June 3, 2025 • 24 mins
We spin the wheel of internet randomness to dissect the role of Reddit today and share wildcard Reddit threads to get you lost in the rabbit hole.
Get show notes for this episode and check out past episodes of the Speaking Human podcast by visiting speakinghuman.com.
#Podcast #SpeakingHuman #VO #Branding #Marketing #Advertising #Business #SmallBiz #Brands #Ads #simplify #popculture #art #Brands #Taglines #reddit #rickroll #bestreddit #Forum
Get show notes for this episode and check out past episodes of the Speaking Human podcast by visiting speakinghuman.com.
#Podcast #SpeakingHuman #VO #Branding #Marketing #Advertising #Business #SmallBiz #Brands #Ads #simplify #popculture #art #Brands #Taglines #reddit #rickroll #bestreddit #Forum
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Speeding Human.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Today. On Speaking Human, we spin the wheel of online
chaos to dissect the evolving role of Reddit today and
share random threads to get you lost in the reddit
rabbit hole.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Specking Human.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Welcome to Speaking Human, where we simplify the world of
marketing for humans. I'm Shad comly and with me is
my co host Patrick Jebber.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yes, how's it going, Shad?
Speaker 3 (00:42):
It's going amazing. I mean, things just couldn't be better.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
The world is spinning, the sun is shining.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Yeah, the world's spinning around like a Roulette wheel. We
don't know where the ball is gonna land from day
to day. Red black, maybe a green, zero? Who knows.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
It shouldn't be confused with Russian roulette because it is
Reddit roulette we're discussing today.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Yeah, yeah, which Reddit roulette a little more of a fun,
less intense game than Russian Roulette, some would.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Say, some might say, so you know, as we do.
I have a little trivia for you about Reddit. I
thought this would be a good way to start the episode.
Are you ready for a little trivia?
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Reddit? Ready? Reddit red? I'm ready, I'm ready.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
So Reddit calls itself the front page of the Internet
and it has millions of users posting everything from deep
thoughts to deranged memes. It actually might live up to
its name. But here's a question for you, Shad. Which
of the following was not a real Reddit April Fool's
Day exper Is it A a collaborative pixel art canvas
(02:04):
where users could only place one pixel every few minutes.
B A button that users could press but only once,
and it reset a timer every time it was pushed.
C a feature that turned every Reddit comment into a
haiku or D a fake cryptocurrency called reddit Coin that
(02:26):
could only be mined by up voting cat photos.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
So the question is which of these is.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Not a real Reddit April Fool's Day experiment.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
I'm gonna go with the cat photos one. I'm gonna
go with D. MM it was between C and D.
I'm gonna go with D and I have a feeling
just by your response there, I'm wrong.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
You are correct? Actually, oh you got this one. While
Reddit has dabbled in pixel chaos and haiku hijinks, reddit
coin doesn't exist yet, but you know, as a lot
of Reddit users will tell you, give it time because
the cat photo economy is inevitable.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
I mean, that's what a lot of people say, cat
photos more valuable than cash.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Right, it does sound like something you would find on Reddit, right,
mining cryptocurrency by upvoting cat photos. I mean, it just
it sounds legit.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
To be clear, the turning every comment into high coups,
they actually did that, yeah, or that was a joke
them saying that they were going to do that.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Well, it was a feature, so it's yeah, they were
April Fool's Day experiments. So I think they actually did
do it, but it wasn't like a widespread thing and
didn't do everything.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yeah, that's pretty crazy though, if they actually you know,
you posted something and then all of a sudden it
appeared as.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
A high coup, I think that feels pretty authentic to
the Reddit experience, you know.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Yeah, it fits. It definitely fits this platform and a
lot of things. I think we'll talk about some of
the ass efe of it, including the sense of humor
you'll find there. So in case you haven't guessed it,
by the title of the episode, by what the trivia
we've talked about so far, and by basically every part
of this experience you've had leading up to this exact moment.
