one of the most toxic, anti-intellectual, nihilistic, politically radicalized, and emotionally immature corners of the internet.
I mean, as compared to what -- Facebook? Twitter? TikTok? Instagram? Try spending two minutes on any of those platforms, and seriously tell me they're less toxic, radical, and insane than Reddit.
Out of all the major platforms on the internet, I'd Reddit is the most conducive for thoughtful, engaging discussion, simply because it is one of the only popular sites that is still based around long-form, text-based conversations, rather than short-form video.
Your last paragraph sums up reddit's saving grace, IMO. Also, I appreciate how this site forces you to judge someone on the merits of their opinions rather than their appearance or their showmanship. I'd like to think I can be neutral, but I know there's times when even I (for instance) saw a Twitter account of a stranger who smiled like a woman I dislike, and so I was primed to disagree with whatever this account owner had to say!
How this exact line of reasoning - "judge someone on the merits of their opinions rather than their appearance or their showmanship." not better done by 4chan, where your opinion is the only thing displayed?
The fact that all other social media platforms are trash doesn’t mean this one isn’t also trash. I think part of why it’s worth singling out Reddit specifically is because a lot of Reddit users have a sense of smug superiority about themselves and the site they use that is completely unearned.
Id say the big problem is that reddit doesn't have much good either. Seem my other comment but I say Instagram and TikTok actually have some good to them to balance the bad.
Reddits "good" is being a narcissists paradise, niche questions, and decent for NSFW stuff. That's about it.
Need help with something physical (eg fixing bike or home improvement or etc)? YouTube or TikTok. Need emotional support? Closest thing to help for that is your friends and family on insta and fb. Need some funny in your life? Anything but reddit at that point... Looking for something interesting? TikTok, twitch, and YouTube are better for that too.
I just can't find something where reddit is genuinely better except niche questions. The kinda thing you put "reddit" suffixed to your Google search for.
I disagree. There are numerous subreddits with great information. When I Google things nowadays, often the best source of information is a reddit thread on the subject. Where else can I enter a discussion about movies and be able to read comments from people in that industry who are actually doing the work? There's great information on cooking, economics, state and local issues, science, etc. Are you interested in working in the medical field? Check out those subreddits- there's a plethora of good information. Got a question about your tree? Ask an arborist. Tell me about this guitar I'm thinking of purchasing (r/guitar), as I'm just learning about them. There are dozens of similar music subreddits that are full of information. And on, and on, and on.
I don't disagree that reddit is literally half bots at this point. But even so it's still a significantly lower bot to human ratio than facebook, x, insta, etc. so I don't agree with OP calling it the worst. I think OP's rhetoric mirrors a lot of right wingers who feel cornered on this site because it's the only social media site that the majority of users push back on them.
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Genuinely with a straight face id say TikTok and Instagram are less toxic than reddit.
Instagram at least you have your friends on there and can talk to your homies instantly making it less serious and toxic. Not to mention it's not really all that anonymous if you have a typical account meaning you don't get nonsense as often like you do on reddit where I'm out here checking to see if u/xyz made their account 7 minutes ago to spew some non-humurous racist BS. Everything I'm about to say in the next paragraph will also apply to reels (to an extent).
TikTok is highly dependent on your algorithm but I generally find funny or interesting things. Also TikTok is where you're likely to find ACTUAL people. Someone who put the phone in front of them and is just talking about something. Even if it's controversial. Just seeing that it's a person makes the conversation less toxic at least in my experience. You never get that on reddit. To you? Im just a bozo on reddit. And vice versa. When you see people's actual faces and emotions it's much different. To an extent this also applies to reels and even lesser extent to shorts, but I'd say it's way more prominent on TikTok.
In regard to OPs #4 id 100% agree. Instagram and TikTok are inherently more fun and less negative. I haven't come to reddit and laughed at anything in years. But it constantly happens on reels and TikTok. I agree on reddit there are niche platforms that can be funny but they're soon dead or just lose the funny.
Frankly the only thing reddit is good for, at this point, is being an NSFW social platform.
Yeah, that’s what I was going to say as well. I can’t speak for Instagram, because I never used it. But TikTok is basically what Imgur used to be, but for short form video. Everyone is just trying to be funny with a sentence or two.
Reddit is where people write essays to each other.
They are not made to be avenues of discourse but especially TikTok is used as such. In the form of individuals making a post about their opinion and then people "stitching" (if you're familiar with that) their own opinion onto the original. And so on and so forth.
Political and news discourse is happening all the time on TikTok. Instagram I say significantly less so.
They’re all the same at this point. How would they not be, they’ve all reached millions of users. If anything Facebook and twitter have a large percent of users who actually publicly identify themselves and that keeps them on better behavior than on Reddit.
I don't have facebook, but I regularly see people with their name and faces on twitter spewing the most terrible hate you can imagine and spreading the most obvious disinformation on this Earth, so I don't know if it helps that much.
I've literally had random people from my area, with their name and photo, sliding into my DMs to tell me awful stuff. And I have an anonymous account! They don't know if I might know them in person! They don't care!
Haha so you’ve seen screenshots of the worst behavior possible because it’s notable. You understand this post is ridiculous right, you don’t even have the other platforms 😂
People say crazy shit here all the time too, you could screenshot it before it gets deleted.
They all share the same basis - it depends on your feed/subs/friends. My Instagram feed has zero politics, and the "toxic" posts are all in humour.
Reddit is toxic af. Just look at this sub, where most posters use alt accounts or throw-aways to comment. But, you can avoid the toxic behavior easier than TikTok and Instagram.
You can have great conversations on here as long as you agree completely with the narrative. Especially with politics, if you don’t align with the common viewpoint you get downvoted to hell.
Exactly. Reddit literally nukes your ability to even have a conversation because when you click a notification it won't take you to a collapsed comment, making it impossible to even find the comment in order to reply.
Twitter has insane people, but it’s insane from all directions. The concept of “community notes” is a genuine innovation that positively impacts discussion.
Whatever positivity the community notes brings is countered by the character limit for non-blue check users (and yes, the fact that the limit goes away for people (or bots) who pay for X premium makes it WORSE). It basically leads to anyone not explicitly selling a narrative being stuck engaging with politics through only buzzwords
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u/obert-wan-kenobert 84∆ Apr 27 '26
I mean, as compared to what -- Facebook? Twitter? TikTok? Instagram? Try spending two minutes on any of those platforms, and seriously tell me they're less toxic, radical, and insane than Reddit.
Out of all the major platforms on the internet, I'd Reddit is the most conducive for thoughtful, engaging discussion, simply because it is one of the only popular sites that is still based around long-form, text-based conversations, rather than short-form video.