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Re: Reddit, Relativism and the Issue of Quality

Hey folks,

This is a short response to an article concerning content quality on Reddit, which you can find here: https://www.akshonesports.com/2017/06/reddit-relativism-issue-quality

I'll focus my disagreement on the article's conclusion:

"Relative value is not bad in itself -- it has unintended consequences. I don’t think Reddit is to blame. The true way for this to change, despite what I’ve said, is not through structural change. Rather, the burden is on us, as community members, to learn to cultivate our ability to both appreciate and support quality content. Consumers need to stop the subreddit from being a market for lemons. For those of us who care about the health of our scenes, whichever they may be, it is in our best interest to support quality content. New content creators will flourish with haste. Without, it will shrivel. So simply saying we ‘should’ isn’t good enough. We have to."

My interpretation of this sentiment is that it is the responsibility of community members to appreciate and support quality content. I agree with this sentiment in general terms but I do not think it should be applied to Reddit.

First, let me paraphrase the author's point: quality content provides significant value to an esports scene. It contributes good ideas to the direction of a scene and its larger ecosystem, it's thought-provoking, it disseminates knowledge and it encourages critical thinking. To me, quality content is not just a deeply researched article or a long video on a game's direction - it also includes stuff like interviews, preview pieces, promotional materials, nuts and bolts _substance_ that adds to the game. For example, in the StarCraft scene feardragon did an incredible job with interviews and other meaningful content related to WCS Austin 2017 on his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/feardragon64

The author of the above piece then contrasts quality content with the type of content that performs well on Reddit: he lists gifs and links to tweets as two examples. To quote the author, this is not ideal:

"But, when you think about it, wouldn’t we all agree that a profound analysis of the subreddit’s game, it’s uniting force, is much more valuable than the majority of gifs on the front page at any given time?"

So far, so good. But I don't agree that this is a "problem" per se and, even if it were, I don't agree with the solution.

First, the problem. I agree that random gifs and links to tweets are not quality content. I label them "empty calories for the brain" - they provide instant gratification and little else. They almost always have no meaning outside of the momentary dopamine surge they create. Furthermore, they're often intentionally designed to get a rise out of people - this is actively harmful.

Why does this type of content do well on Reddit? Well, for many of the same reasons it's bad for you - the sharp emotional engagement generates more shares and upvotes than other types of content. The simplicity and emptiness of a gif makes it easy to consume - and therefore easy to vote on. More engagement = more revenue, so Reddit encourages this with features like automatic embedding.

What do people do when they realize that popular subreddits are filled with content that is likely not good for them? What do they do when they decide to focus instead on "quality", "meaningful", or "thought-provoking" content instead?

They reduce their personal consumption of Reddit and follow quality content creators directly.

This right here is the problem I have with the suggestion that we should try to change Reddit from "being a market for lemons". The more people use Reddit - and therefore the more they vote, the more they comment, the more they check /new/, and in general the more influence they have - the more likely it is they are _actively interested_ in a market for lemons. The folks who want to change the market have inherently less influence over it because they stopped participating in it.

If folks wanted thought-provoking content, they wouldn't have navigated to Reddit. Frankly, I think one of the reasons people use Reddit is specifically to _stop thinking_, to distract themselves or turn off their mind. This isn't a moral judgment of Reddit's userbase any more than it is a moral judgment to point out that drinking Coca-Cola is not good for your health. (I drink Coca-Cola all the time.)

To be clear, I do think we should support quality content creators. We should do this by emphasizing a philosophy of engaging in productive work for the sake of productive work, of judging value based on criteria other than shares or likes or retweets. This doesn't mean we shouldn't promote content creators that we like and signal boost content that's worthy of people's time, rather it's to say that placing too much emphasis on the material success (i.e. views, upvotes, etc) of any individual piece of work is not sustainable. Building an audience, especially if you are focused on long-form writing, takes time. Building trust - convincing people that they should spend a long time reading and thinking about your work - takes time. Improving yourself - taking an honest, hard look at what you're bad at and trying to get better at it - takes time and requires genuine self-reflection and introspection. Many of the big names in esports have been working at it for more than a decade.

A common problem I observe among new content creators is is an inability to set a proactive direction based on deeply considered values. Instead an emphasis is placed on what gets exposure, what gets noticed, what gets shared - the reaction to a piece of content rather than the value of the content itself. The emphasis on relative worth is not a good mindset for productive work, generating value or more generally personal well-being. It has its place as a signal and that's it. If we see a content creator get frustrated by lack of viewership, our response should not be to change the viewers: it should be to help the content creator change their mindset about their work.

All IMHO.

Thanks,
brownbear