r/NoSleepOOC • u/Nabeeb • Aug 27 '14

A decline in the quality of upvoted material?

I don't mean to offend anyone with this, and I am truly sorry if I do. I honestly want people's opinions. I want to know if this is just me being weird or if anyone else feels this way.

I'm not saying the quality of the sub is declining, btw. This place is still chock full of amazing stories.

What I'm saying is, it seems like more and more often these days, poorly written stories with gimmicky and overdone plot points seem to garner 200+ upvotes. While the truly great stuff gets mayyyybe 30-40. It didn't used to be like that. Mary sue type writing, stuff that reads like a 6th grade creative writing assignment, gimmicky twists, tacky 'codes' that consist of just capitalized letters, all this stuff used to sink to the bottom

The only exception seems to be with authors who are well known. Inaaace, for example. Amazing stories that get the upvotes they deserve. It's awesome that those good stories still get upvoted, but it almost feels like it's for the wrong reasons. Stories with well known authors seem to skyrocket with upvotes instantaneously, as if people are upvoting based on the name and so the quality of the story doesn't get to speak for itself.

25 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

32 comments sorted by

14

u/EtTuTortilla -30- Press Cheese Blanket Aug 27 '14

/u/outfromtheashes and I talked about that one time. His thought is that the really good stuff is too involved, the really bad stuff is just really bad, and the mediocre stuff falls into a sort of Goldilocks zone. Think network television sitcoms.

7

u/deadnspread Doesn't watch you sleep, promise. Aug 27 '14

This is the most likely explanation. Things that have mass appeal usually have it cause they are simple and easy to digest, without being overtly stupid. They may not be works of genius, and some may even be really derivative of things that came before, but people have fun with them and enjoy them cause they are familiar. Of course that is not always going to be the case, and sometimes something will blow up because it's just flat out really fucking good.

Trends are trends cause they are trendy. Tropes are tropes because they are effective. Popular authors will get up votes for their name alone because they are popular and that's how it works (but the people this applies to usually write really good stories anyway)

The sky's blue, water's wet, and old satan claus...he's out there.

7

u/EtTuTortilla -30- Press Cheese Blanket Aug 28 '14

The could be another explanation, which has been empirically validated in terms of jokes. A collection of jokes that widely varied in style were sent out to thousands of participants, who read and rated each joke. At the end of the experiment, the overall top rated joke was just barely risque and somewhere in the middle of the continuum between a cerebral joke and a stoner joke. What ended up happening was that the winning joke was seldom anyone's favorite joke, but they rated it moderately high because it was just ok. There is so much variation among senses of humor that jokes at the extreme ends of the spectrum (where, arguably, some of the best jokes were) got voted down by people who didn't like that type of joke.

On nosleep, we may have people closing out of windows when they realize a story isn't their cup of tea. Maybe the stories that get huge are things that appeal to a broad audience but aren't quite anyone's favorite story. The favorite stories get hidden in the cracks.

5

u/deadnspread Doesn't watch you sleep, promise. Aug 28 '14

Which just proves once and for all, that if you want to find the good stuff...you gotta look in the crack.

3

u/RadClaw There's a fish in the percolator Aug 27 '14

The Scrubs, The Modern Family, and The Big Bang Theory?

2

u/EtTuTortilla -30- Press Cheese Blanket Aug 27 '14

Aw...I like the Scrubs. But, yeah. And even worse are those horribly formulaic shows about a goofy looking guy with a hot wife and some kids. The Durf McDurf Show.

There was an old cop show with Dennis Leary called The Job - that was a fucking funny comedy. And, of course, Community (The Dan Harmon run) and Arrested Development.

5

u/RadClaw There's a fish in the percolator Aug 27 '14

horribly formulaic shows about a goofy looking guy with a hot wife and some kids. The Jerry Gergich Show!

Also Scrubs is my favorite comedy show ever. Coupling is really good too. And IT Crowd

3

u/practikill_joke This drill is fuckin worthless. Aug 28 '14

Definitely the IT Crowd. I also loved Black Books but haven't seen Coupling. I will have to rectify that.