(04:17):
On today's episode, we are talking about Reddit. We're diving
in a little bit. We're going to tell you a
little bit about Reddit, discuss where Reddit sits, it's kind
of unique place on the Internet today, and then even
give you a little little taste some of the material
we're finding on Reddit today, which you know, a lot
(04:38):
of diversity.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
There, there's a ton of diversity on Reddit.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
But let's, you know, let's start out with a little
background on Reddit. Maybe you have no idea. Maybe you've
never experienced Reddit. Maybe you have no idea what that
even is. You're like, I'm gonna just listen to this
to find out because I know nothing of this reddit
you speak. Reddit started in two thousand and five, so
twenty years ago, created by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian.
(05:08):
Don't know if I'm saying that right, two college roommates.
The idea was simple, a place to share and discuss anything,
with users submitting links and voting on them. It quickly
grew into a massive community where almost anything could be discussed,
from the latest news to niche hobbies. By twenty ten,
(05:28):
so five years after they started, Reddit had twelve million users.
That was an eighty four percent jump from the numbers
in two thousand and nine. By twenty eleven, that number
would reach twenty million, so you can see how fast
kind of reddit grew. Over the years, Reddit has evolved
from a basic forum to one of the most visited
websites in the world. Major milestones include the launch of
(05:51):
subreddits in two thousand and eight, allowing users to create
their own communities, and the introduction of up votes and
down votes to help surp us the best content. Reddits
Asked Me Anything. Ama became a major part of its identity,
attracting everyone from celebrities to politicians, among them Barack Obama,
(06:12):
Taylor Swift, and Bill Gates. Fast forward to today, Reddit
has over five hundred million active users and it's valued
at about ten billion dollars. It's a hub for not
just discussions, but memes, viral trends, and online activism. What
started as a simple idea has turned into an integral
(06:34):
part of internet culture, with something for everyone to get
lost in.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
That's a that's a wonderful summary of a platform that
to summarize, is very difficult to put it into such
a short summary of its lifespan. You know, you could
really talk about it for a day straight you know,
because there's a lot there.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah, and it's evolved a lot in twenty years. I
mean really, when it started, and you probably remember this,
it was just this kind of simple, hey, let's share
links and people can upvote and down vote them. That's
what I remember from its earliest days. That's kind of
how we even used it in the beginning, you know,
I remember being on it and kind of like, hey,
(07:23):
let's like share this cool link I found and see
if people like it. And it's become so much more
than that, and the amount of information just flowing through
there has I mean, there's just vast amounts of it now.
So it's really gone through these phases and evolved in
like quite a few different ways in these past two decades.
So let's talk about kind of the state of Reddit now.
(07:44):
It is kind of this unique being on the internet.
I mean, what what is Reddit? How would you even
define it or explain to someone? Is it a social site?
Is it a forum? Is it a search engine? What
is this thing? You know?
Speaker 2 (07:58):
It's funny because like I think about it and I
feel like it defies a simple label. It's so many
things all in one. I mean, it is a forum,
it is a social platform. It is a search engine.
It's a content machine, you know, just NonStop churning out
content or consuming content, you know as people input it
(08:22):
into like questions and answers and comments and posts and
of votes and all of that. So I think it's
all of those things, and it's sort of held together
by this like semi chaotic, crowd driven sense of what's
relevant right at the time.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
No, I agree with you. It is kind of this
Frankenstein of like all those things together, and I think
that's what makes it unique and almost uncopyable.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
You know.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
If you're like, I'm going to create another Reddit, I
don't think you could. Yeah, it's just kind of become
this thing, and it's active users and snowballed into this
this kind of like corner of the Internet that exists
almost on its own terms in many ways. That being said,
I think for me today, Reddit has really become a
(09:14):
search engine. That's how I primarily use it. Yeah, Honestly,
when I'm looking up a lot of stuff now I'll
go to Google and just specifically search for something and
add Reddit to that to look what people are saying
about that thing on Reddit, versus just getting Google results.
I think in a lot of ways, Reddit is what
the Internet used to be before the corporations and algorithms
(09:37):
and influencers and bots and everything else took over. You know,
just real people having actual conversations. Yeah, you know, when
you want to find out what do people really think
about a shoe and you're like, I'm sifting through these
reviews and they all seem fake or sponsored or something
like that. It reminds me though, back when the Internet
was kind of the wild West, before companies learned how
(10:00):
to leverage search engines to their advantage, when you could
find like real people talking.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yeah, and even today the AI driven search results, all
of that feels so disingenuous. And Reddit is a great
way if you just want to see what people are
saying about it, as opposed to what a search result is,
because a search result is very like, I don't know,
it's just like arbitrary thing that just sits out there.
