Gyfcat / gif slowness I think is a big part of this. Now that did not answer your question, but at least reddit routinely pokes fun at itself under /r/funny and

Gyfcat / gif slowness I think is a big part of this. Now that did not answer your question, but at least reddit routinely pokes fun at itself under /r/funny and /r/yesitstrue where its servers are depicted as 1 old overheated pizza box. Also 34% of all resources are spent running rule engines to "enforce" posting compliance.