Apprendí en Reddit

Reddit. What a hoot.

“Wait, what? You haven’t checked out Reddit, yet?”

I am a victim of unfamiliarity when it comes to navigating the Reddit world. Too many times have people gasped as I tell them I have never spent some serious time on Reddit. This weekend actually served as an enjoyable introduction into learning about what Reddit is all about. That’s what Reddit is all about though – learning whatever it is you are curious about in a completely casual platform that offers users the ability to communicate safely, and for the most part humanely, in the Reddit environment. The first thing I noticed was how uninformed I was. I didn’t watch the recommended beginner videos, I just jumped right in. It was a bit daunting at first. The layout of Reddit felt a tad disorganized and I felt like I needed a tourist map to find out where it is I wanted to go. The good old “Search” button was my best friend. Learned it on Reddit.

I liked how Reddit automatically subscribes you to some of the more generic subreddits. It allows new users, like me (jnu29), to become increasingly familiarized with the culture and content of the subreddit. I was quite interested in the generic /r/funny subreddit. Filled with random cartoons, jokes, memes, and just some crazy flamboyant stuff, you will be sure to get a laugh at some of the posts in here. Another subreddit I was curious about was /r/todayilearned, which contained some random facts about subjects or events that are occurring in today’s world. Some of the stuff on here was useful and pertinent to everyday life. Did you know Galileo’s middle finger is up for display in a museum in Florence, Italy? Learned it on Reddit.

I could not get over how many subreddits there are. You can literally find out anything you want. Given the time spent on Reddit, I decided to check out subreddits: /r/controversial, /r/creepy, /r/surfing, and /r/fitness. For the most part the posts found within those subreddits were extremely congruent to the title. No questions. As for the language in the comments, I did realize minute details and changes with how some subreddit users spoke to one another. I definitely saw some familiar slang in /r/surfing and got a kick out of some of the vulgarities in /r/funny. Overall, Reddit users seem to be rather tame in comparison to those on 4chan. Although 4chan has some unspoken rules, I noticed that some subreddits have rules that are made by the operator of that subreddit, and they can change too. Learned it on Reddit.

Something else I found to be true was that people’s comments seem to be genuine and just nice in general. Based on past readings regarding areas of Reddit to be misogynistic and crude, I was expecting to run into a lot more of this content. However, nothing stuck out at me that pertained to these criticisms. This may be partly due to the fact I stayed away from subreddits that may have contained more of these controversial topics. For the most part, people seemed sincerely interested in subject matter and wanted to help others out who were asking questions. Learned it on Reddit.

I decided to comment on a post that I found in the main feed. The name of the post is Church and graveyard in the mist and it was posted by user preh1istoric. It’s just a photo showing a church with a graveyard in the foreground. It looks rather creepy with the fog. Funny enough, this photo brought me to /r/creepy. Most of the comments are based around how people feel about the image, or that the church is in the woods of Poland. I had been coming across many articles about abandoned buildings in recent months, so I decided to give my two-cents.

I am currently doing a project of restoring an old 1921 American Manufacturing Co. claw foot tub. So, naturally, I looked in the /r/DIY subreddit to see if there was any material that I could find. I found some very useful pointers and tips & tricks for me to implement into this project. Finding and reading this material was not only very knowledgeable, but it probably helped to save me hours of unnecessary work. I enjoy figuring things out myself, but sometimes this can lead to a time consuming lesson. Learned it on Reddit.

Reddit is a pretty interesting platform. I can definitely feel the communal aspect of educating, learning, and the sharing of information within the space with all of the other users. I think I would like to continue poking around Reddit, but I honestly only see myself using it when I am bored, sick, or doing nothing, which is rarely the case. Maybe the next time I have a big project I want to tackle, I will begin my research here. For the most part, as much as I respect the idea behind Reddit, its users, and the content, I just don’t see myself spending a lot of time on this platform. Learned it on Reddit.