Devin Conboy

Mr. Benjamin Dudley

English 112
12 March 2015
The Front Page of the Internet
For over a year now, I have frequented a website daily. This
website has since become a part of my daily routine. In fact, I check
this website more than I do my email, or Facebook, or any other
website out there. This website is known as Reddit. What is reddit? Its
a massive web community that is accessed daily all over the world. It
is so massive, over 174 unique visitors access reddit each month.
Those visitors come from over 186 different countries. Since its
inception in 2005, there are over 3.2 million user accounts registered.
Sure, its extremely popular, but what exactly is reddit, and why did I
choose to study it?
Reddits slogan is The front page of the internet. What does
that exactly mean? Honestly, to really gain a full understanding of what
reddit really is, you would have to visit the page yourself. Basically,
reddit is a massive web community, home of several subreddits, or
other smaller communities. These subreddits are unique in the fact
that there could be a subreddit on anything, no matter how massive or
insignificant it is. For example, some notable subreddits are:
/r/gaming, where the followers of the gaming subreddits share

articles about and discuss console and PC based videogames,

/r/AskReddit, where users post questions about anything to the ask
reddit community, where others answer them, often sharing their
stories and personal experiences with them, /r/protectandserve, a
subreddit where the worlds law enforcement congregate and discuss
their job, or share stories, or debate current events concerning
policing, and /r/relationships, where people around the world seek
advice about troubling issues in their relationships and family lives,
and other subscribers comment and give advice to those that posted
who are in need. For the purpose of this ethnography, I will be
discussing these four subreddits.
Reddit is unique from other websites in the sense where, while
other websites or common message boards contain a team of
moderators and administrators that police the entire message board or
website, reddit leaves the policing to the creators and moderators of
each specific subreddit. For example, a website like imdb.com, a movie
based website, has several message boards that cover each and every
movie, where users can discuss each movie independently on the
movies respective board. If an issue arises, an imdb user can flag a
moderator, and that moderator has powers over every single message
board on that imdb website. Reddit is different. If a subscriber of the
gaming subreddit has an issue, they can file a report to a moderator
of that specific subreddit. That moderator of that specific subreddit

essentially only has domain over the subreddit he controls. This means
that, unlike a website like imdb, where a moderator has free reign over
the entire website, a moderator in reddit only has powers in his specific
subreddit, while he is just a regular user on any other sub. This is
essentially like multiple police departments in a state, with their own
jurisdiction; a police from one jurisdiction has no powers in anothers
jurisdiction.
What this means, is that unlike most websites, where they have
a set of Terms of Service that stretch across the entire website, each
subreddit can lay out and enforce their own rules. A subreddit like ask
reddit has a specific rule where only questions can be asked; any
pictures or links submitted will simply be deleted, and the user will be
warned and reminded to read the subreddits rules. Another subreddit
may contain nothing but pictures, and wont allow any text based or
link based posts. These rules and their own willingness to enforce them
make reddit a very unique community.
Unfortunately, this freedom isnt exactly the best thing. There
are very controversial reddit communities that are allowed to thrive.
While protect and serve is a community full of law enforcement,
other communities exist that are against the police, like am I free to
go, a community where videos showing police brutality and citizens
violations of their constitutional rights by the police are posted and
shared. Other subreddits against the police are often crude and vulgar

in nature. Fortunately, these violent and controversial subreddits are

often shunned from the rest of the reddit community.
Ive lurked these subreddits for almost a year, and Ive made
some observations about the way they interact with each other, as well
as the rest of the community, along with how they enforce their selfcreated rules. Some subreddits are very strict in the way they operate
and enforce rules. If someone arrives, and posts harassing comments
or images on the subreddit, then the moderators will most likely ban
the users account from accessing and posting to that subreddit.
Communities such as /r/relationships have a low tolerance for
harassment and off topic remarks and posts. If users repeatedly violate
the subreddits rules, theyll be banned. However, other subreddits, like
/r/protectandserve, are more liberal in the way they enforce their
rules.
At its core, the subscribers of /r/protectandserve work in a very
controversial occupation, with them being police officers. More often
than not, they are often brigaded by other communities. Brigading is
essentially when another community raids, or visits another
subreddit or website, and they harass and spam that message board or
site. While some communities take an aggressive stance to combat
brigading, the moderators of /r/protectandserve take a lax stance
against it. Instead of blocking or banning anyone that speaks out
against them or their occupation, they would rather actively discuss or

even debate those that visit to harass and disrupt. Rather than censor
their users and visitors, they would rather positively engage with them.
This has resulted in their subreddit has having a respectable
reputation, and often one that changes other peoples views on them
and their occupation.

1. The organization of your paper was good. However, in the beginning,

you said you were going to discuss each of the four examples of
subreddits you gave. In the paper, I only saw one or two of the
subreddits being discussed. Try to add more on the other subreddits.
2. I would like to hear more about specifically referenced examples from
reddit itself. I think if you added quotes about some of the arguments
that went on, your paper would be a lot stronger. Also, you could
further explore some of your own opinions and what you post on this
website.
3. I learned a lot from your paper! I learned how reddit works and what
people do on there. I have heard a lot about the website, but I never
knew exactly how it worked. Now I know how it works and I can
understand why people like to use it so much!
4. I still have questions about what people specifically post on this
website. I would also like to hear more about some of the different
subreddits. Also, try to include some sources: interview, shadowing,
articles, etc.
5. For your final paper, I think you could perform academic research on
the legalities of the website. Since there is a lot of freedom on this

website, there must be some legal things you can/cannot say/post.

You could create an argument after performing research on the legal
side of this website. It would put some really good informative
evidence into your paper.

*overall, this was very well written! I really enjoyed reading about
reddit and what you had to say about it*