I wonder if an analysis of this and the comment corpus could quantifiably show shifts in the opinions of the Reddit "hivemind" since the start. Has the Reddit userbase turned more conservative over the years, or is that just my impression?
While I agree Reddit 2015 does reflect more of the US mainstream, it is still far from being an actual reflection of popular US opinion. Reddit is far more atheist/libertarian than the US mainstream. And I would argue it is right now far more reactionary/right wing as well. It has become very popular among young white males who have unhealthy attitudes towards women due to the abundance of porn and generally retrograde attitudes towards women of Reddit in general (both the users and the site itself.)
Same goes for its attitudes towards race.
That's a pretty awful accusation to level at ~20 million people. I wonder if you can substantiate that?
When I'm on women-centric subs like /r/askwomen, I frequently see comments that would absolutely get torn apart in most other parts of the site. Not offensive or provocative ones, either. Just normal conversation that would get a slew of "shut up, SJW" anywhere else.
It's off-topic meta noise at best and harmful to the community at worst.
Anyway, I've found that the people who use shorthand insults like "SJW" are typically part of the entrenched majority group of their subculture — and want nothing more than to keep those pesky "outsiders" away from their clubhouse. (Despite the fact that those outsiders had, in fact, been there all along.)
"I don't like how this character was portrayed" is a fine criticism on its own, but behind that is the shadow of "..so what should be done about it?". Absolutely nothing of value lays down that path.
Put another way: Talk of frame rates leads to discussions about optimization. Talks of nonsensical writing leads to discussions of something else they could have done. Talks about portrayal of a "minority" character go straight into "the developers are *ist".
Why does "being part of the conversation" always seem to wind up in "I don't like this, the devs are assholes, it should be changed?"
I view this to be more of a reflection of society as a whole rather than the Reddit community specifically. Subreddits show a marked decrease in quality once they become large. Becoming a default subreddit is, in some ways, a death knell for the community.
Anecdotes are not data.
You sound just like the fundamentalist Evangelicals I grew up with.
That reads as if you intended it as a personal attack. Such comments are not welcome on Hacker News. Please don't post them here.
On reddit circa 2006, everybody had the same views on everything from politics to movies to cats to spiders.
Eventually it acquired a more diverse cross-section of the population. Of course, they've been doing their best over the past few months to crack down on the expression of views they don't like, so I'm not sure what the demographic looks like nowadays and how many people have fled to less censorship-happy pastures.
It's also possible that young people are becoming more conservative overall. Conservatism is looking a lot better ever since the idiocy of the Bush administration got replaced by the idiocy of the Obama administration.
Not that it makes up for the tragic deaths of many big engined classics....
The usual:
• The Arabs will outbreed us! (Before or after the Turks will outbreed us? Or was it the Somalis? I lost track.)
• The refugees will cripple our economy! (153 million EU citizens are on tax-funded pensions or unemployment benefits. Please tell me how a million refugees is going to make a dent in that.)
Europe is doing the wrong thing.