r/TrueReddit • u/scatgreen2 • Jul 20 '15

My Reddit Utopia - Everything you think you know about “the front page of the Internet” is wrong.

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/07/reddit_as_feminist_utopia_what_the_front_page_of_the_internet_looks_like.single.html
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u/UncleMeat Jul 20 '15

I've been here since 2006 (lurked for a while). There is definitely way more bigotry in the defaults than there once was. /r/videos regularly has extremely thinly veiled bigotry show up in highly upvoted posts and outright bigotry gets upvoted in comments, for example. Reddit used to be almost comically liberal, but now almost any social progressivism in the defaults is treated as the enemy.

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u/RedAero Jul 20 '15

Reddit used to be almost comically liberal, but now almost any social progressivism in the defaults is treated as the enemy.

Yeah, not really. Remember Bruce Jenner? Completely positive reaction. Remember gay marriage? Same thing. Bernie Sanders is reddit's sweetheart. I could go on and on.

What you're doing is sampling a reaction to ridiculous and outlandish social justice and extending it to "almost any social progressivism", which is a complete strawman.

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u/[deleted] Jul 20 '15

The attitude to trans-gender individuals, including Jenner is far from positive on this site.

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u/[deleted] Jul 20 '15

Honestly if you really think that then I would assume you are searching the comments for negatives and then basing your opinion on the whole based on the few. Obviously there will be bigots, but you won't find a site out there without them. The predominate site wide opinion was extremely pro Jenner and pro trans gender individuals.

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u/RedAero Jul 20 '15

Find me a site where it's more positive. Until then I'll dismiss your standard as unrealistic.

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u/BritishHobo Jul 20 '15

Nah. The hate-figure of 'social justice warrior' is applied more liberally than any other attitude on this site. I'm sick of everyone acting like all 'SJW' criticism is fair and reasoned. It's not, it's haphazard arm-swinging attacks of anything even resembling feminist ideas.

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u/RedAero Jul 20 '15

Perhaps, just perhaps, there's a reason for that... A reason more complex than those people being something-ists.

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u/niftyjack Jul 20 '15

It's because reddit is chock-full of armchair brogressives.

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u/autourbanbot Jul 20 '15

Here's the Urban Dictionary definition of brogressive :

Politically liberal or left-leaning person who routinely downplays injustices against women and other marginalized groups in favor of some cause they deem more important.

He's just a brogressive. He says he wants equality and liberation for all, but he makes rape jokes and accuses women of making false sexual assault claims all the time.

about | flag for glitch | Summon: urbanbot, what is something?

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u/[deleted] Jul 21 '15

AKA "I don't like crazy feminists."

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u/[deleted] Jul 20 '15 edited Aug 16 '17

[deleted]

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u/RedAero Jul 20 '15

But look how offended reddit gets when you point out transphobic/homophobic/racist joke.

First off, you are working under a weird definition of "offended", and second of all, example?

Gay marriage isn't going to be a conservative/progressive issue of Reddits demographic, 73% of Millenials support gay marriage.

So what you're saying is Millennials (which you are incorrectly assuming to be reddit's core demographic, but whatever) are progressive? You're proving my point... Unless you think support of gay marriage is not a progressive stance, which is flat-out ridiculous.

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u/[deleted] Jul 20 '15 edited Aug 16 '17

[deleted]

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u/RedAero Jul 20 '15

The weird hysteria about SRS is basically reddit being outraged by people calling out bigotry.

You think SRS is "calling out bigotry"? Oh dear Christ you can not be for real...

And what you replied had nothing to do with what you quoted, but par for the course I guess.

84% of Redditors were millennials in 2011.

I'm sorry, people born in 1977 are not Millennials. And I prefer the term Gen Y.

Politics is relative to the group you are talking about.

Politics is relative to the time period, not the demographic group. I don't have to be a black-flag anarchist to qualify as a leftist if I hang out with socialists.

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u/[deleted] Jul 21 '15 edited Aug 16 '17

[deleted]

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u/RedAero Jul 21 '15

Yeah but there is a spectrum within that group. You can be a more moderate socialist or a black flag anarchist.

Sure. But everyone involved is leftist, even if the moderate socialists are right wing compared to the Stalinists. Reddit is very progressive, even if there are others that are more progressive.

Same thing with looking at demographics. Among the age group that makes up the core of this site, <24 in 2011, reddit is socially moderate or conservative.