(10:25):
Whereas if you want like kind of human guttural responses,
Reddit is the place to go. It's kind of like
when you read an article and then you just scroll
down to the comment thread, the ones that have thousands
of comments where people are arguing with each other or
saying weird stuff. That's Reddit the whole thing. It's just
(10:49):
these authentic, weird, crazy things going on and people are
just having interactions and reactions to things, and I love it.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Yeah, And that's one of the key ways I think
it's different, you know, from other sites or apps. Today
it feels like text threads you would have with friends
or Slack conversations with coworkers just open for thousands of
people to chime in. They feel like loose and scrappy
and oftentimes random.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Yeah, incoherent thoughts. Sometimes you're like what.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Or just playing on a joke. And also, and this
has been true about Reddit going back almost to the beginning,
there is just no room for the self promotional. If
you come there with that, they will like downvote you
and comment you out or just knock you out.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah, it's Reddit's version of murdering you. It is you're
just done. You're done. So great though, because it is
the chaotic nature of it that makes it feel like
somewhere anyone can relate to you. And I have had
this discussion a lot in the last I don't know,
a few years, maybe that you know, so the Internet
(12:01):
is not what it used to be and whether you
as listeners think to a oh man, a couple old
guys talking about how that things aren't like they used
to be.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Hey, yeah, the good old days.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yeah, the good old days when the Internet was new
and fresh and raw. That's this. I think it still
exists in this microcosm of Reddit, and it's so great,
right because it's the only thing. I mean, that's not
the only good thing on the Internet, but it is
one of those good things that still exists on the Internet.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Yeah, if you were a race from another planet and
you wanted to learn about humanity just from Reddit, you'd
probably get a pretty good picture.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Yeah it well, yeah, that picture might be insane, insane, Yeah,
but you would cover a lot of ground, you would,
You would because you have a wide range of personalities
on there. For sure, we've used it where we're like
just getting kind of like the Paul as I think
you've said in the past, you know, on podcasts like
(13:04):
the Pulse of What's going On? Like why just google
it when you can go to Reddit? And I think
that that says a lot about its character as a
as a platform.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Well said, you know, I think that's a good point
to dive into a little bit of Reddit, give our listeners,
you know, a little sample of Reddit in a segment
we like to call reddit Roulette. Called that because you know,
we're each going to kind of share a random, fun
or interesting Reddit thread, tell you a little bit about
(13:33):
the thread, and then share some sample posts from it.
So I'll ask you, Patrick, as we go into this,
how did you land on the thread you're sharing? How'd
you get there? You know, obviously Reddit, as we mentioned,
big place, it's like the Ikea of the Internet. How'd
you decide what piece of furniture you're going to show us?
Speaker 1 (13:50):
You know?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
It was funny. I was really trying to think of
how I was going to approach this, and I kept
coming back to like, what's the most interesting or the
most popular, because you don't really think of Reddit and
think like, oh, you know, this is the most popular
post or reddit that's out there. But as I was
sort of searching that, I was finding that there are
(14:12):
posts that have gotten hundreds of thousands of votes. You know,
this is the one thing there is a quantifier, the
up votes, and some have lots of up votes. So
I ended up going with something that had one of
the highest vote count and also up votes on it,
(14:33):
and that was sort of like how I got to
it was I was thinking about its popularity and like
positive popularity. It's a very simple one, but I thought
it would be interesting to talk about and figure out
why it is that people reacted positively to it, and
maybe have that discussion with you.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Yeah, no, that makes sense. That's a good way to
do it, I think. I immediately like went in there
and I was like, oh man, there is so much here.
How am I ever going to figure out which, you know,
we're sharing one talking about one thread in this world
of bizarre and unique subreddits where there are you know, thousands,
hundreds of thousands, I don't even know how many out there,
(15:11):
and I'm finding a bunch that I'm like, some of
these are really good, but not necessarily podcast sharable. A
great example is one that I stumbled across is real bees,
fake top hats, and it's just exactly what the title suggests,
pictures of bees. People are posting pictures of bees with
top hats super imposed on them. Obviously not something great
(15:35):
to share on a podcast, because what am I going
to do? Just describe pictures of bees with top hats on.
