To me, that's like saying, "that dirty alt.binaries.whatever group really turned me off USENET."

The reddit I visit doesn't have any violentacrez. Nor does the reddit my wife visits. The thing reddit gets right is the ability to customize and narrowly define what content you get fed. Mine looks like a more scattered HN. My wife's looks like a text-based Pinterest.

What? VA certainly did create a lot of them (e.g. /r/PicsOfDeadJailbait) and he moderated and posted on most.

(This is not a post pro or against the recent events)

False dichotomy, one can think they are both bad.

Was he not aware that he was trolling and doing nasty stuff? If he was unaware, then I can understand him feeling like a victim; but he was fully aware that his actions were considered abhorrent by many people, and still persisted. So, naturally, people want to know who this person is, what makes him tick, etc.