I wrote out a long (>800 word) response, but I think I should dramatically shorten it so apologies if it now seems terse, having gone too far in the other direction:-).

We like shitposting, if we are honest. At least, it has its place.

Some of us may even like trolling, or would if we were on the offering end - like playing peek-a-boo with a baby, it is a game that people play, which ostensively even serves a societal function to act as an incentive for people to toughen up their emotions and not allow themselves to be so easily triggered.

Then they can often be combined, so the line can get quite blurry - like if a cult religion puts forth millions of dollars to make a professionally-produced film, and let us say for the sake of argument that only the top few people in the cult are aware that it is all based on a lie, while the vast majority of people working on it are not, is that “trolling”? That further delves into the actual truth of a matter vs. the perception of a matter, and from what POV, and then still further there is the reception end of things… but that is getting off on too much of a tangent:-).

My problem is that when shitposting + trolling becomes 99.99% of what content exists, then (1) how can people so much as even find anything else, which further leads to (2) a mismatch between what is expected to have been delivered vs. what is actually delivered. Thoughtful responses do not “match” a meme, so someone acting to explain the joke works to ruin the entire experience of it, often even if not always (exceptions exist ofc, like “in my language those words mean something a little bit different”). So in some ways, it is up to us all to “read the room”.

But are thoughtful responses welcomed on the Fediverse? I would say mostly yes… - maybe not in a political magazine, unless it happens to match the preconceived notions of each individual recipient who could be anybody and it is not likely that they will know or if so respect the explicitly asked-for instructions on how to converse in that space - but for how much longer will that remain true? After all, that was once the main selling point of Reddit too, once upon a time. This place still has karma, even if it does not work the same. This place still allows alt accounts, and from what I hear the moderation tools on kbin are virtually nonexistent. Now that the fediverse is becoming more popular, and all the more so as Meta is edging closer, I am starting to think that it will go the way of Reddit too, unless actions are taken to work against that. I do not know what those actions might be.