So that's kind of where I'm like, what's the best
one that'll be good to kind of share an audio format.
So the one I chose, the thread I chose to share,
came from an ask reddit and this was the thread
that was started a couple of years ago. It's got
about nine thousand up boats and you know, hundreds of
(15:58):
comments on it. But it's real, just a simple question
posed to the reddit community that got some pretty interesting responses.
And that question was what's the weirdest thing someone casually
told you as if it were totally normal.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Okay, And here.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Are a few of the responses this received. A friend
of mine was explaining to me why he had to
repeat kindergarten. When I was five, I was at a
family barbecue and I couldn't find my dad. I looked
all over, and finally I found him in the garage.
He was tied to a chair and two of his
cousins were beating the shit out of him. A couple
of days later, my dad was driving me to school
(16:37):
and he saw one of the cousins walking down the street.
He pulled over, jumped out of the car, and shot
his cousin in the head. I missed too many days
of kindergarten because of the murder trials, so I had
to repeat it.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
That is uh, I almost like like my jaw dropped,
like shot him in the head. I mean the beating
the crap out of it is like you're like, okay,
that that's getting off the hook a little bit, and
then shot in the head.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
How about this one? I was on a date and
a girl casually started telling me about her prison pen pal.
Wouldn't it be funny if he murdered me when he
gets out.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Oh yeah, that'd be funny. That'd be so funny.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
How about this one? Years ago? I worked in a
record store. A customer comes in asking if we have
sheet music. I told him we have a small section,
and he said he was looking for sheet music of
gospel music for harmonica. I told him we only had
sheet music for a guitar and piano. He got really
angry and went on some tirade that ended with him
(17:41):
telling me I was bigoted against harmonica players.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
And that's the whole post. This is the beauty, right,
this is the beauty of Reddit.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Let me give you a couple more. While talking with
my mom in the line at a casino about my
brother's recent death. A random woman walked up to us crying.
She told us through tears that she knew exactly what
we were going through because her goldfish passed away three
years ago. She then proceeded to show us her engraved
locket with a pick of said goldfish and date of death.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah, that's exactly like what we just went through.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
I mean, it's pretty similar three years ago too. All Right,
I got a few more, but I'll wrap it up
here by giving you this last one. This one might
be my favorite. A guy once told me he loved
how he loved A guy once told me how he
loved the feeling of wearing casts. So he'd put casts
on himself for days or weeks on end, even if
he meant he couldn't drive and would be stuck at
(18:38):
home the entire time. He'd use vacation time just to
wear full leg and arm casts. Now that's unique. Yeah,
could be a listener.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
I oddly understand and relate to that for some reason.
I don't know why, Like I don't enjoy wearing casts,
but I could see that that would be somebody you
know who would love that feet everybody has like a
weird thing, you know, Like, for example, my wife thinks
it's weird that I love the smell of books like paper.
(19:08):
Like if I open up the book, I have to
smell the paper. She's like, that is so weird that
you love that. I'm like, I it's something about the paper. So,
you know, like someone who loves to wear a cast
I sort of get that person like it. That is
weird to me, But it's not any different than the
weirdness of me liking the smell of paper. That's a
(19:29):
great That's a great thread. We should definitely post a
link to that thread.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Yeah, we can definitely do that. And the you know,
the ask reddit just filed.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
With these Reddit in and of itself is this. This
is a prime example of what makes it great.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
So what do you got for your roulette?
Speaker 2 (19:47):
This is This is a pretty simple one, and I
think people will get the visual of this pretty quickly.
But in twenty twenty, okay, so imagine back five years
ago what we were all doing in twenty twenty. Rick
Astley himself, yes, the Rick Asley of Never Gonna Give
You Up fame, posted a photo of himself from nineteen
(20:08):
eighty nine on Reddit under the username really Rick Asley.
The post was made in the subreddit Picks, with a
simple caption that says me, in nineteen eighty nine, I
think I was singing. It wasn't just any posts, though.
It became a viral Reddit treasure, racking up four hundred
(20:29):
and thirty eight thousand up votes. On top of that,
it held nearly perfect ninety nine percent up vote ratio
ninety nine percent. What made it magical was the unexpected sincerity.
