Why Reddit Just Doesn’t Work Anymore

Plus, two solutions that could make it great

Tyler Sherer
OneZero

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Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. Photo: Jerod Harris/Getty Images

Let’s face it: Reddit has always been a little controversial.

Seen as a sort of ideological meeting ground between Tumblr and the sorts of people who frequent the more unsavory parts of 4chan, the Reddit community (if one so fractured can even be called as such) has garnered a nice reputation for itself as a frustratingly contradictory group of like-minded individuals who are painfully aware of their own faults — but refuse to do anything about them.

While many events in Reddit’s past showcase this, none of them hammer the point home quite as well as the burning of Notre Dame in April. While it may seem like paying attention to what random Joes on the internet have to say about a national tragedy is a waste of time, one must remember that we live in an age where journalists cite tweets in their articles . Even if we, as regular folks, don’t care what those Joes think, people in media certainly do — which means we should probably be aware of what they’re saying, and how they’re saying it.

Reddit’s reaction to the fire was puzzling, initially, but ultimately nothing more than a symptom of a disease . Despite Reddit’s humble origins as a discussion platform, it’s no longer capable of being one. The worst part of it all is that people…

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Tyler Sherer
OneZero
Writer for

I’m a tech writer in the EDA industry. Outside of work, you can find me casting Brainstorm, playing Smash, and writing strange stories about broken people.