"Before I joined Reddit, I never thought of myself as a masochist."
December 28, 2011 9:09 AM Subscribe
"Reddit makes me hate atheists."
The problem is that Reddit is infested with shitty, racist, sexist, bigoted people, to the point where it’s nearly guaranteed that some of those people will post in your special interest subreddit. The larger the subreddit, the better the chance that this will happen.
This post was deleted for the following reason: I kind of feel like the "there are a lot of immature jerks on Reddit" thing is a known issue to the point where there probably needs to be more to a post than just a link to someone complaining about it. -- cortex
Yeah that whole incident was sickening. Metafilter, please don't ever turn into Reddit, ok? (And thank you moderators!)
posted by peacheater at 9:15 AM on December 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by peacheater at 9:15 AM on December 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
This was better than I thought it would be.
Someone on metafilter steered me toward reddit to discuss Doctor Who, and while it's generally a really great community for that, the endless objectification of the women on there (and any female fans at all, really--pretty common for a guy to post a pic of a girl he saw in public with a TARDIS bag or something and for ALL of the comments to be like, "DID YOU ASK HER OUT? I'D HIT THAT?!!!") is pretty tiring.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:16 AM on December 28, 2011
Someone on metafilter steered me toward reddit to discuss Doctor Who, and while it's generally a really great community for that, the endless objectification of the women on there (and any female fans at all, really--pretty common for a guy to post a pic of a girl he saw in public with a TARDIS bag or something and for ALL of the comments to be like, "DID YOU ASK HER OUT? I'D HIT THAT?!!!") is pretty tiring.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 9:16 AM on December 28, 2011
Reddit makes me hate atheists but it has nothing to do with what's in this shitty blog post.
posted by norabarnacl3 at 9:17 AM on December 28, 2011
posted by norabarnacl3 at 9:17 AM on December 28, 2011
Ugly, but hardly unique to Reddit. I don't see that Reddit deserves singling out. This is the unfiltered Internet: A seedy street corner.
posted by tyllwin at 9:18 AM on December 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by tyllwin at 9:18 AM on December 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
What's shitty about this blog post precisely?
posted by peacheater at 9:19 AM on December 28, 2011 [2 favorites]
posted by peacheater at 9:19 AM on December 28, 2011 [2 favorites]
Reading over those posts has just about pushed me over the edge regarding any further participation on Reddit (teetering recently with the whole r/minecraft Notch vs Yogs kerfluffle). There are valuable communities there, but also a steadily increasing "This is why we can't have nice things!" vibe.
I guess the same can be said of the Internet as a whole, or at least the comments sections therein.
posted by Celsius1414 at 9:19 AM on December 28, 2011
I guess the same can be said of the Internet as a whole, or at least the comments sections therein.
posted by Celsius1414 at 9:19 AM on December 28, 2011
To be fair, there were about a half-dozen comments before the dickery started, and people further down the thread made an effort to pull it back to the topic. I am not sure if that makes me feel worse or not....
Can reading that entire thread be a requirement for anyone who wants to complain about moderation on MeTa?
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:20 AM on December 28, 2011 [4 favorites]
Can reading that entire thread be a requirement for anyone who wants to complain about moderation on MeTa?
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:20 AM on December 28, 2011 [4 favorites]
I have an idea.
Replace the word "reddit" with "YouTube Comments Section", and see the dramatic difference it makes.
posted by OllyNewport at 9:20 AM on December 28, 2011
Replace the word "reddit" with "YouTube Comments Section", and see the dramatic difference it makes.
posted by OllyNewport at 9:20 AM on December 28, 2011
Reddit was never as enlightened as Metafilter, but it was once a nice place. That all changed when Digg collapsed and all those Digg assholes migrated to Reddit.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 9:21 AM on December 28, 2011
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 9:21 AM on December 28, 2011
/r/athiesm is just a bunch of trolls.
Imagine if all the users ever banned from MetaFilter came back and infested one subsite, like irl or projects. That shit would be insane.
That is pretty much /r/atheism, all the people interested in atheism left a long time ago.
posted by Ad hominem at 9:21 AM on December 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
Imagine if all the users ever banned from MetaFilter came back and infested one subsite, like irl or projects. That shit would be insane.
That is pretty much /r/atheism, all the people interested in atheism left a long time ago.
posted by Ad hominem at 9:21 AM on December 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
[INTERNET SITE] makes me hate _____________.
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:22 AM on December 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:22 AM on December 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
I tend to think Reddit normally has better discussions than MeFi, but not this time. :(
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:22 AM on December 28, 2011
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 9:22 AM on December 28, 2011
The problem is that Reddit is infested with shitty, racist, sexist, bigoted people, to the point where it’s nearly guaranteed that some of those people will post in your special interest subreddit. The larger the subreddit, the better the chance that this will happen.
Exactly, so why would it make you hate atheists in particular?
Since /r/atheist became a default subreddit, every post is quickly visible to the general population and neither comments nor votes are limited in any way to atheists.
posted by callmejay at 9:22 AM on December 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
Exactly, so why would it make you hate atheists in particular?
