Grief, Anonymity, and Memes on Reddit: Digital World as a Cultural Resource for "Work of Death"
This section discusses Reddit's structure, features, its demographics, and the implications these have on the way the community perceives grief. Understanding the structural and cultural backbone of the site is crucial to apprehending any meaning from the posts in the next section. The video at the bottom of this page also gives a comprehensive overview of the site.
Subreddits
"The front page of the Internet," as Reddit self-identifies, is a social networking site comprised of thousands of communities. Members have the capability to create a subreddit (community) dedicated to content (links to articles, videos, pictures, or text) about any topic they choose.
The chart (right) displays a selection of 19 subreddits, the number of subscribers (as of 8/11/2015), and a self-description. Some subreddits were selected at random, while others were chosen for their affiliation with the dead and undead. I wanted to arrange the communities in such a way as to highlight the immensity of Reddit, while emphasizing the degree of specialization within individual communities. The chart scrolls down.
Demographics
On July 3, 2013, Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project published its data on Reddit’s demographics. They found that six-percent of Internet users frequent the site, and that of those users, the largest (15%) demographic is male, 18-29 years old.
Despite this data, Reddit remains a relatively diverse userbase. Featuring popular subreddits dedicated to "women's perspectives," like TwoXChromosomes, the site caters to anyone with access to the Internet.
That being said, default subreddits like Gaming and Funny are hotbeds of participation, making up the majority of Karma (see below). Surprisingly, the relatively asinine posts and comments from these subreddits don't spill into the more meaningful discussions of places like Philosophy and TrueReddit, two popular subreddits dedicated to thought-provoking material and discussion.
The meat and potatoes of Reddit - that which gives it the title "the front page of the Internet" - is in its layout and participation features.
Participation
At the left is an example of a post from the r/Zombies subreddit. Anonymous user, TheGrizzlyMan, posted it approximately three years ago under the title, "I thought this was pretty cool." A family of undead zombies, an eerie tree, and red sun are mirrored by what appears to be the same family, but a living version replete with a working tire swing. The image’s appeal, based on the comments, seems to be its aesthetic quality (and, of course, its zombie content). It received 1,566 votes, 96% of which were upvotes, resulting in TheGrizzlyMan receiving 1,440 Karma points (this information is circled in red).
Upvotes and downvotes are the most immediate form of participation on the site and are linked with a user’s Karma count. The better a post’s or comment’s content, the more likely that post will be upvoted and yield Karma, rewarding the poster with “Internet points.” Implicit in the name, Karma is irredeemable in any tangible or monetary sense. Regardless, Redditors engage in the voting process, aiming to keep content within a subreddit's quality standards; and most users appear satisfied with the symbolic nature and honor associated with electronic points.
Site participation also takes the form of comments. Popular (upvoted) comments appear directly below the post, followed by the most upvoted child comment (reply). In this example, user iruber1337 leads the comment board with 18 Karma. His post consists of a link to an image of him wearing a shirt sporting the same image from the original post. He also includes a link to the t-shirt vendor. r/Zombie members found the comment particularly enlightening, as the comment's position on the top of the section reflects.
The last form of communicatory participation is the private message (PM). Users may send each other individual, private messages, essentially rendering the PM an email service. This feature provides users a space to communicate without the prospect of being upvoted, downvoted, or chastized in a public arena by anonymous observers.
Making inferences regarding the intentions behind Redditors’ behavior proves a difficult task. How does one determine the authenticity or sincerity of content in an anonymous arena where acquiring “Internet points” justifies almost any means? One might argue that Karma introduces a system that renders participation inherently acquisitive. Posters compete only to produce the content they believe will yield the most points with little regard for genuineness and originality.
But that very system works to weed out the disingenuous from the authentic. Reddit’s online democracy is a kind of crowdsourcing that actively seeks to give buoyancy to original, trustworthy content. Redditors are more than happy to "downvote to hell" the "shit posts"—or the content that tries too hard, doesn't try hard enough, is a repost, or isn't relevant to the community.