People were bracing for a Rick roll, but instead they
got actual Rick Asley because it was him casually joining
(20:53):
the platform and embracing the meme legacy. So that's what's
kept this thing in the midst of like the best
up voted reddits or Reddit posts of all time. And
I think why it matters and why it's so reddit
is that it shows Reddit's power to revive and recontextualize
(21:14):
pop culture because this is the thing like Rick Astley, right,
you know, it's this rare example of celebrities just showing
up and being authentic. They're not trying to spin anything,
they're not trying to not trying to sell anything, trying
to sell or promote. Yeah, and he was turned into
a meme. He turned around and joined the joke, and
it was just him on a bike.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Rick Astley on Reddit. Probably the first time he's been
mentioned on the show. But he deserves, you know, more attention,
more mentions.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
We should get him to chime in, give us a
little comment or at least upvote us on Reddit. I
feel like listeners right now. You think we're being paid
by Reddit to do this episode, but it's not true.
We literally just brain from this topic.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
I actually thought it was weird. We hadn't talked about Reddit,
you know, talk about something we hadn't talked about yet
in thirteen years. We hadn't really devoted a show to Reddit, right.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
But we're not being paid. It's not a promo.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
I don't think Reddit's you know, grabbing influencers or podcasters.
I don't think that's how Reddit rolls. And if they did,
I don't think they'd come for us.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
They might were the target audience, were like just the
average everyday guys. So I'll give you a little marketing
takeaway today about Reddit. Reddit isn't just a forum. It's
a focus group. It's a content generator. It's a trend
incubator and search engine all rolled into one it's a
(22:43):
place to listen, not just speak. If you're not lurking
on Reddit, you're missing the unfiltered thoughts of the Internet's
most passionate and brutally honest users. In other words, before
you launch your next campaign, if you're talking about doing
a marketing care or anything, maybe see what Reddit has
(23:03):
to say about it first. That's my takeaway.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
That is a great takeaway. Reddit great place to lurk
and listen, do some consumer research. You can learn a
lot about people's opinions on almost anything, any product, you know,
any topic. As I was saying earlier, in many cases,
I find it to be a better search engine than Google.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah. Well, and that's one of the reasons why I
say that is because you know, we've talked about it.
You might do a Google search, but you want to
also search Reddit see what they're saying. I think that's
a it's a good bit of knowledge, a little nugget
of human wisdom. If you will, oh, I will. Well,
we hope you really enjoyed everything about Reddit today. But
(23:46):
that's it for this episode. You can find current and
past episodes of the podcast on Speaking Human dot com.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
We'll be back in two weeks. With another episode of
speaking human. Catch it, then
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Youmans speaking human
Speeding Human.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Today. On Speaking Human, we spin the wheel of online
chaos to dissect the evolving role of Reddit today and
share random threads to get you lost in the reddit
rabbit hole.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Specking Human.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Welcome to Speaking Human, where we simplify the world of
marketing for humans. I'm Shad comly and with me is
my co host Patrick Jebber.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yes, how's it going, Shad?
Speaker 3 (00:42):
It's going amazing. I mean, things just couldn't be better.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
The world is spinning, the sun is shining.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Yeah, the world's spinning around like a Roulette wheel. We
don't know where the ball is gonna land from day
to day. Red black, maybe a green, zero? Who knows.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
It shouldn't be confused with Russian roulette because it is
Reddit roulette we're discussing today.
Speaker 3 (01:11):
Yeah, yeah, which Reddit roulette a little more of a fun,
less intense game than Russian Roulette, some would.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
Say, some might say, so you know, as we do.
I have a little trivia for you about Reddit. I
thought this would be a good way to start the episode.
Are you ready for a little trivia?
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Reddit? Ready? Reddit red? I'm ready, I'm ready.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
So Reddit calls itself the front page of the Internet
and it has millions of users posting everything from deep
thoughts to deranged memes. It actually might live up to
its name. But here's a question for you, Shad. Which
of the following was not a real Reddit April Fool's
Day exper Is it A a collaborative pixel art canvas
(02:04):
where users could only place one pixel every few minutes.
B A button that users could press but only once,
and it reset a timer every time it was pushed.
C a feature that turned every Reddit comment into a
haiku or D a fake cryptocurrency called reddit Coin that
(02:26):
could only be mined by up voting cat photos.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
So the question is which of these is.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Not a real Reddit April Fool's Day experiment.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
I'm gonna go with the cat photos one. I'm gonna
go with D. MM it was between C and D.
