Sometimes, "I'm probably going to get downvoted for this! But..." is an effective reverse-psychology ploy. Which leads to upvotes for the "unpopular" opinion,

Sometimes, "I'm probably going to get downvoted for this! But..." is an effective reverse-psychology ploy. Which leads to upvotes for the "unpopular" opinion, that many if not most people actually share. Other times, the comment really is awful, and genuinely deserves to be downvoted away.