Re:Protest note about user privacy changes by Reddit
by lasagnaphil on Friday February 26, 2021 @07:41AM
(#26274173)
I’m no data analyst, but from my experience on various parts of the web Reddit is now often viewed as “cringe” and the term redditor is often used as a derogatory slur (most prominently seen on Twitter, although other sites have similar sentiments) There are more than ever people using Reddit, it’s just that the site kinda has an image problem and no one really wants to “boast” themselves about participating in it.
There used to be this idea that no matter what subreddit you were in, ultimately everyone was a redditor and had shared identity at some basic level - often self-deprecating sense of apart-ness from the mainstream. This community gave rise to the platform-wide schemes like the Christmas presents.
I rarely see the word redditor any more. To me that suggests that the shared identity is dead and if that's how you define a community, then Reddit is dead too. (Anecdotally I even saw a comment from someone saying that it's a stupid word in response to another comment just recently.)
Here's the poor man's version looking at worldwide Google Trends, from Reddit's launch to today. It's hard to read too much into it, but clearly interest in redditor has in no way kept pace with interest in reddit. And interest in redditor appears to be at a low point in late 2017 - the end of the sense of community? Major investment and value growth happened around this time, with staff numbers doubling and a major push on advertising. It took 10 years to recover the interest level high (2011-2021), during that same time there was an enormous growth of users.
- redditor - https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/explore?date=2005-06-23%2...
- redditor vs reddit - https://trends.google.co.uk/trends/explore?date=2005-06-23%2...