I'm gonna go with D and I have a feeling
just by your response there, I'm wrong.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
You are correct? Actually, oh you got this one. While
Reddit has dabbled in pixel chaos and haiku hijinks, reddit
coin doesn't exist yet, but you know, as a lot
of Reddit users will tell you, give it time because
the cat photo economy is inevitable.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
I mean, that's what a lot of people say, cat
photos more valuable than cash.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Right, it does sound like something you would find on Reddit, right,
mining cryptocurrency by upvoting cat photos. I mean, it just
it sounds legit.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
To be clear, the turning every comment into high coups,
they actually did that, yeah, or that was a joke
them saying that they were going to do that.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Well, it was a feature, so it's yeah, they were
April Fool's Day experiments. So I think they actually did
do it, but it wasn't like a widespread thing and
didn't do everything.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Yeah, that's pretty crazy though, if they actually you know,
you posted something and then all of a sudden it
appeared as.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
A high coup, I think that feels pretty authentic to
the Reddit experience, you know.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Yeah, it fits. It definitely fits this platform and a
lot of things. I think we'll talk about some of
the ass efe of it, including the sense of humor
you'll find there. So in case you haven't guessed it,
by the title of the episode, by what the trivia
we've talked about so far, and by basically every part
of this experience you've had leading up to this exact moment.
(04:17):
On today's episode, we are talking about Reddit. We're diving
in a little bit. We're going to tell you a
little bit about Reddit, discuss where Reddit sits, it's kind
of unique place on the Internet today, and then even
give you a little little taste some of the material
we're finding on Reddit today, which you know, a lot
(04:38):
of diversity.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
There, there's a ton of diversity on Reddit.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
But let's, you know, let's start out with a little
background on Reddit. Maybe you have no idea. Maybe you've
never experienced Reddit. Maybe you have no idea what that
even is. You're like, I'm gonna just listen to this
to find out because I know nothing of this reddit
you speak. Reddit started in two thousand and five, so
twenty years ago, created by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian.
(05:08):
Don't know if I'm saying that right, two college roommates.
The idea was simple, a place to share and discuss anything,
with users submitting links and voting on them. It quickly
grew into a massive community where almost anything could be discussed,
from the latest news to niche hobbies. By twenty ten,
(05:28):
so five years after they started, Reddit had twelve million users.
That was an eighty four percent jump from the numbers
in two thousand and nine. By twenty eleven, that number
would reach twenty million, so you can see how fast
kind of reddit grew. Over the years, Reddit has evolved
from a basic forum to one of the most visited
websites in the world. Major milestones include the launch of
(05:51):
subreddits in two thousand and eight, allowing users to create
their own communities, and the introduction of up votes and
down votes to help surp us the best content. Reddits
Asked Me Anything. Ama became a major part of its identity,
attracting everyone from celebrities to politicians, among them Barack Obama,
(06:12):
Taylor Swift, and Bill Gates. Fast forward to today, Reddit
has over five hundred million active users and it's valued
at about ten billion dollars. It's a hub for not
just discussions, but memes, viral trends, and online activism. What
started as a simple idea has turned into an integral
(06:34):
part of internet culture, with something for everyone to get
lost in.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
That's a that's a wonderful summary of a platform that
to summarize, is very difficult to put it into such
a short summary of its lifespan. You know, you could
really talk about it for a day straight you know,
because there's a lot there.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
Yeah, and it's evolved a lot in twenty years. I
mean really, when it started, and you probably remember this,
it was just this kind of simple, hey, let's share
links and people can upvote and down vote them. That's
what I remember from its earliest days. That's kind of
how we even used it in the beginning, you know,
I remember being on it and kind of like, hey,
(07:23):
let's like share this cool link I found and see
if people like it. And it's become so much more
than that, and the amount of information just flowing through
there has I mean, there's just vast amounts of it now.
So it's really gone through these phases and evolved in
like quite a few different ways in these past two decades.
So let's talk about kind of the state of Reddit now.
(07:44):
It is kind of this unique being on the internet.
I mean, what what is Reddit? How would you even
define it or explain to someone? Is it a social site?
