What do you think of Reddit?

[Prowler]

Reddit. A website everyone knows by now.

There's sub-reddits for all sorts of things, and smaller sub-reddits that are specifically about a certain tv show, musician, sports team, etc. can be generally pleasant and a place for good discussion.

But the big sub-reddits can be quite crappy at times and full of people trying to one-up each other with crappy puns and jokes in order to get 500 upvotes in one day and boos their e-peen. Also, the website REALLY is a circlejerk. You can tel la lot of sub-reddits swing more a certain way than other and if you say something someone disagrees with, even if it's something as innocent as saying you prefer beer to wine, you'll get downvoted, which makes your post invisible unless you click on your username to read it and it also throws it to the bottom of the page. This to me is a form of censorship. Reddiquette says you're not supposed to downvote someone just because they said something you disagree with, but a lot of people do that constantly. There's A LOT of people who take things too personally and can't handle different opinions there

Reddit is mostly OK to lurk and to look for answers about something you ask google. Often it gives you a couple of reddit threads links.

A lot of sub-reddits have nice premises as well, but often the userbase is quite lousy.

Thoughts?

[IndigoErth]

Yeah, I mostly just lurk a couple of them and comment only on occasion. I really didn't pay any attention to the site for a long time until this year.

[The Deadman]

I only browse LiveStreamFail because some of that is actually funny.

[Prowler]

It's my own thread, so nothing wrong with bumping it!

Pro tip: The key to enjoying reddit is to stick to smaller subreddits.

If you're joining reddit to post on default subs or subs with like 200 thousand subscribers you're in for a bad time.

The place is better in smaller subs/communities. Some older and/or not so popular series have subreddits dedicated to them with like 400 subscribers. Makes conversation a lot easier and you're less likely to get downvoted out of spite just because someone disagreed with your opinion.

Stay away from major political subs. And also avoid a lot of "Ask" subs and subs dedicated to European cultures/countries and American culture. They're usually loaded with politics and people thinking their country is better than your for some reason.

Some country specific subs are really bad too. r/Japan is AWFUL in particular. And it's not even made by or modded by Japanese people!

Sports? r/soccer is trash. Don't even bother. Wrestling? r/TheSquaredCircle sucks. It's even worse than a lot of wrestling forums out there, which is REALLY saying something, believe me.

Overall, I've noticed reddit is a bubble with a userbase mostly consisted of teenagers and young adults. I'd estimate 80% of its userbase is between 15 and 25 years old. Which explains all the naivety and ignorance there.

That's what happens when a place becomes too big for its own good. There are still some gems there, but 90% of the website is trash. Sadly, forums are a dying species and the only way to discuss less popular and more niche games, anime, cartoons, etc. seems to be on reddit since there's bound to be a subreddit dedicated to that series you'd like to discuss.

That it by making a tweet on twitter in hope a fellow fan sees it and replies to you, but that's more difficult.

[Andrew NDB]

I don't use it, really. Seems weird and backwards. Like something you would see on the dial up BBSes of like 1996.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

I don't use it, really. Seems weird and backwards. Like something you would see on the dial up BBSes of like 1996.

It is rather strange how we went from message boards with avatars and signatures to something like reddit where all people have is their small username next to their message. And following reddit conversations can be a bit annoying at times.

But the worst part really is the karma system. That's what makes it a huge circle jerk and what encourages people to post stupid puns and jokes so that they get hundreds of up votes and their message ends up on top of a super long thread.

And if your opinion goes against the majority get ready to get downvoted to oblivion and get your message buried at the bottom of the thread. It's practically censorship. Reddiquette tells people that's not what the downvote option is for, but a huge percentage of reddit uses it to silence those they disagree with. You thought the like feature on Facebook and twitter was bad? Well Reddits karma is worse. And to think some people want a dislike button for FB and Twitter...

And unlike FB and Twitter, you don't get to know who up voted or downvoted you. Which further proves what I said about the circlejerkjng aspect of it. It emboldens people who don't have the balls to tell you why they disagree with you.

[Andrew NDB]

That sounds just like the Black Mirror episode. Except strictly on a digital platform.

Yeah, no thanks. I'll look at a reddit if someone is leaking a script or something I'm interested in, but I see even less reason to contribute to it than Twitter.

[D-ray]

I visit it just for memes and maybe to violently argue with otakus.
Interesting discussions are very rare in big subs, but can be easier to find in smaller ones.

In recent years I think it went more viral, like, more people started to join it. Good thing and bad thing, since now I see lots of "kids" on subs.

[Roseangelo]

I'll browse Reddit if I'm bored and just want to waste some time, but I don't participate.

[CyberCubed]

reddit is good for boards for TV shows, movies and fandoms. That's basically it.

It's basically just old fansites all merged together in one big mega-site. You can post on a Star Trek reddit, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reddit, a Dragonball Z reddit, a TMNT reddit, a Pokemon reddit, a Breaking Bad reddit, The Sopranos reddit, etc. all in one place.

[sdp]

reddit was a great place for many years however it's starting to show its age, it's been around for over ten years as a replacement of digg, but sadly like most things the more users that joined it the more the quality declined. Amazing place for a really long time though.

[CyberCubed]

reddit and twitter are the reason individual fansites/forums have died out. Everyone just posts in the same place now rather than individual fandom forums.

[sdp]

What happened was casuals starting joining the internet and they weren't going to actually use the web and find dedicated fan sites/forums. Casuals just use their "hubs" to the rest of the internet and use those same "hubs" to discuss the stuff that they loved like say TMNT.

So slowly those hubs which is social media started getting more discussion on those fan topics and members from those fansites and discussion boards joined. This is why discussion isn't great in those places since it's usually mostly casuals (though not all) but forums have suffered since most of the great members just went to those hubs and only left very few members for the actual dedicated fansites.

