Unpopular Opinion: Reddit is a cancer for society

Posts 1–15 of 32 · Page 1 of 3

I'm starting to think Reddit is a cancer to society and probably related to all these extremist "socialism" movements and division in the world today. I say this strictly from someone who doesn't participate or really even browse Reddit, so I have nothing to gain.

You can find a reddit of like minded people no matter how left wing or right wing extreme their ideology is, and find people who think the same and reinforce your viewpoint or morph it into worse to the point where you actually believe what you're thinking is right. Because face it, each reddit is for finding like minded people. Then you comment your extremist opinion, and get voted up by the hivemind of similar thinkers, and these positive reinforcements give you false hubris and carry over into the real world and that it should be the mainstream view of the world. No one in that reddit is there to counter their bullshit propaganda with facts or common sense, because they'd either be banned or buried, and so you're only given a one sided look at things, full of literally fake news which sways your opinion even further out with more extreme one sided views, which is inline with the ever deteriorating hivemind that slowly becomes more and more extreme and out of touch with reality. Then when you bring it to the real world where you're an extreme minority, everyone thinks you're crazy but no one says anything because it's "crazy" shaming.

I think in a democratic society, it prospers from everyone being intelligent and educated and having well formed thought out opinions. But people aren't, and that spreads discourse through society by finding hive minded clicks, who in reality didn't have a network for reaching vasts amounts of people before the internet. So, if I was a Russian, I'd probably be spreading social discourse in democratic nations through Reddit and other social media. That's why the Russians/Chinese ban and control social media. We're fucked.

All you fuckers are gonna say it's not an unpopular opinion, that's common sense. Fuck you and your 87 pronouns. My post isn't about Reddit, I'm talking about all the issues and discourse in the world today is related to it.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echo_chamber_(media)

So there's a term for it, but when is something going to be done before all the crazies in the world become school shooters?

Full disclosure, I'm an avid user of Reddit and I enjoy it.

.. But I completely agree with you. Even the subreddits that promote a neutral agenda like r/news, r/politics are going to reflect the opinions of the majority and those who have a varying opinion will be, like you said, buried or banned.

I also like to think this applies to all of social media. Facebook has no option (iirc, haven't used in 3-4 years) to down vote a user's post. Those who disagree with your post you can delete them and then eventually your friends list is composed of only people who have similar opinions to you and this translates to everything you've said.

edit: I also want to mention that the reddit administration takes very minimal and slow actions against subreddits that impose their TOS. For example, r/t_d should definitely be banned given what's come out of the news but they made another statement identical to one that they've made every year anytime that the media criticizes Reddit.

Agreed. Once mainstream media caught eye of reddit, it was all over.
Happens to everything the majority touches. Bitcoin, Facebook, YouTube etc etc. I liked it more when the nerds had the majority.

Wait, so you are telling me people often join with the minority for being insecure and lacking the feeling of belonging somewhere?

In our current society (The western culture to be specific), people there refrain from correcting someone/a group's wrong doings or thinking because then it will be a violation of their freedom, so surprise surprise, more and more mentally ill people come up with their ideologies and convince those who are weak to join them.

Back in the day, mentally ill people were put into hospitals, but now; just a bunch of snowflakes afraid to stand for the right.
The internet plays a big factor in this as well. Back then they didn't have a place to anonymously talk about their ideologies.

Originally Posted by Mayion

Wait, so you are telling me people often join with the minority for being insecure and lacking the feeling of belonging somewhere?

You just described 90% of Reddit.

Subreddits like r/TRP (theredpill) is a community of beta males that discuss the 'wrong-doings' of women for not sleeping with them and instead sleeping with 'other males'. They believe that they are being wronged by women. The number one post in the subreddit at this time is why not to date women with mental illness and how to get out of the relationship.

I've found going full beta is the safest method of all for getting out unscathed.

What I'm talking about is all of the negative beta traits such as being clingy, needy, and so on. (there are good beta traits that balance out good alpha traits -- read the Married Man Sex Life Primer for more info).

Just by looking at how this user speaks you can essentially understand how this community is hive minded.

Originally Posted by Psychotic

I haven't visited Reddit before so I have no idea.

But assuming by just what you quoted, they indeed are insecure. I guess the commonly used word nowadays, thot, really comes from males getting rejected and blaming it on bitchy females, and was then made into a joke.

Originally Posted by Mayion

I haven't visited Reddit before so I have no idea.