Is it a forum? Is it a search engine? What
is this thing? You know?
Speaker 2 (07:58):
It's funny because like I think about it and I
feel like it defies a simple label. It's so many
things all in one. I mean, it is a forum,
it is a social platform. It is a search engine.
It's a content machine, you know, just NonStop churning out
content or consuming content, you know as people input it
(08:22):
into like questions and answers and comments and posts and
of votes and all of that. So I think it's
all of those things, and it's sort of held together
by this like semi chaotic, crowd driven sense of what's
relevant right at the time.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
No, I agree with you. It is kind of this
Frankenstein of like all those things together, and I think
that's what makes it unique and almost uncopyable.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
You know.
Speaker 3 (08:53):
If you're like, I'm going to create another Reddit, I
don't think you could. Yeah, it's just kind of become
this thing, and it's active users and snowballed into this
this kind of like corner of the Internet that exists
almost on its own terms in many ways. That being said,
I think for me today, Reddit has really become a
(09:14):
search engine. That's how I primarily use it. Yeah, Honestly,
when I'm looking up a lot of stuff now I'll
go to Google and just specifically search for something and
add Reddit to that to look what people are saying
about that thing on Reddit, versus just getting Google results.
I think in a lot of ways, Reddit is what
the Internet used to be before the corporations and algorithms
(09:37):
and influencers and bots and everything else took over. You know,
just real people having actual conversations. Yeah, you know, when
you want to find out what do people really think
about a shoe and you're like, I'm sifting through these
reviews and they all seem fake or sponsored or something
like that. It reminds me though, back when the Internet
was kind of the wild West, before companies learned how
(10:00):
to leverage search engines to their advantage, when you could
find like real people talking.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
Yeah, and even today the AI driven search results, all
of that feels so disingenuous. And Reddit is a great
way if you just want to see what people are
saying about it, as opposed to what a search result is,
because a search result is very like, I don't know,
it's just like arbitrary thing that just sits out there.
(10:25):
Whereas if you want like kind of human guttural responses,
Reddit is the place to go. It's kind of like
when you read an article and then you just scroll
down to the comment thread, the ones that have thousands
of comments where people are arguing with each other or
saying weird stuff. That's Reddit the whole thing. It's just
(10:49):
these authentic, weird, crazy things going on and people are
just having interactions and reactions to things, and I love it.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Yeah, And that's one of the key ways I think
it's different, you know, from other sites or apps. Today
it feels like text threads you would have with friends
or Slack conversations with coworkers just open for thousands of
people to chime in. They feel like loose and scrappy
and oftentimes random.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Yeah, incoherent thoughts. Sometimes you're like what.
Speaker 3 (11:21):
Or just playing on a joke. And also, and this
has been true about Reddit going back almost to the beginning,
there is just no room for the self promotional. If
you come there with that, they will like downvote you
and comment you out or just knock you out.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah, it's Reddit's version of murdering you. It is you're
just done. You're done. So great though, because it is
the chaotic nature of it that makes it feel like
somewhere anyone can relate to you. And I have had
this discussion a lot in the last I don't know,
a few years, maybe that you know, so the Internet
(12:01):
is not what it used to be and whether you
as listeners think to a oh man, a couple old
guys talking about how that things aren't like they used
to be.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Hey, yeah, the good old days.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Yeah, the good old days when the Internet was new
and fresh and raw. That's this. I think it still
exists in this microcosm of Reddit, and it's so great,
right because it's the only thing. I mean, that's not
the only good thing on the Internet, but it is
one of those good things that still exists on the Internet.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Yeah, if you were a race from another planet and
you wanted to learn about humanity just from Reddit, you'd
probably get a pretty good picture.
Speaker 2 (12:42):
Yeah it well, yeah, that picture might be insane, insane, Yeah,
but you would cover a lot of ground, you would,
You would because you have a wide range of personalities
on there. For sure, we've used it where we're like
just getting kind of like the Paul as I think
you've said in the past, you know, on podcasts like
(13:04):
the Pulse of What's going On? Like why just google
it when you can go to Reddit? And I think
that that says a lot about its character as a
as a platform.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
Well said, you know, I think that's a good point
to dive into a little bit of Reddit, give our listeners,
you know, a little sample of Reddit in a segment
we like to call reddit Roulette. Called that because you know,
we're each going to kind of share a random, fun
or interesting Reddit thread, tell you a little bit about
(13:33):
the thread, and then share some sample posts from it.
