From mental health to minecraft and WTF, plus two more islands.
April 12, 2021 3:47 PM Subscribe
"This website shows a map of reddit. Each dot is a subreddit." A web page presents a map (Github) of part of the internet. There is, appropriately, a subreddit.
Created by Andrei Kashcha (Twitter).
Created by Andrei Kashcha (Twitter).
Oh, and off the coast of Pornland is, of course, the Island of Gay (and, apparently, trans ladies of various orientations).
posted by fight or flight at 4:11 PM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by fight or flight at 4:11 PM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
Oh, so I'm not the only one who can't see the south continent well? Cool. Sometimes my old phone is tricky
posted by Jacen at 4:12 PM on April 12, 2021
posted by Jacen at 4:12 PM on April 12, 2021
Previously, by Randy Olson (direct link to interactive viz here). He had porn as a peninsula, connected to the mainland through LGBT regions, with the only "island" being My Little Pony related. I believe his similarity was based on users being a part of or commenting heavily between subreddits.
posted by supercres at 4:12 PM on April 12, 2021
posted by supercres at 4:12 PM on April 12, 2021
It seems like a lot of the LGBTQ+ stuff is lumped in with porn. And a bunch of autism related subreddits are somehow in the "legit" LGBT area. Maybe needs a propaganda tag?
posted by treepour at 4:15 PM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by treepour at 4:15 PM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]
Wait, no, I misread. Similar similarity metric here. (Initially thought it was similar text content in posts/comments.) It's probably just that Reddit has changed in seven years, who'd've thunk it.
posted by supercres at 4:16 PM on April 12, 2021
posted by supercres at 4:16 PM on April 12, 2021
It seems like all LGBTQ+ stuff is lumped in with porn.
When Olson's map went around several years ago, the "just so" justification was that people who post in LGBTQ+ subreddits are fine with not sockpuppeting in porn subreddits, while the straights are ashamed to do so (or that LGBTQ+ users are using sockpuppet accounts in those subreddits already).
posted by supercres at 4:18 PM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
When Olson's map went around several years ago, the "just so" justification was that people who post in LGBTQ+ subreddits are fine with not sockpuppeting in porn subreddits, while the straights are ashamed to do so (or that LGBTQ+ users are using sockpuppet accounts in those subreddits already).
posted by supercres at 4:18 PM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
A whole colored region just for Texas-related porn? Ok, weird. Is that slang for something, or no, just the state of Texas?
posted by ctmf at 5:17 PM on April 12, 2021
posted by ctmf at 5:17 PM on April 12, 2021
From the Github readme:
There is no single "right" way to cluster reddit. Communities are very rich and they interact with each other on multiple dimensions. Please don't treat proximity of some countries or even subreddits within the same country as a strong proof of relationship - they could be just an artifact of my clustering/layout algorithm.posted by biogeo at 5:23 PM on April 12, 2021
Rule 34 is on the mainland? Curious.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:39 PM on April 12, 2021
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:39 PM on April 12, 2021
Apparently everywhere in California is Outdoors, not in West USA.
posted by Chrysopoeia at 8:11 PM on April 12, 2021
posted by Chrysopoeia at 8:11 PM on April 12, 2021
There is no single "right" way to cluster reddit. Communities are very rich and they interact with each other on multiple dimensions. Please don't treat proximity of some countries or even subreddits within the same country as a strong proof of relationship - they could be just an artifact of my clustering/layout algorithm.
And yet, you can make sense of some of the oddities. I just spent a little while trying to figure out how/why r/seashanties ended up in the "Star Wars" region since that seemed like a bit of a stretch. But if you spend long enough following connections down the rabbit hole it starts to make sense of a sort.
See, apparently people into sea shanties are also into pirate memes (that tracks), which gets you into Pirates of The Caribbean memes, and then you're into "blockbuster movie meme" territory, which is apparently so dominated by Star Wars that all the other movie meme subreddits just got lumped into that territory. And brought the sea shanties along with them.
posted by mstokes650 at 9:12 PM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
And yet, you can make sense of some of the oddities. I just spent a little while trying to figure out how/why r/seashanties ended up in the "Star Wars" region since that seemed like a bit of a stretch. But if you spend long enough following connections down the rabbit hole it starts to make sense of a sort.
See, apparently people into sea shanties are also into pirate memes (that tracks), which gets you into Pirates of The Caribbean memes, and then you're into "blockbuster movie meme" territory, which is apparently so dominated by Star Wars that all the other movie meme subreddits just got lumped into that territory. And brought the sea shanties along with them.
posted by mstokes650 at 9:12 PM on April 12, 2021 [2 favorites]
And r/nofap is in Mental Health, which both makes sense, and is horrifying.
posted by Braeburn at 1:28 AM on April 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Braeburn at 1:28 AM on April 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
Minecraft and Parenting are on opposite ends of the continent. EveryManShouldKnow pulls Mental Health as far as it can get from AskScience as it strains toward Porngaea.
