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How Reddit Got Obama
- sharkweek 14y agoAs much as I love it, Reddit has some pretty unsavory corners. Assuming this makes any news outside the tech space, I'd be curious to see what comes out -- "President Obama answering questions on website affiliated with necrophilia" ?
- eaxbin 14y agoWell, he also did a Google Hangout, and I think we can all guess what that's also being used for. :)
- mcantelon 14y agoNo doubt that political avenue's being explored as we speak. Reddit last hit mainstream news due to jailbait photos, IIRC.
- emmett 14y agoAs much as I love it, the internet has some pretty unsavory corners. Assuming this makes any news outside the internet, I'd be curious to see what comes out -- "President Obama answering questions on new technology associated with necrophilia AND child porn". I'm being snarky, but it's comments like the one you just made which are echo-chambered into "there is something wrong with communications medium X because it was once used by group Y". Reddit's a big public forum: any big forum will have those issues.
- lotharbot 14y ago> "the internet has some pretty unsavory corners." Average voters actually use the internet and understand it. There's porn and stuff "out there", but most people don't run into it when they're visiting facebook, yahoo, espn.com, and other mainstream sites. The average voter isn't going to question the judgment of someone who "uses the internet" because it doesn't seem seedy to them. The average voter doesn't know what reddit is, and wouldn't "get" it from the homepage. On the homepage right now, there's Obama's AMA and a couple of other serious political stories -- sandwiched between half a dozen memes, a picture of a canker sore shaped like a penis, and several instances of the word "fuck". You don't have to go looking in the unsavory corners of reddit to find stuff that would make my mom question the judgment of people who use the site.
- batiudrami 14y agoI've recently been wondering why they don't move away from the 'default subreddits' model homepage and to a splash page: "Welcome to Reddit, a place where you can share links and talk about your favourite subjects. What are you interested in?", with a big search box, and a list of suggested subreddits that you can subscribe to. It gets users to create an account, and can allow for a friendlier experience for new people. Of course, there'd still be a 'go to the front page' link for people who preferred it, but this would help change the 'default' reddit experience, which for most people isn't great, as well as helps convey the message that reddit isn't a singular, rage comic-loving, pro-weed legalisation commmunity.
- kn0thing 14y agoBelieve me, this comes up every time we talk about product. A better onboarding experience is coming, with better subreddit discovery.
- batiudrami 14y agoBack when reddit only had about 10 categories, I made a joke about how I wouldn't be surprised to see an xkcd category, because of how frequently the comics posted. When that actually happened, I rolled my eyes and wondered what these idiot admins had done, segregating the community into separate, yet very similar categories. In hindsight, it has shown itself to be a great idea, and by far reddit's greatest strength. I'm glad you guys have plans to highlight that to people.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- sharkweek 14y agoI guess I'm just more curious to see if the benefit provided from using reddit will outweigh any potential consequences. I do believe this will mostly be overlooked by news outlets outside of tech spaces, but... Most people don't understand reddit and it'd be ridiculously easy for opponents to spin this one deep into the negative.
- rhizome 14y agoI guess I'm just more curious to see if the benefit provided from using reddit will outweigh any potential consequences That's an awfully long-haired way of wondering aloud to no-one in particular whether associating with Reddit will be considered to be a liability. I'm fairly sure the President has a near-army of people whose job it is to worry about such things. Was the...did you say "necrophilia?"...really an issue outside of Sean Hannity's (or whoever's) shrieking fanbase? I think those people have less power than even pot advocates in the national landscape.
- raldi 14y agoSeriously. That would be like the president having a Twitter account, or a telephone.
- sharkweek 14y agoAs popular as your former employer is, there's a pretty wide gap from reddit to owning a telephone -- Look how badly CNN misrepresented reddit; that's the level of understanding most people will have if someone who is essentially looking for a news story spins it that direction.
- dclowd9901 14y agoDue to the enormous usage of Reddit, CNN's misunderstanding of Reddit made CNN look like the asses.
- sharkweek 14y agoTo us, a collective of tech savvy regulars of the Internet, yes. But to someone like my mom who has no idea there was backlash, not as much.
- monksy 14y agoHumanity as a whole has some unsavory corners. Learn to live with it.
