21 replies to this topic

[futurebird]

So, I've been sharing my photos and videos of antkeeping on tictok, reddit and twitter... just trying to get more people to see how neat ants can be. A funny side effect has been encountering people who see how I keep queens (in test tubes during founding... like a normal person) accusing me of "not giving the ant enough space" and being "cruel"
 
I can explain "queen ants don't want a lot of space during founding" all I want, these people don't want to hear it. 
 
And this is why so many people who are new to the hobby make the "give the queen too much space, stress her out and kill her" error.
 
Anyway I thought some of you might find this amusing.

[futurebird]

What's even more funny is I happen to have a video of this exact queen sealing her nest. When she did this I took the hint and put her in the drawer. 

 

Edited by futurebird, September 22 2021 - 7:04 PM.

[TestSubjectOne]

Everything about this is just . . . incredible.

From the assumption that the happiest place for a queen ant is to spend her days wandering around "outside" under the open sky as if she's a deer or a bird or something to the misguided idea that an ant would be most happy in  " 'a' ant maze or something ". The fact that the commenter then replies to keep complaining about the "inadequate" habitat and ant abuse rather than reading your explanation above is just cream on the cake.

 

Edit: Here's the post in question. https://www.reddit.c...at4t/?context=3. The saddest part is that this is on an invertebrates subreddit. These people should know better!

Edited by TestSubjectOne, September 22 2021 - 7:02 PM.

[eea]

if only they knew 

[SYUTEO]

That happened to me once in a Youtube comment.

[Leptomyrmx]

I guess I'd explain it as "you wouldn't want your bed to be 15 times the size of you" or something like that. It annoys me and amuses me at the same time seeing this.

[antgallery]

Sadly this happens a lot.

[ANTS_KL]

If they don't wanna do their research it's fine. They're just stupid. The antkeeping community isn't that dumb and I feel people shouldn't make assumptions. I don't get comments like this on my yt vids because the ants I keep are tiny and look like they have plenty of space. that's my fault for not having bigger tubes lol. But if I uploaded a new vid on my Nylanderia istg I'm gonna get comments like this sooner or later.

Sent from my CPH2201 using Tapatalk

[Chickalo]

This doesn't amuse me, more or less it's more angering.  I keep seeing this common trend in Human's where they base every animal's likes and dislikes off of mammals and fish.  What's wrong with TikTok is that you can only squeeze so much information into a small video and still keep the veiwers enganged, I see this quite a bit with "Art Hacks".  Not all of them are BS, but some of them are good, only if you add just a tad more information.

 

Going off what TestSubjectOne said, humans like to have this idea that all animal's (because obviously humans aren't animals, not like we're scientifically classified as Homo sapien or whatever) want to be free.  This actually was mentioned in the Harry the Moth TheOdd1sOut video lol, but anyways, the majority of Disney animal movies don't help too much anyways.  Look at the kids in Elementary School who claim to be "bug experts", they find a bug in the classroom, scream at people not to scare it and put it in pain (hard to have too much sympathy for something that relies on basic survival instinct), and places it outside.  Fun fact, they're probably going to die, anyone in the Fish Keeping hobby know's what I mean, you have to let them adjust to a new enviorment.  That's like living in Socal and instantly being teleported to New England during January.

 

To close up this probably too long post, just show them a picture of Camponotus queen's cramped in their founding habitats

[DaAnt]

They think they know more about ants then us. Even though they probably never raised a colony…

[Chickalo]

They think they know more about ants then us. Even though they probably never raised a colony…

Because 20 Pogonomyrmex workers in between two glass panels is raising a colony, and now they're experts 

Edited by Chickalo, September 23 2021 - 6:56 AM.

[Moonant01]

So, I've been sharing my photos and videos of antkeeping on tictok, reddit and twitter... just trying to get more people to see how neat ants can be. A funny side effect has been encountering people who see how I keep queens (in test tubes during founding... like a normal person) accusing me of "not giving the ant enough space" and being "cruel"
 
I can explain "queen ants don't want a lot of space during founding" all I want, these people don't want to hear it. 
 
And this is why so many people who are new to the hobby make the "give the queen too much space, stress her out and kill her" error.
 
Anyway I thought some of you might find this amusing.

can I have the link to the first topic?

[CheetoLord02]

Reddit is honestly a cesspool for antkeeping. Even on the main ant subreddits there's very few experienced people and a whole lot of kids who like to think they know what they're talking about. Myself and some friends even made a new subreddit specifically for ID (r/antidentification) and it's even gotten swarmed recently with the reddit kids throwing out random species names for any ant they see. It's a lot of fun going through and removing all the posts with wrong IDs so that the poster doesn't get confused.

