this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2023
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Hey so I'm gonna drop a take that's not going to win me any friends. But I'm one of those people who had a reddit account for 14 years. Before that I browsed Digg and Fark and before that there wasn't much except niche forums for the things you like, and you had to come across them. I've watched the internet change since I went online in 98. Disregard that if you like, but I just want to make it clear where I'm coming from.
This is Reddit. Now. It always has been. We didn't used to call it Reddit. We used to call it Digg. "The world wide web." It's not a discrete state of mind. It's not a single company. It's all of us. It's who's on the internet. It's not the tech we use or the corporate goons we swear fealty to (or don't). All of this... interaction... is just one continuous human conversation/argument/experience. You can't shut it out by changing venue. We've already carried Reddit over here. Just like we carried Digg to Reddit. And each iteration, we change it. We mold it. We bend it to our changing habits, desires, and thoughts.
I don't talk in memes. I'm forty-four years old and I fucking hate this "isn't that relatable" subculture that is obsessed with finding the nichiest niche that ever niched but like man, I get it. It's about feeling understood. It's about knowing that someone out there gets you. Before image macros you just argued and flamed and that's just the evolution of the internet. The evolution of this grand conversation we're trying to have. It's not better or worse it's just different and it's always changing. I'm an Old on the web and I promise you some day Reddit will be a distant memory for everyone here just like Digg and flame wars and YTMND.
But for now, chill. It's a transition period. You can't stem the tide of change. You can do what I do, and just block those fucking meme groups and get on with finding shit you like or you can try to beg the internet to change for you. But I'm telling you, trying to ask people not to use the R word isn't gonna get much traction right now.
I love this take on things. Reddit and the rest were the infrastructure to let people of like and differing minds have some sort of interaction. Even before the internet there were the clusters of local BBSes, then Usenet and forums. It's the evolution of the internet as a community. I will suggest that currently that community is sicker than it has been, even as it is more connected. Perhaps the various Big Social Media entities needed to stumble and give us a chance to think about better ways of doing what we've been doing since the beginnings.
I will agree with OP solely on the idea that some discussions maybe shouldn't bleed into other areas where it sidetracks other subjects. There's plenty of devoted communities now to the subject of Reddit as well as Twitter where people are looking for that.
Then again...one of Reddit's great assets even when it was annoying was the sidetracked comment chains. I suppose given the lower content here so far (but growing!) a sidetrack is a lot more obvious and feels like it's "all we talk about here".