Some thoughts. I think users happen in generations. The first users set a tone, and then later users make formal and memetic rules to enforce tone (like the mo

Some thoughts. I think users happen in generations. The first users set a tone, and then later users make formal and memetic rules to enforce tone (like the monkeys with the bananas up the ladder). Without change, this sticks and places become stagnant. On the other hand, there's clearly been a huge influx in users on Reddit and they haven't managed the volume well so you have popular threads which commenting in is just pissing in an ocean of piss. When that becomes normalized, users are forced to resort to unusual behavior to get noticed, meaning being spammy, dramatic or offensive.