TikTok also seems pretty bad. Most of the larger "ant TikTokers" are either relatively inexperienced themselves, or dumb down the info so much that the general crowd of the app can understand and enjoy it. Which of course, fine, but it makes antkeeping as a whole look vastly different from how it actually is. This is the same issue that I have with AntsCanada over on Youtube.

[Formiga]

They think they know more about ants then us. Even though they probably never raised a colony…

The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.

Charles Bukowski

 

(not sure if this is the original correct quote since I only know the Portuguese version of it)

 

...or, bringing humor and nonsense to the table, the classic old Monty Python. One of my very favorite sketches! This doctor must be really a sage man!

https://www.youtube....h?v=I_AOfzrQYV0

[ANTdrew]

Any time spent worrying about dumb opinions on the interweb is time wasted.

[AntBoi3030]

Any time spent worrying about dumb opinions on the interweb is time wasted.

What’s the interweb? Like a 90’s internet lol

[Formiga]

Oh Les Internets...

As someone who has a love / hate relationship regarding Human behavior, this is the kind of thing that sometimes can lead me into desperation.
Some people are just impermeable to explanations, facts and reality, and just live in solipsism and cognitive dissonance. All it matters is their belly button's oppinion.
That's a sign of extreme dumbing down and it worries me society wise. (I had a Freudian Slip and first wrote extrume, almost meaning manure in Portuguese...)
Sure every "little crazy person from that village" are spread around and do exist here and there, but usually they were isolated cases. Now with the Internet they have a critical mass and political strength. This is what annoys and worries me regarding the path society is taking. And it has already reached the little corner of Europe I'm living in.

Some fellow ant keeper here has a signature that I've noticed today, it goes something like: "People are stupid. That explains a lot!", and I've read a comment on an online newspaper saying "Today's society is a weird mixture of 1984 and Idiocracy". (read all the comments and enjoyed your "You are like the people who want to give plants energy drinks"!)

This kind of people have no cure. Don't waste your time and sanity trying to explain Reality to them. Reply openly so everyone can see and people who can learn can do that, and have the double effect of exposing their stupidity.
Sometimes I like to let myself loose and be a brutally honest troll and trigger them out of their comfort zone. If I can't reach them intellectually at least I can slap them emotionally and have some fun. I'm not going to heaven anyways...
And I'm not on Twitter, Facebook and so on. It gives me some much needed peace of mind staying away from these episodes. Plus I'd had been banned infinity +1 times!

 

I'd love to talk about this for eons but this is an ant forum... They're are simple, have no writing, no laws, no culture, no elaborate ways of communication, no technology... and yet they rule the world! #Respect!

 

 

Me's still a noob and I'm learning from your videos, you're doing the right thing. Just focus on your ants, their species will be here long after these people (and in fact all of us) are extinct...

So cheers!

[SYUTEO]

Reddit is honestly a cesspool for antkeeping. Even on the main ant subreddits there's very few experienced people and a whole lot of kids who like to think they know what they're talking about. Myself and some friends even made a new subreddit specifically for ID (r/antidentification) and it's even gotten swarmed recently with the reddit kids throwing out random species names for any ant they see. It's a lot of fun going through and removing all the posts with wrong IDs so that the poster doesn't get confused.

TikTok also seems pretty bad. Most of the larger "ant TikTokers" are either relatively inexperienced themselves, or dumb down the info so much that the general crowd of the app can understand and enjoy it. Which of course, fine, but it makes antkeeping as a whole look vastly different from how it actually is. This is the same issue that I have with AntsCanada over on Youtube.

It's so true. I once commented on one of AC's videos saying trap-jaw ants (he caught a trap-jaw ant queen recently) need substrate for their larvae and like 90% of people who replied said 'boost' and one of them even said I'm stupid.

[That_one_ant_guy]

Not gonna lie, I used to think this when I was a newbie but as I learned more about the founding stage I was like huh, makes sense, so hopefully they'll do research, and learn that a test tube is the way to go(most the time)

[NickAnter]

Some fellow ant keeper here has a signature that I've noticed today, it goes something like: "People are stupid. That explains a lot!"

I'm happy with that signature, it's long been a core philosophy of mine.

 

And ANTdrew is very correct, I don't bother with annoying people if I don't have to. After all, people are stupid...