- nl 14y ago"Front page of the internet" was always an ambitious tagline. Reddit is living up to it now, though.
- redthrowaway 14y agoThat comes straight from pg, as reddit was his idea. He sold it to Alexis and Steve as "the front page of the Internet", that is, a user-curated list of all of the most interest links out there. While it may be read as ambitious, it was originally just intended to describe what reddit was and how it worked. It was the precursor of the "AirBnB for lightbulbs" taglines that dominated pitches a couple years ago.
- ibelieveinx 14y agoThis comment confuses me.
- redthrowaway 14y agoAlexis and Steve applied for the first YC batch with a cell phone food idea that pg rejected. He told them that he liked them, but not the idea. He suggested instead that they build "the front page of the Internet". They did, and the rest is history. People have a tendency to think that phrase is somehow bragging, but it's really just what the original idea for reddit was. It's not about their size, but about the intended purpose of the site.
- derleth 14y ago> AirBnB for lightbulbs This statement exists in a Universe I don't inhabit, but would like to visit sometime.
- qohen 14y agoVisit it now on YouTube -- in under 2 minutes -- in "Shit Silicon Valley Says": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR8zFANeBGQ&feature=player_embedded https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR8zFANeBGQ&feature=play... "It's like AirBnB for Facebook games" "It's like Pandora for Cats" "Think of it like an Instagram for hamburgers" "Think of it as a Netflix for Youtube" All this and much, much more...
- jonathanberger 14y ago> "Not surprisingly, every answer he’s offered up so far has been studiously on-message." This part was a bit disappointing. Part of the fun of an AMA is finding out the unexpected. His one-liners about the Bulls or "NOT BAD" were my favorite parts.
- shorttime 14y agoI'm not bashing anyone but there must be some observations made obvious. He's lived in Chicago, the Bulls comment makes sense. Appealing to his home town. "NOT BAD" - do you REALLY think he knew to say that or do you think someone prompted him? There are very smart people that control his speeches, people behind the curtains, to get the maximum appeal from the audience in which he is speaking to. Everything is scripted ever so carefully. Always keep this in mind. He's trying to win you over, for your vote.
- lukevdp 14y agoI don't think you're giving him enough credit. He speaks in public forums all the time. He speaks for himself just fine there, why would an internet forum be any different?
- corin_ 14y agoWhile he obviously has to be and is good on his feat, do you realise that for much of his public speaking he has speechwriters working for him?
- lukevdp 14y agoBy public forums I meant Q and A with public audiences.
- corin_ 14y agoSpeechwriters will still work on the answers for him to use in Q&A sessions, obviously it's not quite the same as a speech where he can give an exact word for word, but generally he'll still know big chunks before hand on a range of anticipated topics, then the skill to doing it live is being able to pivot slightly from the way the question was asked to the answer he wants to give. Also just realised I spelled "feet" wrong in my previous comment and feel terrible about that.
- leeskye 14y agoI wonder if Romney will follow up with his own AMA
- ORioN63 14y agoOr how Obama killed reddit.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- rorrr 14y agoWhat a disappointing AMA. He answers stupid questions about his favorite basketball player and the white house beer recipe, but completely ignores the important ones about decriminalization of marijuana. Fuck him. I'm not voting for him. He's a mild and more sociable version of Romney.
- redthrowaway 14y agoWhy on Earth would he go touch marijuana legalization with a 10-foot pole? He's not Ron Paul; he's actually trying to win the election. The average swing voter is a middle-aged mom, and you want him to talk about marijuana legalization? You can either be a frank politician who addresses all questions honestly, or you can be a politician who wins elections.
- 001sky 14y agoWhy on Earth would he go touch marijuana legalization with a 10-foot pole? Well, if its good enough for TED, why not Reddit? http://whohastimeforthis.blogspot.com/2012/03/best-of-ted-2012.html http://whohastimeforthis.blogspot.com/2012/03/best-of-ted-20... Hands down, the best [TED] talk this year was from Bryan Stevenson on injustice in the US criminal legal system. For example, the number of prisoners in the last 40 years has grown from 300,000 to 2.3 million (primarily, I believe, due to non-violent drug infractions). One third of young African American men are in prison, on probation or on parole. Ours is the only country in the world that gives life sentences to 13 year olds. As for the death penalty, one out of nine defendants sentenced to death have been exonerated. in California a billion dollars will be spent defending and executing the death penalty in the next 5 years, although a referendum is on its way to re-direct those funds to police enforcement budgets. What made the talk great was Stevenson's ability to weave in his personal stories, recounting memories of what it was like to grow up among activists like Rosa Parks. There was so much enthusiasm for Stevenson and his cause that TED Curator Chris Andersen jumped on the occasion to solicit donations for Stevenson's private foundation. Right there many of us stood up and, in aggregate, pledged close to a million dollars!
