Thursday, March 22, 2012

Day 82: The Culture of Reddit

Today I watched a short documentary about the culture of Reddit. The doc was made by PBS for the Offbook series of web-shorts. The films seem to revolve around the internet and web culture and how it affects art and society.

Reddit is a social news site that allows readers to promote or demote stories and links, thus allowing the public to determine what goes viral and what doesn't. I don't use the site much myself, but my favorite sites (tumblr, the daily what, etc) seem to pull most of their content from Reddit. The site has become more and more famous over the years for its intense fan base and community, for good and for bad.

The documentary only seems to focus on the good. It paints Reddit as a rich, vibrant collection of people built around altruism and creativity. While that is true, there are many kind people on Reddit, and the site is structured in many ways to aid people all over the world, I think the site is used just as much for "evil" as it is for "good". Bullying, pornography, and the crudest of jokes are what makes Reddit famous.

Well at any rate- here is the film. I've watched a few of these Offbook episodes and they've been less than impressive. This one continues the tradition.

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