But assuming by just what you quoted, they indeed are insecure. I guess the commonly used word nowadays, thot, really comes from males getting rejected and blaming it on bitchy females, and was then made into a joke.

According to that last sentence, every single reddit user is insecure about female relations.

Originally Posted by Ahmad

According to that last sentence, every single reddit user is insecure about female relations.

ahaha ahmad sex it

I only recently started using Reddit mainly for two reasons. First one was because the One Piece reddit works as a bootleg site for manga. Second I'm an avid shitposter on a sub reddit dedicated to obscure references in an anime. I've went around a few different sub reddits trolling, which it always seems to get lots of responses on whatever reddit. I don't really do politics on reddit, I just don't find the system they have to be engaging enough to talk about politics. There are a few reddits with shitty bots or mods, but thats why I limit myself to a single reddit or two. The random reddits I've went onto to troll haven't been as bad as some people claim most are.

Anyways, my reddit karma is apparently higher than everyone who's working on a game with me. They ask me to be the one to make a post in /gaming or something then we get all the testers and supporters to go onto that reddit to upvote so we can advertise our game. Sadly I had to explain I am simply a troll on reddit, if someone looked through my reddit history they'd probably arrest me.

Here is a taste of my shitposting abilities. Be warned, this image is not for the faint of heart.

This is a political JoJo reference. Admire it in all it's shitposting glory!

@Predator

i got high upvoted memes on reddit so it's okay

However, the CSN dataset was obtained through an agreement with the American Cancer Society. The Reddit dataset was curated by a Reddit user and ********* through the use of the Reddit interfaces. We use a distributed NoSQL database, which provides high performance in exchange for computational limitations.

That's why you learn to stay off the cancerous subreddits.

Originally Posted by arunforce

You can find a reddit of like minded people no matter how left wing or right wing extreme their ideology is, and find people who think the same and reinforce your viewpoint or morph it into worse to the point where you actually believe what you're thinking is right. Because face it, each reddit is for finding like minded people. Then you comment your extremist opinion, and get voted up by the hivemind of similar thinkers, and these positive reinforcements give you false hubris and carry over into the real world and that it should be the mainstream view of the world. No one in that reddit is there to counter their bullshit propaganda with facts or common sense, because they'd either be banned or buried, and so you're only given a one sided look at things, full of literally fake news which sways your opinion even further out with more extreme one sided views, which is inline with the ever deteriorating hivemind that slowly becomes more and more extreme and out of touch with reality. Then when you bring it to the real world where you're an extreme minority, everyone thinks you're crazy but no one says anything because it's "crazy" shaming.

that works for any social media, especially facebook and that to an even higher extent imo

but not everyone is on reddit to spread their political opinion, but for those who are this definitely fits

Originally Posted by niggo

that works for any social media, especially facebook and that to an even higher extent imo

but not everyone is on reddit to spread their political opinion, but for those who are this definitely fits

My rant isn't tied to politics strictly, see Psychotic's post.

So your main point is that people find places where they can find other people who share the same ideologies and circlejerk each other to affirm their beliefs? This would apply to the entire internet right? Making the entire internet cancerous?

Or maybe the positives outweigh the negatives in regards to the internet thus making it less "cancerous"?, and depending on your point of view the positives could outweigh the negatives on Reddit as well i.e a sense of community, places to share ideas, art, music, songs, or to actually learn about any wide range subject.

I think it's unfair to label Reddit as "cancerous" just as much as it would be to label the internet as such. There are "hiveminds" everywhere, you go to San Francisco and say "Hey man, I think college should be free!" and nobody will say "Hey man, I don't think that would work because of ...", simply because they'd get chastised for anti-liberal views. Same with for example if you went to a southern state and said "I support abortion because of.." , you'd get chastised. Hiveminds are going to be around no matter what, niche opinions or not.

If you want to find a group of people who share the same crazy opinions as you do, it'll happen. Flat-earthers, KKK, the list goes on. Do you think that they were open to discussion on their shared opinions?

"Fake news" is also not Reddit specific either is it? Remember the Central Park Five? People will grab onto Fake news and run with it no matter what, they'll believe whatever the want to believe. The main point you're trying to make is people go on Reddit, share opinions, hive-mind either agrees or disagrees and theres no dissenting opinions.

As I said in the beginning, the problem is that your entire argument could be used for the entire internet, and just like the internet you weigh the pro's and con's to determine if it really is bad for society.