My favorite subreddits are the ones like “boy dinner diaries,” where people are invited to pour their hearts out to strangers online, admit to some mistakes or failures, talk about what’s bothering them, big or small… and then get absolutely raked over the coals by thousands of repetitive comments if they commit even the slightest infraction. God help you if you admit to something like infidelity.
I get that this stuff is triggering for people, but I just don’t see the point in sharing it if the community won’t give you the benefit of the doubt or is just going to use you as a prop for their own white knighting.
My tinfoil hat theory is that Reddit is pushing them to steer trending discussions away from class issues and toward some other kind of manufactured conflict, namely, men vs. women. A lot of the comments on those subs seem a little too contemptuous and rage-baity to not be bots fanning the flames. I think Reddit is still trying to shake its old image as a “counterculture” space and become more of a generic engagement-slop site to be even more ad-friendly. It’s also very convenient that Reddit allows profile history hiding now…