So I checked out reddit after a long time and was going through the top of r/videogames subreddit and I could clearly see a pattern in most of the posts there. Posts were mostly like “what game ______ for you?” or “what game _____ like this?” Now I could be wrong but it doesn’t feel ‘organic’ (if that’s correct way to put it). It’s like these are put up intentionally. Thoughts?
These are engagement farming posts. Both reddit and Twitter are full of them, because both sites are now offering money to accounts whose posts get lots of upvotes/comments.
It feels gross and inauthentic.
Some of them read like content farming posts-get a bunch of people to talk about a given topic with a specific direction, then “write” an article that is basically “video games are crazy, aren’t they? Here’s some really crazy video game stories!
[five word intro] [full text of a Reddit comment] [repeat ad nauseam]”
Something similar happened to Quora when they started offering to pay people just to produce questions, not good questions, not answers, just questions. Quora was already kinda tenuous and growing its tolerance for fascists, but that move dropped a cinder block on the enshittification gas pedal. Quota’s basically been completely unusable since then and it’s only gotten worse.
Edit: wrote Quota instead of Quora, but I like the typo’s energy, so I’m leaving it.
Weren’t there at least rumors during the protests that reddit is actively looking for engagement posters? Ever since then discussions seem partly artificial (or maybe it just coincides with the rise of AI garbage).
Yup, I remember this. It wasn’t a rumor. Spez wanted to “drive more engagement” shortly after the exodus. He then downplayed it like it wasn’t a big deal but he clearly felt the sting. I don’t think anyone even put two and two together about that at the time. I sure as hell didn’t at first. Looking back, though…
I don’t even know how much of a role the monetary aspect has. I feel like a lot of Reddit is naturally gross and inauthentic but also soulless and elitist in a way. People still post content because they want the Reddit karma and rehash the same prompts that gives the same predictable answers that seem to appease the crowd. Other times when things are reposted comments will act harshly and and redirect them to a post or wiki from years ago.
Reddit, to me, seems to lack genuine human interactions.
This would check out. Perhaps significantly more users left because of their bullshit than they want the public knowing. Could explain a lot actually.
Next question is whether they actually care or are just happy that the bots can now produce clicks without all that pesky moderation and interaction with actual humans.
Brother, I vote the latter. Reddit has time and time again proved they hate their users and only want engagement. The rampant mod abuse, the admins that shrug it off, the way they killed 3rd parties, hell, how spez the ped talked about the people protesting, he doesn’t give a fuck at all, and neither does anyone else in a position of power.
You are right to feel weird. It’s gotten progressively worse over the years, but it’s essentially just a website full of bots and karmafarming accounts. They contribute absolutely nothing except gaining reddit clicks and comments.
Dead Internet Theory at work.
The internet has a grim future and it doesn’t involve you and I interacting if they get their way.
That part of the Internet can die and rot…
Ah, I think “this” part is also included in ded internet theory
It’s all bots, reposts, and corps trying to use the system to drive engagement towards their shit products/websites/services. The comments are worse. jokes, memes, SJWs, and random proselytizations on the most banal shit you’ve ever ignored. Every time I’m on Reddit it just feels like dead internet.
Reddit isn’t the only place this is happening.
Nice to know there are other monkeys on this planet that can open their fucking eyes.
Anyone notice the amount of memes used as free advertising? Disney has been doing it for a while, and crushed it with the mini Yoda in that shit TV show.
Fuck Disney.
I’m 100% sure Baby Yoda was specifically created to sell merchandise.
The original Star Wars would never have specifically created a character just to sell merchandise…
Space balls the lunch box!
I don’t know, I feel like advertisements CAN be entertaining content, much like how people for decades have only wanted to watch the Super Bowl for the commercials. The problem, and the reason I have ad blockers all over the place, is that they don’t design the commercials to be entertaining. They want to drill it in to you with endless repetition, or banner ads every 2 paragraphs on a news article.
It is these problems that cause me to want to block ads, not ads in general.
I really liked mini Yoda. I don’t get why you hate Disney so much.
So much great content. Really is the golden age of television now that the companies like Disney and Netflix are all trying to compete with each other.
I always enjoying pirating their shows and movies.
They deleted the Expanded Universe as canon so they could bastardize what was left.
Nothing star wars related since disney bought out lucasarts has been worth spending any time on.
I cant wait for them to fuck up KOTOR like they did with the og battlefront.
The expanded universe never was canon though. At least not movie-level canon. That means it’s still just as much canon as it used to be. If you haven’t, give Andor a try. That show is genius.
When it’s obvious its so funny and then depressing. Hanging out in r/marvel is a good example.
Then there is other subs and online places like those r/AITHA and relationship advice places where mods or someone is generating content multiple times a day that people will call out as being made up but still engage with.
Its too bad culture jamming fizzled out because we could all really fuck with this stuff if we organized a bit. Its why I lover sub reddits like r/fighterandthekid and r/joerogan or r/opieandanthony because how they turned on the product they were trying to sell. It took a handful of random people producing legit funny content to steam roll the advertisers. A couple guys with free time can super fuck these companies if they organized. They have to get paid we don’t.
/r/AITA doesn’t even hide their karma farming bullshit. 95% of that dogshit is like “Hey guys, I kissed my boyfriend and made him a five course meal. Then I rubbed his feet and bought him 5 ps5s to let him know I love him. Today, he ruthlessly beat the shit out of me, hit me with his car, punched me in the throat and then shit on my face. I refused to be treated like this, so I left him. He’s now begging for me to come back, and I feel bad. AITA for leaving him over this?” And then karma flows like gold in El dorado.
Its been weird for a few years now ever since they started shutting down the more triggery subs and those folks were left to spread out into the general population
You are not the only one noticing it. Probably trying to maximize the user provided content they can sell to language model creators
Fluent-in-finance sub has the same problem. Every day, it’s a twitter screenshot of some politician statement and the title is always an engagement question like “Is punitive wealth tax gay?” that makes it to /all
You can blame bots, but having also worked as a soul crushing social media manager for a few months, you make shit like this to get karma (or on other media, interactions.) Humans deserve some blame!
That said the greatest irony is a toooon of the votes and comments are also bots and/or shills. The weirdest thing I found success on with Twitter, for instance, was wishing people a good morning, using a company account. Weirdly drove profile traffic and follows. >.>
The couple of times I snooped in on Reddit to see how it was going, Top Day felt like going through some TikTok/Instagram Story clone.
Honestly I think you just fell out the meme train and now you’re looking at it as an outsider.
There’s a subtle difference between somebody (as in, an actual human poster) posting a meme and an army of accounts named John13452958 or the like posting basically the same question with a different meme in each post a thousand times nonstop.
It’s because of bots, in the past there was enough moderation to deal with them plus a larger amount of natural engagement.
Now after the exodus there is significantly less real engagement and much poorer moderation. Those combined allow bots and low effort posting to thrive.
the Facebookification of Reddit. bots are raking in engagement so they can astroturf as “legitimate” accounts later.
The GenX sub is the same now. It’s just a bunch of questions now like “what’s your favorite song from the 80’s?”. It used to be a sub with substance and now it’s lame.
from the '80s*
