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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  4702 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: A necessary change in policy
Presume that were true. What would make Reddit different from anywhere else?

I think it has more to do with Reddit's efficiency of pushing "cream" to the top when "cream" means "anything people feel passionately about." When Reddit was smaller, that "cream" tended to represent the values of bookish, erudite computer programmers. It now represents a broad swath of humanity, which means the things that are the most appealing are the things that are the broadest - base emotions.

Reddit pushes "happy" very hard. However, it also pushes "outrage." My first 3 digit comment was a pure vitriolic spew of hatred - it got 600 upvotes, back when 600 upvotes was unheard of. Most of the rest of them weren't - but Reddit has definitely been appealing to a broader, baser audience for quite a while now.