As for the LGBT flags, I don't view those as political but rather as communities within reddit that together make up a large userbase who were committed to protecting each other's art and flags.
What is this if not politics? Politics isn't a dirty word you know...
In the sense of /r/place and their arrangements: that is politics, or more so rather diplomacy. They have common grounds and worked together, that's all.
My meetup dedicated to showing off old hardware is not political. If I tried to force a tax on everyone through a referendum to support my group, then I've made it political.
Can you be absolutely sure? How do you decide who shows and tells today? Who is the meetup "leader", and how did they get that position? What do you do about that old software meetup that always meets across the hall from you at the same time and steals your donuts and coffee? Almost anything groups of people do entails politics, without necessarily even going to the obvious case of forcible taxes.
Besides we were talking about staking out pixels on a limited canvas, which is a zero sum game, involves other groups and the need to consolidate efforts, a decidedly political affair.
I am having trouble understanding why you think this. Care to explain why?