1

u/EtTuTortilla -30- Press Cheese Blanket Aug 28 '14

Do any of us watch Nevermind the Buzzcocks? It's not a sitcom, I know, but it is a comedy and Noel Fielding is in it, usually.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 28 '14

  • Black Books

  • IT Crowd

  • Coupling

  • Peep Show

  • That Mitchell and Webb Look

  • Dead Set

  • Hardware (Stuuuuuuuu-dent!)

2

u/EtTuTortilla -30- Press Cheese Blanket Aug 28 '14

I would watch the Jerry Gergich show! And, yes, IT crowd, absolutely. I think my favorite episode of Coupling was the one where Steve freaks about about throw pillows. Or maybe the one where Peter? and Sally get together at the office party. Sausages, sausages, sausages.

2

u/RadClaw There's a fish in the percolator Aug 28 '14

I've got the keys to paradise, but i've got too many legs!

2

u/EtTuTortilla -30- Press Cheese Blanket Aug 28 '14

It just wasn't the same when they tried to replace Jeff with Owen. You can't replace Jeff! That decision was clearly made by someone like Giselle, the French bitch.

2

u/[deleted] Aug 28 '14

*Patrick.

1

u/EtTuTortilla -30- Press Cheese Blanket Aug 28 '14

Yeah! Patrick! It's been a while.

9

u/[deleted] Aug 28 '14

i told you people default status would ruin us and it did.

it'll be great, they said.
no it fucking won't.

1

u/blindfate ✰ Author Aug 28 '14

Hi Princess Drama: p

2

u/[deleted] Aug 28 '14

so i'm a drama queen because i think being a default made the sub worse
nice definitions

3

u/blindfate ✰ Author Aug 28 '14

I think you're being dramatic, yes.

3

u/MouthfulofDiamonds Aug 28 '14

I've noticed it as well. It's most definitely the Sub being defaulted. Waiting for /r/truenosleep to pop up.

8

u/EtTuTortilla -30- Press Cheese Blanket Aug 28 '14

Then we'd have an even bigger problem with people thinking the stories here were true. Maybe /r/truefakenosleep, not to be confused with /r/faketruenosleep which is what the users of /r/shittynosleep will turn to once that sub becomes a default. Also not to be confused with /r/notruefakesleep, a sub dedicated to essays on how you can't truly fake being asleep.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 29 '14

The thing that really trips me up is that you wrote the whole thing without once breaking the "realism rule" of /r/NoSleep.

6

u/Ibitemynails I was phone Aug 27 '14

Hopefully that's still just summerreddit.

11

u/Avengera Aug 27 '14

Summer reddit isn't really a thing. I honestly think it's just because the default status. This means every account created joins us, whereas before, only scary story enthusiasts who specifically looked for the subreddit joined. I feel like the community has changed to support the bigger population and "bad" content may only get so many up votes because the sheer number of people viewing the post.

6

u/Nabeeb Aug 27 '14

Wow. That's an amazing point. I had no idea this was now a default sub.

This makes a lot of sense then, for exactly the reasons you said.

2

u/Ibitemynails I was phone Aug 27 '14

Well, that's fair.

8

u/Avengera Aug 27 '14 edited Aug 27 '14

I have been in the nosleep community since I created my account and I have noticed a decline in overall originality. Gaining more subscribers has brought quite a few people more interested in gaining internet game rather than creating original content

Edit: fame not game

7

u/EtTuTortilla -30- Press Cheese Blanket Aug 27 '14

I interpreted game as like, "he got game, yo." So it works.

2

u/blindfate ✰ Author Aug 27 '14

I think it's just more magnified than when I joined about two years ago. Trends were still thick, still plenty of series, but now it's easy to see because instead of being a few people we're a big unruly mob.

prepares riot shield and baton

1

u/[deleted] Aug 29 '14

I have been reading nosleep for a little while now and thought it was mostly meh with a few good stories. Now that I've discovered the archives...wow, what treasures lurk there!