Reddit

Oh Hey There Everybody. I hope this morning finds you well. Or afternoon. Or evening. I just realized today that not everyone sits anxiously waiting at their computers checking this site over and over again between 9 and 10 am central standard time. So I have been doing a disservice to the readers out there that read this at 2am when they are bored as hell and have insomnia. Or the ones who read it during lunch because their work blocks Facebook and their coworkers didn't invite them out to get food so they are sitting at their desk eating a lean cuisine hoping to make it look like they chose this state of loneliness since they are clearly reading. Or the ones who accidentally stumbled on to this page at 6am after trying to find Billy Madison quotes on google, read 3 sentences, and then decide to go see whats shaking at TMZ. I love you all the same. Just like Jesus. PS-I saw this billboard on my way home from work yesterday:

 I don't get it.

Alright so, is this supposed to make me happy? I get that the message is "We are all Gods children" but what does God not being a grandparent have to do with anything? That seems rather ageist. And grandparents are fun when you're little. So if anything, this sign makes me angry because now I know 2 things: 1) God will not let you come over to his house and watch movies and eat pizza and candy and stay up later than 8:30 when your parents are on vacation. And 2) God hates the elderly, which is probably why he makes them lose control of their bowels and takes away their mental functioning, and forces them to want to eat dinner at 4:30. What a dick.

 On to the Big Show. Ok so unless you have been living under a rock for the last few years, I'm sure you have seen, or at least heard of a website called Reddit. If you haven't, here, check it out: http://www.reddit.com/
Reddit's tag line is "The Voice of the Internet--News before it happens". Now I know that when you first enter the site, it's kind of confusing. It looks like this:

There is a reason for that. This format was selected because it's Reddit's own way of testing if you are smart enough to become a regular user, or Redditor. Much like the Vision Qwests or the Coming of Age Ceremonies of old, learning to navigate Reddit's waters successfully marks you a worthy candidate, and means you have past the first test in joining this community. I want to tell you more about what you're looking at, but that defeats the purpose of learning how to use the site. "And on this the 11th day of March it was said, I shall teach a man to fish for from this day hence he shall go forth and multiple the wisdom of the vine and never shall he be hungry again". ~Book of Maria, Chapter 3, Versus 17-152.

From my humble beginnings as a once a week visitor to the site, I have discovered a few things about the general population of reddit. 1) They are statistically funnier than the average person. 2) Most of them are intelligent. 3) They are so addicted to being online that 75% of them have fused into their bean bag chairs or couch cushions, and must be tube fed a steady liquid diet of Doritos, Ramen, Colt 45 or Mountain Dew Code Red. 4) They get defensive of their own. For instance, a friend of mine was on reddit and made fun of adult men with ponytails--as he should--and was basically electronically lynched for saying such a thing. Which leads me to point 4a) A high majority of these people are uber nerds. I'm also a huge dork, in that I read fantasy books and watch Science channel daily, so settle the fuck down I'm just stating a fact. This is what I imagine a composite of every reddit user would look like:

 From what I have gathered, avid reddit users are people that can devote 50-87% of their waking life to searching the internet for interesting, funny, or controversial shit, or that can devote 50-87% of their waking life commenting on links to interesting, funny, or controversial shit. Either way, they are spending the majority of their time living through their computers. And on one hand, this is sad. But on the other, bigger hand, it gives me interesting, funny and controversial shit to look at every week, so for that reddit users, I salute you. Your sacrifice is not in vain. You have created a community where like minded people can come together to make fun of things, discuss conspiracy theories, ask for advice on anything from sex to baking pot brownies, to finding secret weapons upgrades in Black Ops. You have filled a void that other sites can not fill.  You have banded together to raise money for victims of natural disasters and victims of bullying. You are getting noticed in a way many of you might never have been noticed before, and that's nice. Im glad for you.

So this post is dedicated to all the reddit superusers out there. Thank you for being willing to give up normal face to face interaction, the chance of ever losing your virginity, and basic personal hygiene, all in the name of  hoping someone else out there likes what you have to share.