many gay friends in the SF Bay Area when I was growing up but my attitude towards trans was still, "I'm not against it I just think it's weird/fucked up." I said something to that effect in a thread and someone ripped me a new asshole, calling me ignorant and essentially asking, "Who the fuck are you to judge what's 'weird'?"

Initially I brushed it off as an overreaction - it wasn't like I hated trans people - but for whatever reason it stuck with me. In no time at all I made an obvious and logical connection/conclusion: if I can understand homosexuality, I can understand transgender. These aren't folks who choose to go through such a difficult process, especially from a social acceptance viewpoint, because they have nothing fucking better to do.

I still think about that comment all these years later as a reminder that I should continuously question if I'm as informed and tolerant as I think I am. I wish I could message that person and thank them.

 

[GrimJawz]

Never have and I probably never will. I basically grew up on websites like newgrounds, 4Chan and something awful, but even as a stupid edgy teen I always new the difference between a joke and actually harming someone. I didn't need some huge revelation in my life to start treating people who are different then me with respect and humanity, it was never a point of contention for me, even as a child it never made sense to threat other people worse because of the categories they may or may not fit in.

 

[kickz]

all of you deserve to be fired from your jobs.

Click to shrink...

Not sure any of them broadcasted this on Twitter

 

[Lunaray]

I used to be sympathetic to MRA arguments. Thankfully, this was before the social media era. I would have been thoroughly embarrassed by myself.

 

[Kapryov]

Better hope you guys don't have public tweets or people here will bring you down :)

Anyway, I used to visit 4chan back in the day, mostly the wallpaper and hr boards. I'd hate to imagine what the place is like now though...
I also used to use "retard" and "gay" regularly in sentences, it seems like everybody did back in the day.

 

[Punished Goku]

I became Paralyzed from the chest down and became more empathetic to the disabled/women/PoC/and very progressive issues. Also when I became a Democrat.

 

[Ogodei]

Always been a leftist, but there were times when I thought there was a place for the term Feminazi (although fair to my case in that case, I was kind of confusing it with TERF and not understanding that the people using Feminazi didn't mean that in the slightest) and unironically used the term "tourneyfag."

There's a lot you don't get as a straight white cisman who grew up around straight white cis-people (barring my one gay uncle and one half-korean friend growing up). Even as an ally, the context simply isn't there.

 

[Dongs Macabre]

GamerGate showed me the ugly truth behind gaming/Internet culture and made me completely rethink a lot of my views.

 

[julia crawford]

I learned a lot the first time a woman became a best friend. But that was, like... i was like 17. That was a long time ago. Since then i've never really had any shocking moments of realization, tbh mostly due to unending cynicism.

 

[Neece]

My "come to Jesus" moments were over Christianity, lol. I used to defend the bible and Christianity all of the time on old forums in the early 2000's when I was in high school. Trying my hardest to defend the old testament while still embracing liberal values. It was a tightrope act that I couldn't walk for very long.

On a fairly active forum that I used to visit a lot around 2006 a poster I was very cool with saw my posts on gay marriage (gay people should have all the rights of marriage but not actually be allowed to call it marriage) and said something along the lines of "Always felt you were a cool poster but I lost a little respect for you after reading this." I was hurt because I really respected the guy and considered him extremely intelligent and reasonable so losing his respect hurt even after I said something like "I don't care about having your respect."

It wasn't the first moment of introspection regarding my religion but it is one moment that stands out to me more than a decade later. If I could ever talk to him again I would thank him for challenging what I said. It helped lead to me examining my beliefs, why I believed them, and seeing if the beliefs held any weight once I challenged them myself. I ended up dropping many toxic beliefs right along with my religion.

 

[TAJ]

I used to think that people who got into abusive situations as adults deserved it and wanted it, at least on some level.
I don't think there was any one thing that changed my mind, though.

 

[ZiZ]

Once in 1st grade, this girl from another class was talking to me, so when I walked away I said something like "see you freckles/freckle face" because she had a lot of freckles and I didn't know what her name was. I definitely wasn't trying to be mean, I never thought that freckles were ugly or something that someone could be self conscious about, I was 6 years old. Later as recess ended I saw her crying and a teacher was trying to calm her down, and for some reason I assumed it was bullies and was thinking something like "how dare they! if I'd seen them bullying her I would've stood up for her". More than a decade later, after I had graduated college, I don't know why, but I remembered that event out of nowhere and I suddenly realized why she was crying, and it hit me hard. It didn't exactly change me, I'm not a child so I'd stopped blurting out dumb things years ago, but I still think about it a lot.

 

[HardTimesFamilyPride]

Lurking this community and reading the discussions of PoC/LGBT/women in an environment where they could more freely express their frustrations with talking points and beliefs I didn't understand the repercussions of was the biggest and most important online catalyst to my personal growth, tbh

 

[Mikebison]

I made a tasteless joke about furries and it made me realize that being against racism and homophobia didn't mean I didn't have prejudices. I apologized in the thread and still think about it a lot.

Click to shrink...

Yeah but furries though.

 

[y2kyle89]

Going to college two hours and change away from where I lived really changed my view on things.

 

[Quinton]

This is a good thread. Reading some of these stories has been therapeutic.

There's not much to say on my end. A long-time friend and former romantic partner messaged me on the net one day to inform me they were trans. It threw me off-balance and it was the moment I started taking that all-important movement seriously. It happened on the net but we were (and still are) close IRL, so I'm not sure it really counts, but I was never one to hurl edgy phrases or anything like that, so I guess it's the best I've got.

 

[Bobson Dugnutt]

pretty much everything has been iterative with me, I can't really recall one huge moment or thing or person that has hugely changed how I am. I guess David Simon totally opened my eyes on the US justice system (amongst other things) but I wasn't a raging conservative before that or anything. All this despite having spent a lot of time in my formative years on places people on here would disdain to varying degrees. I mean, I was on gamefaqs from the age of 11 until now many years later, and we all know how in much how esteem this community holds that place haha

tldr it's a miracle I turned out so well, go me