Wow, I enjoyed your comment deeply and it reminded me of 15+ years ago on the internet, where your experience really matched mine. I still am friends to this day with the people I met 15+ years ago. I haven't made an internet friend in over 10 years though.

I personally believe that part of this is due to the upvote/downvote culture of Reddit. We're all incentivized to say something that will attract upvotes. There's a positive side to this -- thanks to this I regularly read really funny, entertaining comments. Genuine genius in the comments section.

On the other hand, its just to entertain. There's nothing really human or of substance there. Or, what's especially dangerous, to say something that bucks the trend, the status quo, admit an unpopular vulnerability outloud and suddenly you're hit with waves upon waves of downvotes. Not only that but I genuinely believe that the downvotes empowers angry debaters to come in and pick apart whatever it is that you said, just to enjoy the upvotes. I perceive it as a kind of bullying.

At any rate, I don't think these spaces are designed for intimacy. They're designed for memes and funny jokes, not genuine conversations.

It's really the small communities on reddit where you get less of the upvote culture mattering much and the same regular few dozen to hundred people that are interesting.