Reddit? Twenty years of skufs choosing tribal validation over actual achievement.
The Product: Real community requires vulnerability, showing up, being wrong sometimes. Reddit offers instant belonging - pick your subreddit, echo approved opinions, collect karma. Connection as points system.
Average user burns 207 hours yearly scrolling strangers’ takes. Not creating. Not building. Just consuming opinions from people who might be 14 or bots.
The Players: Moderators - unpaid janitors drunk on microscopic power, banning strangers to feel important. Users - millions convinced reading r/Fitness counts as working out, browsing r/Entrepreneur equals building business, arguing in comments equals discourse.
The dangerous ones? Educated people who could read primary sources but spend hours citing other Reddit posts as evidence.
The System’s Genius: Reddit monetized procrastination by calling it community. Users generate billions in content value (that $6.4B IPO), mods police it for free, platform cashes out. Awards replaced achievement. Karma replaced contribution.
Every upvote hits dopamine receptors like real validation - but costs nothing, means nothing, changes nothing.
The Trade: You chose anonymous commentary over signed creation. Safe tribal agreement over risky original thought. Reading about life over living it. “Well actually…” as lifestyle.
How many hours have you spent crafting perfect comments that 8 people read before they’re buried forever?