The real answer, as always, is to stay away from the default subreddits because The Public is shitty. There's a spectrum of communities, ranging from obscure a

The real answer, as always, is to stay away from the default subreddits because The Public is shitty. There's a spectrum of communities, ranging from obscure and niche to mainstream and general. Too obscure, and communities become insular; it's boring because nothing happens. Too mainstream, and it gets overrun by dickheads and yelling. You always want to be on the cusp between the two. Hacker News straddles a pretty good line - it's popular enough that cool things get talked about by lots of people, but it's niche enough (Yes, it's niche when comparing it to, say, 9gag or /r/AskReddit) that it keeps the worst of The Public away. As a result, it keeps that happy medium. Subreddits tend to be the same way. If you're finding that a default subreddit is shitty and hateful, chances are very high that there is a very similar subreddit that is specifically made up of people who are fed up with the bullshit from that default. Of course, give that subreddit time to become popular, and it'll become just as shitty and hateful as the default. Then you move again, and again, and again, forever. That's how the Internet always has been, and I'm sure that it'll continue to be that way forever.