by a little too optimistic are you saying we’re worse than you expect? cause honestly from what ive sene this is mostly memeing and ironic stuffposting with the occasional actual discussion. only in the most cloistered of internet communities will you get pure discussion without memeing, and often those communities are like that cause its a self-selected “serious discussion” community and therefore missing some perspective from non-members
say what you will about the blf but its a relatively tame proving ground compared to what i understand is out there. here the self selection is largely people prone to nostalgia and people who enjoy playing with legos, so imo its as unbiased as you can probably get, minus the gender demographics. theres just the ever present vocal minority from both sides, though the liberal vocal minority has kinda died down from what i can see.