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- edw519 14y agoThere are quite a few redditors at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave... Your tax dollars at work.
- akozak 14y agoI know your comment was sarcastic, but it touches on the recent debate about whether the US government deserves any credit in the development of the Internet. And it at least gives me hope that the next generation of policymakers will appreciate the power of the open web to facilitate speech, culture, and economic development.
- user-id 14y agoAre you your job? I'm sure you're more things than that.
- _delirium 14y agoIs this comment a performative critique of the low-value political jabs one commonly finds on Reddit?
- nacker 14y agoIt's so sad to see so many HN and Redditors so intent on their "upwardly mobile", morally relative dreams that they fail to take account of the totalitarian state they have come to live in. You will NOT be alright, jack. Listen. As of September 2012, the AppForThat, Startup, bubble is just about over. I say this as someone who warned others of the dotcom and real estate bubbles. If you want to think of it as a "technical", or chartreading thing, fine. The bottom line is: GET OUT NOW, the shit is about to hit the fan. Yeah, I know you don't want to hear it. Sorry to bear bad news. If you haven't heard of it, this is the Fourth Turning. (Startpage.com it). If you think life is going to go on as as usual, think again. Get ready. Hunker down. This is for real. Don't trust the government.
- vecinu 14y agoWait, what's going on? I want to understand but I can't decipher your words.
- JohnsonB 14y agoThey didn't "get" Obama at all. He has so far answered a total of 10 questions, all of them canned, standard set pieces from his campaign that you could have just as easily read off his website. And he wasn't even the one interacting with the community; it's questionable if he was involved with this AMA at all. This was essentially a complete abuse of the AMA system but no one's calling him on it because he's the POTUS.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- noodle 14y ago> He has so far answered a total of 10 questions I'd point out that he did say he only had 30 minutes, and given how poorly reddit handled the traffic, I'm surprised he managed to get 10 answers in, copy/paste jobs or no. How would you have preferred it to go, anyway? Seems like he's not going to make everyone happy no matter how its sliced, so perhaps he should have just not done one?
- mikeash 14y agoThat's by far the least of the objections raised. 10 interesting, insightful answers that offered new information would have been fascinating. But we got 10 canned answers that told us nothing we already knew. That was the real problem here, although nobody should have been surprised.
- jcr 14y agoIs it "Reddit got Obama" or is it "Obama got Reddit"? I think the best answer is, "Yes," since it seems to be mutually beneficial exploitation of Reddit USERS for the sake of press coverage (both Obama getting press and Reddit getting press).
- shmerl 14y agoHis answer about Internet freedom was not to the point, sounded more like standard blank political talk without essence.
- mintyice 14y ago>if he doesn’t want an uncomfortable “boxers or briefs” moment, he can control that. Jokingly I did actually comment that.
- rdl 14y agoThe question I wanted to ask was "under what conditions would you call for an accelerated withdrawal from Afghanistan, or an extended presence in Afghanistan, compared to the announced 2014 withdrawal date." But Reddit was in read-only mode most of the time. I really hope Romney/Paul and Gary Johnson (again) do IAMAs.
- majormajor 14y agoSomething overlooked in the "he didn't give interesting answers" complaints is that just being able to ask a question (even if it goes unanswered) is a form of communication with the President that's never been available to an average citizen in this way.
- akldfgj 14y agoI'm pretty sure that Americans have been able to send to-be-ignored letters to the President since Ben Franklin invented the USPS.
- RandallBrown 14y agoLook, I get it. The President's time is extremely valuable, but 30 minutes? Seriously? I got the page to load 1 time, and by then it was over. I would have rather he didn't do it at all. I did like that one of his answers referenced the Obama Not Bad meme, but I imagine that was pre-canned by one of his interns or something.