Is Reddit relevant? Enough for you to sympathize with my want to abstractly understand the culture, at the least. Ideologically, I always thought it’d finally display to the masses the true destructive habits of the democratic construct. Real familiarity hasn’t destroyed my hope, necessarily, but I think a great number of believers would consider democracy to be a fresh idea. You’re damned right, my words are weighted and patronizing; this is an editorial minefield.
In the language of governance, I left my voluntaryism for “decency” (read: moderate liberalism) long ego. For me, dissent is not appropriate or rewarding, but my only genuine political opining is (technically) a bit radical, so there is none, if everything is done correctly.
That said… My argument has been public for years in audio and social media, so here’s as concise ‘a’ rundown as I can muster: If human variety is essential to the progression of the species (I believe it is,) and diversity can be plotted by infinitely many bell-curved (by populace) spectrums (I believe it can,) than majority rule, by nature, works against human progression by averaging power away from the extremities of thought and sentiment.
So, the more average (less contentious) your written content is, the more upvotes it will receive; the more likely it is to be seen. The picture of Reddit I’d had for its whole existence was compiled from secondhand accounts of… trash, really. In my orbit, mention of its name can almost always elicit a scoff or sigh. Often, there have been brief, disgusted abstracts of brash right-ish acts. Yes, we all must make a point of disgust. That silly right; They’re All Goobers.
I feel you. I am a straight white man, writing about Reddit on my own website. Christ. I am (technically) blogging about Reddit. And using “I feel you.”
But, if I am any sort of resource to you, I have an important discovery to share.
First, you need to know: the vast majority of poetry is not good. Contemporary and clerical; ancient and edgy… most works you’ll encounter are relatively worthless.
What is “not good?” Very little, actually. There are only two criteria I could possibly judge such a liberated medium:
Tumblr - the most superficial platform of sharing poetry by far - is the number one place to find a whole bunch of bullshit (by these standards of measure, anyway.)
“There are times I want to hate you. The feeling is there, bottled up inside of me, but whenever I try to direct it at you, it fizzles out. I hate that you don’t love me. I hate that this is impossible. I hate that you’ll never know and that you can hurt me without even trying. But I don’t hate you. I only know how to love you. And god I love you.”
While this piece may in fact contain truth, its bombardment of cliché prevents me from being able to see it. Not that it is inherently less worthwhile than ANYTHING else; it is simply not effective verse.
Ugh. It’s very difficult to say such a thing. I write this sort of stuff, by the way. I just don’t consider it useful. Here’s one more:
“I love you so much and I don’t tell you enough Just how much I want to spend forever with you You don’t know how much I miss you Or how tight my chest gets when I realize I won’t see you for days And my nights will be spent lying awake Dreaming of a life with you While my days passed ever so slowly I look for you in everyone Writing poems about our love Call me sappy or lovesick if you like But all I know is that I haven’t found the color of your hazel eyes anywhere else”
I can almost feel you, in the sense that I can almost feel empathy for ill-developed characters involved in a recited romantic habit for a cheap movie.
The crux: Tumblr poets are infants. Big surprise. If I’d been given a voice at 14, the results would’ve been exceptionally vague. Trash.
It’s a relief to know that the very young who are compelled to write for an audience can do so anonymously (relatively.)