Argumentative Essay On Reddit

Jacob McClay

Marissa Pulice

English 1510

25 March 2014

Project 3 Draft #1

Odds, every citizen of every developed nation has used the internet has least once in their lifetime. How the internet is used varies by individual and there is no truly right nor wrong way of using it. Some use it only for the basics or the essentials (like email, the news, or academic work, for example), some use it as a hub of social interaction with outlets such as Facebook and Twitter, and a few even use it for matters of questionable legality. There are also people who “live” within the internet, full fulling many non-essential but still important needs online. By “live,” I am not talking about people who never leave their homes and surf the internet all day long (more on this later) but rather fully functional members of society who thrive socially within the internet instead of face-to-face in the outside world. A significant catalyst for these people is Reddit, one of the largest internet forums in the world. In this study, the focus will be on the community and interactions of Reddit users.

The Methods

Researching the community of Reddit proved to be surprisingly and disappointingly challenging. The community itself is abysmally easy to access, as anyone with any form of PC/tablet/smart phone and a basic internet connection can do so, but to actually get any information from specific members of the community was problematic. A major issue stems from the “casual” nature of Reddit itself; the site is not well-suited for professional inquiries. Reddit does have a system for sending private messages (hereby referred to as a “PM” for short) between members but this system does not work like, for example, email. As PMs are intended only for short messa...

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...s is the fact that their audience, the young and tech-savvy Gen Y demographic that Reddit aims for, serves as an excellent case-study of Reddit users as a whole. Additionally, recent surveys put out by the group’s leaders reveal a great deal of information about their audience, which helps increase understanding as to how the audience interacts with themselves as well as higher authority figures.

Speaking of authority figures, one construct lacking within Reddit is a clear hierarchical social structure. Yes, there are mods who act as the “police force” of a subreddit but within the audience, there is little social stratification. Some structure is formed by users who repeatedly post within the subreddit and whose name is remembered but this is the exception, not the rule. What this creates is a more open environment where any user, regardless of experience, can