I’m a Redditor. Some of you have stumbled across me and recognized my writing style, my rhetoric, or my cause in my comments but unless you’re a Redditor you won’t know what I’m talking about.
First, Reddit.com is a user generated content aggregator. The hell doe that mean? It means that users can post content such as images, videos, links to other sources, original text, and even links to different areas of the site itself. Topics range from the benign to the terrifying and, as all communities do, has its share of drama. The community is global and share a certain number of inside jokes like Kyle, the CumBox, /r/theDonald, and your mom. If you don’t understand any of those, that’s ok. It probably because you’re doing something productive with your life.
What I like about Reddit as a social media platform is that, more than any other platform, I can carefully curate my experience. With Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and the like, you can follow certain people or organizations or trending topics, but with Reddit you subscribe to different sub-domains that each have their own vibe. I subscribe to SeattleWA, UpliftingNews, TwoXChromosomes, AdviceAnimals (silly memes), Science, AMA (ask me anything, basically live interviews with interesting people where the interviewer is the community), AskReddit (the inverse of the previous), BestOf, and several other interesting and sometimes highly specific topics such as for my favorite authors or this seriously long form story some guy is writing. It’s a place where I can directly interact with users from all over the world and share information, ideas, and support.
I also like that there is a voting system. As potentially compromised as it is, the voting system generally means that if I sort the comments by ‘top’ the first few pages of replies are generally interesting or quality content. It’s no free-for-all like a news outlet or blog’s commentary. I mean, it is, but poorly written, unhelpful, and outright wrong responses are often buried so you don’t have to waste time on them.
Another thing I enjoy about Reddit is the folks who create novelty accounts. One guy has a duck fetish, another writes only in haiku, /u/poem_for_your_sprog is one of the most talented and prolific poets I have EVER read and shows up all over the place. Another that I get goosebumps from is /u/commentnoir. He writes all his comment responses as if they were ripped from an old times noir novel and they’re actually really, really good. I saved this comment sometime late last year:
“Fresh haircut making me feel like a new man. Long, carefully manicured nails on the back of my scalp. A witchy woman seducing what’s left of my soul. Hide the hard-on; feel it pushing against my jeans. Red rocket ready to paint a Masterpeice the would make Jackson Pollock blush. She’s got full control, and she knows it. Sensation that makes a strong man weak and a rich man buy diamonds.”
I read that and it gave me shivers. It made me want to be the sensation that makes weak men strong and rich men buy diamonds. The musky glamour of Chinatown wafted from the screen and all he was talking about was the scalp massage during a haircut.
Yes, I wrote this entire post, all that background on some website that, if you don’t spend time on it yet, you probably shouldn’t, just so I could share that last phrase with you.
It resonates even more with me now than it did when I first read it. Then, I was still in elastic and flats. Now I ride the world in heels and elegance. Then, the woman I am becoming was a dream. Now, she is my future.