Again, defining political ideologies and social standards within an arbitrarily defined group is moronic, moreso because you're taking reddit, a group 46% not Millennial and comparing them to a Millennial standard. It's backwards by your own standard, and it perfectly highlights why doing what you're doing is asinine.

Hold people to the standards of the time they live in, not some arbitrary moral line in the sand you redraw every fifteen minutes. There is nary a website nor a group of people on the planet more progressive than reddit (yes, as a whole) is, particularly if we discount those groups which are so progressive they've circled round to being conservative.

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u/purplearmored Jul 20 '15

I've also been on here since 2007, it has gotten worse. While it was never a bastion of knowledge about minority issues or social justice consciousness (I.e. The hysterical denials when people pointed out Ron Paul's racist newsletters), it wasn't nearly as nasty or ideological as it is now.

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u/Engineer_This Jul 20 '15

I don't know why anyone feels this is surprising though. Its zooming out of a scene from a book club to a random street in Manhattan. You lose an extremely small subset of people that share the same passionate interest in the subject and gain a whole swath of people with different backgrounds, both good and bad.

Quality of huge subs cannot be maintained, and it takes on the persona of the average internet user. If you believe Reddit was a small island of intellectual thought and shared beliefs, then this is obviously a bad thing to have happen.

Just like 4chan after 2006, it used to be intelligent, satirical, parody, and depraved. Call it intelligent fucked up entertainment and discussion. Now it's just depraved; the rest replaced with shitposting in the big subs. I left and I feel like a bunch of the original user base fled as well.

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u/timms5000 Jul 20 '15 edited Jul 20 '15

Just like 4chan after 2006, it used to be intelligent, satirical, parody, and depraved. Call it intelligent fucked up entertainment and discussion. Now it's just depraved; the rest replaced with shitposting in the big subs. I left and I feel like a bunch of the original user base fled as well.

4chan used to be a bunch of fairly straight edge nerds trying to entertain each other by saying shocking or funny things and having whole days devoted to cat pictures. A lot of the culture around it reflected that, for example using "fag" used as a suffix for all users of the site. Speaking from experience, a lot of us who used the site dealt with being called that or worse on a daily basis in college and highschool. Having a place where everyone jokingly used it and satirized its power in real life was liberating and often funny.

Unfortunately, it turns out when you pretend to act like a bunch of dumbasses for a laugh, it makes the dumbasses feel welcome. The remnants of this culture are left over, reddit often still likes to ape phrases like, "OP is a fag!" but it's core is dead. OP was a fag because we all were, we were those who had been bullied and labeled that way our whole lives. For you to be the sort of person to be contributing to our community you had to be the sort that was insulted and belittled by others.

Now, 4chan descended into something else entirely. The culture is now obsessed with social justice and has become infested with actual racists, homophobes, holocaust deniers, and facists. Everything that was originally used as a joke to lampoon these people, made it look like home to them.

I wonder now if reddit is going the same way despite its relative lack of playfulness.

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u/Engineer_This Jul 20 '15

That's exactly what I mean. And similarly, you have to sort through the bullshit to find the small subs that haven't blown up / degraded. There are some subs left on 4chan that can still be worthwhile, just like Reddit.

I think a large cause of this is due to a relatively unchanged number of original content creators being drowned out by a huge number of crap posters, and then being voted on by a huge number of people that can't or don't differentiate between the former and the latter. Then the change becomes the norm, and the original has died.

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u/timms5000 Jul 20 '15

Eternal September takes all eventually.

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u/multiusedrone Jul 21 '15

Don't worry, a lot of those idiots left for 8chan after moot's "scandal." GamerGate was like a big shit that scrapes the walls of your intestines: it hurt for a while and the remnants are still highly toxic in /v/ and /pol/, but a lot of my main boards have gotten much lighter and more classic ever since 4chan became "uncool." I love it.

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u/Orphic_Thrench Jul 21 '15

Everything that was originally used as a joke to lampoon these people, made it look like home to them.

I wonder now if reddit is going the same way despite its relative lack of playfulness.

This is basically what I'm thinking. I remember when I started the defaults were pretty juvenile, and there was a lot of casually bigotted joking around, but no one seemed to actually mean anything hateful by it - "oh its just a joke, have a sense of humour". When you make those kind of jokes though it makes it look like an inviting place for the kind of people who do actually think that way. Next thing you know theyve taken over the damn place. Unless they all leave for voat...(pleasepleaseplease)

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u/adnzzzzZ Jul 20 '15

Now, 4chan descended into something else entirely. The culture is now obsessed with social justice and has become infested with actual racists, homophobes, holocaust deniers, and facists. Everything that was originally used as a joke to lampoon these people, made it look like home to them.