Since /r/atheist became a default subreddit, every post is quickly visible to the general population and neither comments nor votes are limited in any way to atheists.
posted by callmejay at 9:22 AM on December 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
Threewayhandshake, that meme is actually a riff on the villain from a videogame, if memory serves. I mean, it's still kinda dumb, but it's not coming from quite the place you may be assuming.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:22 AM on December 28, 2011
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:22 AM on December 28, 2011
The larger the subreddit, the better the chance that this will happen.
This part is key. What keeps Metafilter from being an awful place to be is, in part, excellent moderation, but also that it's a small community. If you're a dick, people will notice and there are fewer dicks around to form protective packs. Reddit works like bunch of communities, and some of them are just too big to function well. Lots of people + internet = rape jokes. Every time.
Once during a conversation about reddit (in which I was called a "online community snob") someone I know made the blanket statement that "all the default subscriptions are shit" and he's more or less right. There's some good content on reddit, but it's on the smaller subreddits. On the subject of the post, the Christianity subreddit is actually fairly okay in this regard, because it's small.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 9:23 AM on December 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
This part is key. What keeps Metafilter from being an awful place to be is, in part, excellent moderation, but also that it's a small community. If you're a dick, people will notice and there are fewer dicks around to form protective packs. Reddit works like bunch of communities, and some of them are just too big to function well. Lots of people + internet = rape jokes. Every time.
Once during a conversation about reddit (in which I was called a "online community snob") someone I know made the blanket statement that "all the default subscriptions are shit" and he's more or less right. There's some good content on reddit, but it's on the smaller subreddits. On the subject of the post, the Christianity subreddit is actually fairly okay in this regard, because it's small.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 9:23 AM on December 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
I've only just started reading reddit, and yeah there's a lot of stupid/rude/ignorant comments. The atheists on reddit definitely seem...unrelenting. I haven't gotten too far into sub-reddits, but my impression of the site as a whole has been it's pretty low brow stuff, with a lot of contributions written by teens mostly for laughs, so I don't know how much you can expect in terms of sensitivity. I think I'll stick to the rage comics.
posted by Hoopo at 9:23 AM on December 28, 2011
posted by Hoopo at 9:23 AM on December 28, 2011
Exactly, so why would it make you hate atheists in particular?
Skepchick is an atheist blog -- I think she just means that even though she's an atheist, the atheist subreddit on reddit is making her lean towards hating atheists -- surely understandable. I really get where she's coming from. I'm an atheist woman but the ra-ra mach atheist subculture has really turned me off in recent years.
posted by peacheater at 9:24 AM on December 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
Skepchick is an atheist blog -- I think she just means that even though she's an atheist, the atheist subreddit on reddit is making her lean towards hating atheists -- surely understandable. I really get where she's coming from. I'm an atheist woman but the ra-ra mach atheist subculture has really turned me off in recent years.
posted by peacheater at 9:24 AM on December 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
Replace "Reddit" with "the Internet" (and "subreddit" with "website," because the analogy kind of falls apart at "subinternet"), and the pullquote is still extremely true.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:25 AM on December 28, 2011
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:25 AM on December 28, 2011
ah yes, let's all dump on someone else and call ourselves superior.
posted by krautland at 9:25 AM on December 28, 2011
posted by krautland at 9:25 AM on December 28, 2011
Also as Rebecca points out, it's not just a matter of a few bad guys spoiling the conversation for everyone -- those comments were strongly upvoted ones. This gives you an idea of what the community at large considers a good comment. I'm thankful that I can't imagine anything like that getting so many favorites on Metafilter.
posted by peacheater at 9:25 AM on December 28, 2011
posted by peacheater at 9:25 AM on December 28, 2011
is this really FPP worthy? single link, no new information b/c don't we already know reddit is full of trolls? seems more like ragefilter
posted by cupcake1337 at 9:26 AM on December 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by cupcake1337 at 9:26 AM on December 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
You're all missing the point. The really terrible thing about reddit is threaded comments.
posted by desjardins at 9:26 AM on December 28, 2011 [2 favorites]
posted by desjardins at 9:26 AM on December 28, 2011 [2 favorites]
When did bringing the Two-Minute Hate down on a site that is obviously inferior to Metafilter (as most everything is) become 'the best of the web'?
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:26 AM on December 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:26 AM on December 28, 2011 [1 favorite]
Bulgaroktonos: "Lots of people + internet = rape jokes. Every time."
We should get the Penny Arcade guys to make a comic about that.
posted by charred husk at 9:26 AM on December 28, 2011 [2 favorites]
We should get the Penny Arcade guys to make a comic about that.
posted by charred husk at 9:26 AM on December 28, 2011 [2 favorites]
That funny picture that compares the way men and women photograph something they want to show online sums up the reddit thread, and half of the rest of the Internet's content too.
posted by CautionToTheWind at 9:27 AM on December 28, 2011
posted by CautionToTheWind at 9:27 AM on December 28, 2011
Reddit makes me hate men.
That isPyramid head from silent hill. We don't really need to misrepresent stuff to make reddit look bad.
posted by Ad hominem at 9:28 AM on December 28, 2011
That isPyramid head from silent hill. We don't really need to misrepresent stuff to make reddit look bad.
posted by Ad hominem at 9:28 AM on December 28, 2011
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posted by ReeMonster at 9:15 AM on December 28, 2011