Reddit was great but the more casuals joined the worse it got. I mean reddit is a huge place where anyone can make their own subreddit, so there are still plenty of amazing subreddits, I personally like a few but overall it's a shadow of its former self, most boards at least.

[IMJ]

Reddit used to be this old school forum where the quiet, informed underground of any given topic used to pool together and exchange some really great information.

Then everyone caught on and wanted to be part of that intellectual underground and it became a hideout for teenagers pretending to be informed and feeling elite because they infiltrated what used to be an interesting platform.

And so reddit has widely become a sewer of cast off groups that no longer have dedicated forums and phony intellectuals who think they are part of something but in reality they just artificially inflate Gamestop stocks.

I use Reddit passively and once in a blue moon for viral marketing and to read where the idiot money is going in some kind of exploitation pump.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Andrew NDB

That sounds just like the Black Mirror episode. Except strictly on a digital platform.

Yeah, no thanks. I'll look at a reddit if someone is leaking a script or something I'm interested in, but I see even less reason to contribute to it than Twitter.

I keep hearing about Black Mirror. Is it worth watching?

Originally Posted by D-ray

I visit it just for memes and maybe to violently argue with otakus.
Interesting discussions are very rare in big subs, but can be easier to find in smaller ones.

In recent years I think it went more viral, like, more people started to join it. Good thing and bad thing, since now I see lots of "kids" on subs.

Really? I think it's been equally popular for several years now.

Originally Posted by Roseangelo

I'll browse Reddit if I'm bored and just want to waste some time, but I don't participate.

Took me a while to make an account. But I'm not a very active participant either. I mostly lurk.

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

reddit is good for boards for TV shows, movies and fandoms. That's basically it.

It's basically just old fansites all merged together in one big mega-site. You can post on a Star Trek reddit, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reddit, a Dragonball Z reddit, a TMNT reddit, a Pokemon reddit, a Breaking Bad reddit, The Sopranos reddit, etc. all in one place.

Pretty much.

Originally Posted by sdp

reddit was a great place for many years however it's starting to show its age, it's been around for over ten years as a replacement of digg, but sadly like most things the more users that joined it the more the quality declined. Amazing place for a really long time though.

Wait, Reddit is HOW OLD?!

...ok first time I heard of it was around 2012 or 2011 and that was a decade ago or close to it already. So perhaps it is slightly older than that.

Facebook and Twitter aren't that young anymore either. Facebook is actually rather old. It just became a global thing around 2009-2010 which was over a decade ago already. Not sure how old Twitter is, but I first heard of it in 2009, I think?

[sdp]

Reddit came out when Digg was at its height so around 2006, it was mostly a digg clone but became better than it around 2007 or so. FB is from that same time, when I signed up it was only for college students that was around 2006, my twitter account is from 2007 but it was around at for a few months before that so perhaps 2006 as well.
It was during "web 2.0" that the internet became "casual" and easy to use so we got an influx of people who shouldn't be using it who share fake news and the like.

[Prowler]

The Internet over a decade ago was way more anonymous. People still abided by the first rule of the Internet back then: don't tell people your real name and don't post your own photos.

And whenever arguments happened they were contained to specific forums or chat rooms. You could get banned from, let's say, a wrestling forum and then go join an anime forum and no one would knew who toy were even if you used the same username.

You also didn't have celebrities or politicians being active online and interacting with the "common mortals".

Fake news and misinformation online to the extend we see these days wasn't really a thing in the mid-2006. Social media has sadly helped that kind of crap spread with its faulty algorithms.

I mean, look at YouTube. Back in 2006-2007 were there even any political channels?!

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by Prowler

The Internet over a decade ago was way more anonymous. People still abided by the first rule of the Internet back then: don't tell people your real name and don't post your own photos.

I blame Facebook for that. I think it's still the only social media platform where it demands you post your real name and whatnot instead of something like MasterBlaster5000 or whatever.

I remember there were memes or whatever explaining that Myspace is where you post your nonsense Sup3rSaiy3n5567 type name but Facebook is where you get serious and put your real name.

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Coola Yagami

I blame Facebook for that. I think it's still the only social media platform where it demands you post your real name and whatnot instead of something like MasterBlaster5000 or whatever.

I remember there were memes or whatever explaining that Myspace is where you post your nonsense Sup3rSaiy3n5567 type name but Facebook is where you get serious and put your real name.

Yep. Honestly, Facebook is to blame for how much the Internet and the world have changed in the last 11 years or so. With FBs popularity exploding, so did social media as a whole. And with Smartphones becoming a rule there was now an unbeatable combo that led to current day situation where people are constantly on their phones. And I'm not saying I don't use my phone a lot either. In fact, I do it more than ever.

I had been hearing about the Internet changing the world and makind entering the era of fast paced information since I was a kid, but we really seem to only have entered that stage only around 2010.

Back in the 2000s you could still survive without having a home Internet connection or not having a mobile phone. Nowadays that's just impossible.

[Coola Yagami]

Originally Posted by Prowler

Yep. Honestly, Facebook is to blame for how much the Internet and the world have changed in the last 11 years or so. With FBs popularity exploding, so did social media as a whole. And with Smartphones becoming a rule there was now an unbeatable combo that led to current day situation where people are constantly on their phones. And I'm not saying I don't use my phone a lot either. In fact, I do it more than ever.

I had been hearing about the Internet changing the world and makind entering the era of fast paced information since I was a kid, but we really seem to only have entered that stage only around 2010.

Back in the 2000s you could still survive without having a home Internet connection or not having a mobile phone. Nowadays that's just impossible.

I've always wondered how people in rural towns or just flat out places that CAN'T get internet survive nowadays. I'm sure there are still small one-horse towns out there without that there interwebs.