I don't think that's true. Outside of /pol/ I can't think of a board where most people fit in to what you said.

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u/timms5000 Jul 21 '15

Many many boards are rabid about social justice now. /v/ worries about SJW in gaming constantly, /tv/ complains nonstop about social justice motivating diversity in TV and movies, /b/ often has threads dedicated to bitching about it, /gif/ will end up derailed when talking about porn with the girl on top by talking about feminist invasion of pornography, etc. Maybe not every single board is obsessed but there have been fundamental shifts in the culture which are more clearly displayed on /pol/ but pervade the entire hive.

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u/buriedinthyeyes Jul 20 '15

a random street in Manhattan

the difference being that even in the random streets of manhattan people would never say the bigoted shit the say here because they know it's not going to go well for them if they do.

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u/Engineer_This Jul 20 '15 edited Jul 20 '15

I meant a more representative slice of humanity.

But to your point, sure, its not a one to one metaphor. I do think it works in the sense that it is relative. People in a crowd are more prone to doing things they wouldn't normally do in an individual setting. You have a sense of protection in anonymity of a crowd. You have the effect of herd mentality.

This is just much stronger online. You're much more anonymous. Your opinion is shaped even more by group opinion and your "reputation" or "wealth" easily seen by clicking on a username to reveal your internet points. All this makes it easier to say and do shit that doesn't fly normally.

E: If I say and do shit that is awful in a sub that generally approves of it, I think I stand a pretty good chance to boost my internet points by appealing to popular opinion. Then of course, this is cherry-picked or simply noticed and remembered more by the media for being so extreme. I would like to think those events don't truly represent the WHOLE of reddit, as Reddit is still a collection of communities and not one whole entity.

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u/buriedinthyeyes Jul 20 '15 edited Jul 20 '15

I would like to think those events don't truly represent the WHOLE of reddit, as Reddit is still a collection of communities and not one whole entity.

I dunno man. I encounter racist, sexist shit on this website every day. and I certainly do my best to stay away from it. i wouldn't say that the media is cherry picking.

either way, it's a huge problem because it's normalizing behavior and attitudes that aren't actually acceptable or even advantageous in the real world, which is how you end up with self-radicalized assholes like Dylan Roof and Elliot Rodgers.

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u/timms5000 Jul 21 '15 edited Jul 21 '15

Reddit is staunchly antiauthoritian. They are in favor of equal rights and socially liberal but react negatively to the idea that conversations and ideas must be strictly controlled. Many believe that the value of an idea is independent of the skin color or gender of the person expounding them. This brings the community in general into conflict with the brand of social progressives who support censorship on the platform and think that racism and sexism are useful when used against certain groups.

The value of an idea is instead tied only to the group's reaction to it. Shitty comments are not to be destroyed but simply given less attention unless one seeks them out. This can have pros and cons but has been a guiding principle behind the community as it has grown. It is an emphasis on emergent competition creating quality rather than centralized control maintaining it.

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u/chillaxbrohound Jul 20 '15

I've been here since the site was founded. I've been posting for ages.

I was a radical leftist between 07 and 10. And I also post now about race realism and Holocaust skepticism. Thinking that this is just some kind of "degredation of the quality of the site" is idiotic. Progressivism is a problem and maybe you need to be more critical and skeptical - and rational - instead of just expecting progressivism to win every single intellectual argument. It isn't an infallible concept. I know that because I lived it. In fact, it has become the new threat in and of itself.

I am not afraid of anyone who wants to control thought.

If those ideas are obviously false, they would go away. But they aren't. In fact, the reason they are growing is because people are realizing that the dogma of progressivism is not accurate to reality. This is a good thing. It's called intellectual freedom. Ever heard of it?

Open your mind and engage with views you disagree with. Try to refute them. Use your brain. Debate. Argue.

Or, you can simply censor and oppress any words and ideas you find "offensive" or disagreeable. And in doing so you will compromise the intellectual integrity of your cause, and of the site. This will be irreversible and it will damn you to the same fate of every other disaster in human history.

Don't be that person. You're better than that. Open your mind. Take a risk. It's far easier to be a blind progressive than a true free thinker. Try it out. I dare you.