during covid i would post all sorts of made-up stories in r/relationship_advice just out of boredom/for the fun of creative writing. once the post stopped getting comments, i’d delete it/my comment history and write another one. i got quite a lot of karma, some awards, and a real dislike for the term “red flag” after ~six months of this

Not something most would brag about, especially in a tgread about inauthentic posts on subreddits being unethical.

Sounds very similar to an inauthentic post itself in how it presents an appropriate background. (I think it's real, but we have to question now.)

i didn’t mean to sound like i was bragging. the comment i was replying to was wondering if people make posts that are essentially creative writing exercises, and i was simply saying that, yeah, people (me in this case) definitely do that

Fair enough.

That isn't bragging, its just their experience.

Why not?

I wonder if this real life story (the one about posting fake real life stories on r/relationship_advice) is real or fake.

Buzzfeed posting questions on /r/AskReddit for article content is a longstanding meme, so I wouldn't be surprised if other folks were pulling similar shenanigans.