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> Reddit has a reputation as the dark, unruly id of the Internet Stopped reading there.
by orthoganol 11y ago
> Reddit has a reputation as the dark, unruly id of the Internet
Stopped reading there.
- Fluid_Mechanics 11y agoSomeone needs to introduce the author to /b/.
- archagon 11y agoSorry, but it's true. From what I've observed, Reddit has started to supplant 4chan in that role in the public eye.
- orthoganol 11y ago? From what I've observed, people either don't know much about Reddit (usually over 40 y/o), or they talk about Reddit like an established site. See Bloomberg's interview with Sam Altman posted today. See the consistently incredible turn out of famous figures to Reddit's AMA series. I mean, how can a website with 200 million users be considered a "dark corner"? Absurd.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- pvg 11y agoI'm over 40 and my reddit badge looks like this: https://s3.amazonaws.com/redditstatic/award/9_year_club-40.png https://s3.amazonaws.com/redditstatic/award/9_year_club-40.p... I don't think it's an entirely absurd statement.
- 36erhefg 11y agoarchagon is making the hasty generalization combined with a biased sample fallacy.
- Angostura 11y agoThere are over 300,000 Subreddits. Plenty of room for dark corners, even if the thing as a whole is well known.
- Jack000 11y agoThe community on reddit has changed a lot from even just a few years ago. I'm seeing a lot more trolling and overt racism in the fringe subreddits (/r/WTF /r/worldnews etc) bleed into /r/all.
- fit2rule 11y agoWhat I think gets ignored often in debates like this, is the fact that every year a newly-minted set of adults graduate from teenage-hood and make their way into the world - this cyclic wave of culture is a natural phenomenon and yet it is discounted every time these kinds of articles come up. Moral pontificating about the 'underbelly of the Internet' is one thing : but it is important to recognize that this underbelly is in fact a new generation of thinkers and doers, freshly unchained from their parents' shackles, willing and able to upset the world at all cost .. On the Internet, nobody knows your age.
- gopowerranger 11y agoBecause you mentioned age, the one thing I noticed over 30 years of owning a few fast food restaurants, is that kids do a lot of growing up between the ages of 18 and 20. We might hire in someone at 18, for summer help, and just want to shoot ourselves in the head but that same kid comes back the next year, and the next, and you can see the maturity level change dramatically in that short span.
- fit2rule 11y agoThat is indeed a very insightful observation and I am rewarded by having considered it.
- anabis 11y agoThose subreddits are huge. What's your definition of a mainstream subreddit?
- mahouse 11y agoReddit is just the world, unfiltered. Whoever thinks Reddit is especially racist, sexist or whatever should just go out more often, or get out of their San Francisco political correctness bubble.
- TillE 11y agoIt's true that Reddit is more or less representative of young, American, mostly white men. But that's not "the world". Not even close.
- hoorayimhelping 11y agoReddit is not the world, and it's not unfiltered. It's the same comments being upvoted and downvoted in similar patterns again and again and again. 4chan is much more unfiltered because it's anonymous and there's no voting mechanism to filter unpopular opinions. 4chan is still not the world though, it's mostly white American men.
- forgottenpass 11y agoI think it's bullshit too, but most people online just want Cable TV With Hyperlinks. Reddit is actually raw and unfiltered to those users. Everything else on their radar is an editorial outlet, the home shopping network or the classifieds section. The closest they get to interacting with real people is Twitter and Facebook. Which appeal to the user's vanity, and following mechanics keep them in some approximation of the social bubbles they're in offline. But Reddit has pseudonymous randos, with too many different names for a user to meaningfully fit in their brain, so it becomes a single voice to them. And they have ideas that aren't carefully crafted for palatability before presenting them. So reddit becomes "id."
- pjc50 11y agoideas that aren't carefully crafted for palatability That's quite an impressive euphemism for some of the stuff that you might see if you were to hit the "random NFSW" link. Not to mention the racial and misogyny hate groups that turn up, or the ubiquity of NSFW usernames.
- forgottenpass 11y agoI was mentioning where the bar is set by commercial platforms creating content to appeal to their audience, not how far below that bar other things can get. But since you mention it, trendy clickable blogs can and do sell hate, sex and gratuitousness all the time, it is all in how they package it. NSFW is by definition the sorts of images and words that can't be repackaged in a way cubical dwellers can have on-screen while slacking, but site like The Chive still run right up to the NSFA (Not Safe For Advertiser) line with it.
- gopowerranger 11y agoIt's unequivocally true and I've been saying it for years.
- tempVariable 11y agoYup. Every hero( read project ) needs a villain( read risky opposite ) Then inject a bit of marketing and major push via partnered or paid off media campaigns and baby - you have a stew goin'. I know that first hand and see this as nothing new. Digg, Reddit or whichever are not immune from pressures to perform fiscally. This is probably just a first step, let's see if it works for them.