Memes are pulling WTF away from Philosophy, Books, and History on the other side of the mainland. The opposite of Television is LifeHacks and the opposite of Rule34 is r/cats (which is not found in the nation of Cats but up in WTF).
posted by straight at 2:26 AM on April 13, 2021 [2 favorites]
Memes are pulling WTF away from Philosophy, Books, and History on the other side of the mainland. The opposite of Television is LifeHacks and the opposite of Rule34 is r/cats (which is not found in the nation of Cats but up in WTF).
posted by straight at 2:26 AM on April 13, 2021 [2 favorites]
You can click on the subreddit names and it will pop up a side bar with the current posts! Coool
posted by pickles_have_souls at 4:30 AM on April 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by pickles_have_souls at 4:30 AM on April 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
and, apparently, trans ladies of various orientations
Wow. I am so naive. I knew that much of Reddit is a cesspool, but looking at the names of topics in that half of the "island" (oh God no), I realize now how much more I'm fetishized for being trans than I am for being a lesbian.
Yeah, I'll continue to avoid signing up for Reddit.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 5:10 AM on April 13, 2021 [3 favorites]
Wow. I am so naive. I knew that much of Reddit is a cesspool, but looking at the names of topics in that half of the "island" (oh God no), I realize now how much more I'm fetishized for being trans than I am for being a lesbian.
Yeah, I'll continue to avoid signing up for Reddit.
posted by Flight Hardware, do not touch at 5:10 AM on April 13, 2021 [3 favorites]
It seems like all LGBTQ+ stuff is lumped in with porn.
Nah, just the gay porn :P There's a separate LGBTQ+ lifestyle section right in the middle of the other lifestyle sections like drawing, HBO, consumer tech, reality TV and metal/guitars.
The 'countries' don't seem to connect to each other though so I dunno how the positions are determined.
posted by subdee at 6:04 AM on April 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
Nah, just the gay porn :P There's a separate LGBTQ+ lifestyle section right in the middle of the other lifestyle sections like drawing, HBO, consumer tech, reality TV and metal/guitars.
The 'countries' don't seem to connect to each other though so I dunno how the positions are determined.
posted by subdee at 6:04 AM on April 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
What I think is interesting is 'reality TV' is totally separate from just "TV' (which is next to 'literature'), and closer to Asia and the music categories. The celebrity zone I guess.
posted by subdee at 6:07 AM on April 13, 2021
posted by subdee at 6:07 AM on April 13, 2021
Yeah, I'll continue to avoid signing up for Reddit.
The weird thing about reddit is that here we are in 2021, deep in web 3.0 or 2.9 or whatever. We've seen the explosion and death of myspace, of pets.com, of AOL... so many flowers bloomed, died, and were plowed under and forgotten. And here, at the end of everything, at the edge of our hope, one of the biggest sites on the entire internet is basically a web interface to usenet.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:19 AM on April 13, 2021 [9 favorites]
The weird thing about reddit is that here we are in 2021, deep in web 3.0 or 2.9 or whatever. We've seen the explosion and death of myspace, of pets.com, of AOL... so many flowers bloomed, died, and were plowed under and forgotten. And here, at the end of everything, at the edge of our hope, one of the biggest sites on the entire internet is basically a web interface to usenet.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 6:19 AM on April 13, 2021 [9 favorites]
Why is the country of Running not adjacent to, or part of, the country of Fitness? And why is r/Cycling part of the country of Running? I like the way r/Strava reaches its tentacles all over though.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 7:12 AM on April 13, 2021
posted by TheophileEscargot at 7:12 AM on April 13, 2021
if you are a non-gardener or non-cat owner it might be confusing why gardening is an outlying city in the state of cats, but then you realize a good 10% of r/gardening is cats casually laying down on fresh plantings that were obviously put there in tribute for them. honestly surprised the nation of cats does not have vast colonies in laptops, homesteading or interior decorating, and cooking.
posted by slow graffiti at 8:02 AM on April 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by slow graffiti at 8:02 AM on April 13, 2021 [1 favorite]
r/TF2 is in the "Circlejerk" country. I don't know if I should be surprised.
r/Orangered and r/periwinkle are not on the map, which makes me feel old on Reddit, even if I'm not
posted by andycyca at 8:24 AM on April 13, 2021
r/Orangered and r/periwinkle are not on the map, which makes me feel old on Reddit, even if I'm not
posted by andycyca at 8:24 AM on April 13, 2021
GCU Sweet and Full of Grace, that is exceptionally accurate.
Reddit is such a boyzone, and women's or just not male-dominated spaces are hard to find, I get too annoyed to look, but I wonder if there's any good sexy-fun-times subreddits for women.
posted by theora55 at 1:46 PM on April 13, 2021
Reddit is such a boyzone, and women's or just not male-dominated spaces are hard to find, I get too annoyed to look, but I wonder if there's any good sexy-fun-times subreddits for women.
posted by theora55 at 1:46 PM on April 13, 2021
There's an entire state in porngea that's just... names of real life women. Sickening.
posted by FirstMateKate at 11:31 AM on April 14, 2021
posted by FirstMateKate at 11:31 AM on April 14, 2021
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I wonder what those "countries" will be named.
posted by fight or flight at 4:09 PM on April 12, 2021 [1 favorite]