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Comment by ebbv | Hacker News Reader

> Reddit 2006 would not reflect mainstream US values and opinions, Reddit 2015 would be much closer.

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.

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generally retrograde attitudes towards women of Reddit in general

That's a pretty awful accusation to level at ~20 million people. I wonder if you can substantiate that?

I think anyone who reads the default subs can corroborate the rampant sexism and racism.

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.

Considering not all of the user base comments and that of those who do, not all of them are misogynistic, imputing the opinions of a vocal minority to the whole community isn't really fair.

Sure, but every community has a set of norms. You get a sense of what's not OK to say if you've been around for a while. On Reddit, I can immediately tell when going from a default sub to a nicer, more inclusive sub, because I see comments that would get absolutely eviscerated in the defaults used in regular conversation with no apparent controversy, pile-ons, or swearing. Sure, most people on Reddit probably aren't racist or misogynistic, but the community can still feel that way.

I think that the best way to describe Reddit with regard to misogyny, racism, and other forms of bigotry is that Reddit is not a safe place for everybody. If you don't curate your subreddits well, you'll probably end up trudging through a lot of awful comments and/or submissions.

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.

By definition the people who don't comment don't contribute to the opinions on the site, so your argument that they are nice people really doesn't matter, even if it were true.

If you go to the comment section of any major site you'll find racism and misogyny. Saying Redditors support misogyny because there are misogynistic comments there is like saying New York Times readers do the same, because they also have misogynistic comments on their site.

That last comment is not necessarily anything-ist. Someone who reads a community centralized around the finder points of, say, raising kittens, probably doesn't desire social politics and its associated toxicity injected. (Imagine this conversation we're having here, right now, in the middle of your favorite place to relax, and talk to people, except a lot less civil, and that's before the meta communities find it and invade, and even if you avoid it entirely, everyone involved gets hacked off at each other because the very nature of the topic is divisive)

It's off-topic meta noise at best and harmful to the community at worst.

Well, the fact of the matter is, most Reddit communities are dominated by male voices. So the "social politics" often aren't artificial incursions into the discussion, but underrepresented groups just trying to be part of the conversation. For example, there was recently some controversy about the portrayal of a female character in Metal Gear Solid V. It's not good when a woman says "I don't like how this character was portrayed" and everyone else pipes in with "lol SJW feminist". It's just a shitty, shitty atmosphere. In contrast, I've found that in communities with a more equal gender split, benefit of the doubt is far more freely given, and some great discussions about potentially touchy topics happen as a result.

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.)

Personally, I'd love to know what communities those are. I've yet to find any one that would take that comment you just used as an example (or its converse) and allow anyone else to disagree with it freely. (And when I say freely, I mean without namecalling, without mass downvotes, without banning dissent, without any of the other community-forcing-its-will-on-the-minority-opinion garbage that follows those discussions 99% of the time in my experience)

"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?"

Are you kidding me? Have you ever read any comments or half the submissions on the site? Or seen tons of popular subs like Mens Rights and shit?

Popular is a pretty relative term. MensRights has ~120K subscribers, while TwoXChromosomes has ~3.4 million. The latter is a lot more indicative of what the site "likes" than the former.

Anecdotes are not data.

> young white males who have unhealthy attitudes towards women due to the abundance of porn

You sound just like the fundamentalist Evangelicals I grew up with.

> 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.

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