Why is Letsrun considered toxic?

There does seem to be a really big surge in conservatives and some liberals griping over literally everything that has to do with politics on here. I don’t understand why people cant find a different forum that isn’t made to discuss running to rant about how trump won or lost or complain about the latest racial issue.

To me, I see lots of non-political toxicity on here. Lots of needlessly bashing of other users and members of the running community. I’ve seen many many popular threads that consist of calling runners too fat, too skinny, too tall, too short, stupid, untalented, annoying etc. A lot of people don’t realize that just because these people are in the public eye doesn’t mean they aren’t real people.

CopperRunner wrote:

There does seem to be a really big surge in conservatives and some liberals griping over literally everything that has to do with politics on here. I don’t understand why people cant find a different forum that isn’t made to discuss running to rant about how trump won or lost or complain about the latest racial issue.

To me, I see lots of non-political toxicity on here. Lots of needlessly bashing of other users and members of the running community. I’ve seen many many popular threads that consist of calling runners too fat, too skinny, too tall, too short, stupid, untalented, annoying etc. A lot of people don’t realize that just because these people are in the public eye doesn’t mean they aren’t real people.

I don't think any of these things are just Letsrun though. It's every social media site and corner of the internet. It's ridiculous to demand that Letsrun become a safe space while this is the reality of social media. The entire human species is unable to comprehend that people are real people even if they're pro athletes, politicians, or Mary Cain.

Leftists try to silence any views that differ from their own. Leftists are the most intolerant people on earth.

Great post.

1) Let me start by saying, I think there are occasionally some awful posts on here. They almost always are deleted but not immediately as we don't pre-screen content. So If you are a pro and they are about you, you are likely to see them. I mean Leah O'Conner was tweeting about posts that we deleted years ago.

People aren't used to elite runners being treated as elite pro athletes. Most fans are critical. So the pros get criticized. That can be hard to read.

While I believe our boards s are much better than facebook / twitter, etc (good luck reaching a human being there, you can call us at 8445387786), the difference is people judge LRC based on what's on the forum as we promote the "World-famous" messageboards and there is no talk radio or ESPN shows for runners.

2) I also think in the year 2021 people are used to only seeing things they agree with. If you are woke, you watch MSNBC and have coffee with your friends in the Ivy faculty lounge. If you are conservative, you read Fox News, read the Daily Caller, etc. Here you read things you may not agree with.

The default now is to call something you don't agree with a racist, sexist, etc.

Are some posters racist? Yes. The idea that the site is racist really bothers me. I CONSTANTLY am trying to promote East Africans as individuals worthy of following. I feel in general the major marathons do not do that at all.

But I think the forum is like soceity. 95% of the posts are great. SOme are trolling and some are awful. But a tiny bit of awful can garner a lot of attention. It's kind of like crime to be honest. Which are you going to focus on - the 98% or the 2%.

Here, you see stuff from all sides.

Some people just take themselves too seriously.

It won't be long before libs try to ban comedy and laughing.

Cancel culture is a cancer to free society.

Generally agree with what you said here, but that 95 percent figure is a significant overestimation.

Not everyone is a super progressive leftist and that's okay wrote:

No letsrun shouldn't be deleted. No letsrun isn't a right wing cess pool. The majority of threads aren't bad, most bad threads get taken down, and you can deal with someone having an opinion that isn't what you believe or saying something mean about you.

Yes, it is toxic. The owners are completely irresponsible with the internet. They pushed someone to suicide. They scrambled the brains of many others. People talk about the youth here with 4chan-like anonymity. There is zero accountability for misinformation. Threads live on and haunt people from the search engines for years to come including when people are in the middle of job searches. HR doesnt know that 65% of it is made up.

Yes, this place needs to be deleted and the big media are going to force this thing to shut down. Rojo is the algorithm with all of his sockpuppets driving madness for increased views just like Facebook. The hatred has brewed and brewed into something more here. I cant look at this site on my phone because if I leave the tab open my battery drains at a rate of 5% per 5 minutes due to the ads flashing everywhere.

This site sucks. It ruins the sport.

Face

May because when we have bad days there are a lot of nasty words?

I guess this reflects poorly on me. I browse the forums enough to see some pretty disgusting sh!t on here (far far worse than claiming all East Africans cheat); to be fair, it does get deleted most of the time.

Most threads I do see here that relate to politics slant heavily right as well. Not that there is anything wrong with that, except that people on here who represent "conservatives" are usually horrendous figures, whether they're here to troll or not.

troll_69 wrote:

I guess this reflects poorly on me. I browse the forums enough to see some pretty disgusting sh!t on here (far far worse than claiming all East Africans cheat); to be fair, it does get deleted most of the time.

Most threads I do see here that relate to politics slant heavily right as well. Not that there is anything wrong with that, except that people on here who represent "conservatives" are usually horrendous figures, whether they're here to troll or not.

I have seen some horrendous things on occasion but generally its either deleted or is clearly trolling and in most cases gets no attention.

I agree with the fact that politics do slant heavily right here usually. It surprises me because I find the running community to be much more of a liberal community (in my experience). I generally just don't bother with political threads usually but recently have seen lots of posts revolving around vaccinations, Covid, Trump/Biden, and current event type deals.

I think in most cases legitimate threads are posted with trolls posting heinous comments more than anything.

I'm from Geauga County, Ohio, and there's a Facebook page that has the same issue that you are discussing here (but it's related to issues in my county). It's an open, free site and so many get offended by the most random things on it, yet they read them...I tell them, if you don't like it, keep scrolling! Geauga is a freer county than most in Ohio.

I don't doubt you but I've been on this site since 2001 and don't remember LRC issues affecting posters' job reviews/interviews/performance reviews, etc.

One more thing. People definitely post things here they wouldn't say in real life that are somewhat confrontational and some may view as "toxic". Like right now, there is a thread about something along the lines of "Why wasn't Joy Reid cancelled when Jon Gruden was."

Personally, I find that to be an interesting thought. I imagine others as well. Would I or they have the guts to ask that a corporate job? Absolutely not. But they might post it here anonymously. The reality is there a lot of people - often white guys if we are being honest - who are tired of being told they are the scum of the earth . Sure many of them are flawed but so are others.

Does that mean that I support what Gruden said? Absolutely not. I used to get mad when I was coaching if guy said, "Don't be a pus**" or "Thats' so gay." I tried to teach them. "Hey I bet you don't realize what you are doing, but that's pretty offensive. Why do we associate a female body part with weakness?" Gruden was like 10 times worse.

But the problem with all threads is the ones most passionate about it are likely to be the most extremes on both sides. So after about the first page, all threads seemingly degenerate into extremists going back and forth.

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=10903102

flannel panel wrote:

Threads live on and haunt people from the search engines for years to come including when people are in the middle of job searches. HR doesnt know that 65% of it is made up.

Yes, this place needs to be deleted and the big media are going to force this thing to shut down.

You don't know what you are talking about. People call me regularly and I delete threads, report it to google so they aren't followed forever by something written about them.

If anything, I'm worried that real misdeeds actually could be covered up.

Case in point. Back in 2002, I was told Alberto Salzar hated letsrun. Why? Because there was doping talk about him. Guess what? Salzar was just banned by WADA.

When Cain went to Salazar, I thought about calling her dad as I was like, "I bet her dad doesn't know about any of the allegations against him."

Should be stomped out

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPBDMihPRJA