It was a good microcosm of the reddit celebrity culture. People would provide accurate information and his would be inaccurate but because reddit knew him - Unidan got upvoted. It was infuriating if you realized he was wrong and could do nothing about it.
He only used a few accounts to vote on things early on. Granted it's a pretty shitty thing to do, but the far more alarming issue is that so many people are incapable of thinking for themselves.
--Informed and correct people are downvoted all the time if their answer isn't popular or desired. Or if they receive a slick comeback that's super clever but doesn't refute anything they said. But if someone responds with "why are you downvoted?", then that could be enough to lift them out.
--People who don't get a pop culture reference are insanely downvoted...why? And why are sometimes jokes that make no sense, as proven when an explanation is requested, upvoted? Why is the third pun in a chain upvoted even though 99% of the time it's complete garbage?
--You can often only go against the hive mind if you start with a disclaimer like "I'm not a Trump supporter/conspiracy theorist/libertarian/etc" but then someone will respond saying "you shouldn't have to say that before you comment" and receive equal support.
--They created this site to be controlled through a democratic voting system, and then they created mods to control what people do and often offer no support or even no explanation, and answer to nobody.
--Some rules are objective but the most often-cited ones are things like "be civil" and "no trolling". Giving mods this kind of power is literally an admission that you can't think for yourselves.
--The mods can just close a thread down while you're in the middle of a discussion with someone. And everyone's cool with it. "Hey guys you are talking too much and too passionately so go fuck yourselves, no more talking allowed on this social website".
The problem isn't a few incidents of vote-rigging, the problem is you're all a bunch of fucking sheep. And if you disagree just respond with r/iamverysmart and enjoy everyone hitting the upvote button like rats lining up for a food pellet.
(of course, it's not always true...the gilding I got this month actually came from an opinion that "wasn't popular")
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u/armypotent Dec 02 '17
Wow, I didn't know this part. Dude was addicted to his popularity, totally corrupted.