So I'll ask you, Patrick, as we go into this,
how did you land on the thread you're sharing? How'd
you get there? You know, obviously Reddit, as we mentioned,
big place, it's like the Ikea of the Internet. How'd
you decide what piece of furniture you're going to show us?
Speaker 1 (13:50):
You know?
Speaker 2 (13:50):
It was funny. I was really trying to think of
how I was going to approach this, and I kept
coming back to like, what's the most interesting or the
most popular, because you don't really think of Reddit and
think like, oh, you know, this is the most popular
post or reddit that's out there. But as I was
sort of searching that, I was finding that there are
(14:12):
posts that have gotten hundreds of thousands of votes. You know,
this is the one thing there is a quantifier, the
up votes, and some have lots of up votes. So
I ended up going with something that had one of
the highest vote count and also up votes on it,
(14:33):
and that was sort of like how I got to
it was I was thinking about its popularity and like
positive popularity. It's a very simple one, but I thought
it would be interesting to talk about and figure out
why it is that people reacted positively to it, and
maybe have that discussion with you.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Yeah, no, that makes sense. That's a good way to
do it, I think. I immediately like went in there
and I was like, oh man, there is so much here.
How am I ever going to figure out which, you know,
we're sharing one talking about one thread in this world
of bizarre and unique subreddits where there are you know, thousands,
hundreds of thousands, I don't even know how many out there,
(15:11):
and I'm finding a bunch that I'm like, some of
these are really good, but not necessarily podcast sharable. A
great example is one that I stumbled across is real bees,
fake top hats, and it's just exactly what the title suggests,
pictures of bees. People are posting pictures of bees with
top hats super imposed on them. Obviously not something great
(15:35):
to share on a podcast, because what am I going
to do? Just describe pictures of bees with top hats on.
So that's kind of where I'm like, what's the best
one that'll be good to kind of share an audio format.
So the one I chose, the thread I chose to share,
came from an ask reddit and this was the thread
that was started a couple of years ago. It's got
about nine thousand up boats and you know, hundreds of
(15:58):
comments on it. But it's real, just a simple question
posed to the reddit community that got some pretty interesting responses.
And that question was what's the weirdest thing someone casually
told you as if it were totally normal.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Okay, And here.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Are a few of the responses this received. A friend
of mine was explaining to me why he had to
repeat kindergarten. When I was five, I was at a
family barbecue and I couldn't find my dad. I looked
all over, and finally I found him in the garage.
He was tied to a chair and two of his
cousins were beating the shit out of him. A couple
of days later, my dad was driving me to school
(16:37):
and he saw one of the cousins walking down the street.
He pulled over, jumped out of the car, and shot
his cousin in the head. I missed too many days
of kindergarten because of the murder trials, so I had
to repeat it.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
That is uh, I almost like like my jaw dropped,
like shot him in the head. I mean the beating
the crap out of it is like you're like, okay,
that that's getting off the hook a little bit, and
then shot in the head.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
How about this one? I was on a date and
a girl casually started telling me about her prison pen pal.
Wouldn't it be funny if he murdered me when he
gets out.
Speaker 2 (17:17):
Oh yeah, that'd be funny. That'd be so funny.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
How about this one? Years ago? I worked in a
record store. A customer comes in asking if we have
sheet music. I told him we have a small section,
and he said he was looking for sheet music of
gospel music for harmonica. I told him we only had
sheet music for a guitar and piano. He got really
angry and went on some tirade that ended with him
(17:41):
telling me I was bigoted against harmonica players.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
And that's the whole post. This is the beauty, right,
this is the beauty of Reddit.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Let me give you a couple more. While talking with
my mom in the line at a casino about my
brother's recent death. A random woman walked up to us crying.
She told us through tears that she knew exactly what
we were going through because her goldfish passed away three
years ago. She then proceeded to show us her engraved
locket with a pick of said goldfish and date of death.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah, that's exactly like what we just went through.
Speaker 3 (18:16):
I mean, it's pretty similar three years ago too. All Right,
I got a few more, but I'll wrap it up
here by giving you this last one. This one might
be my favorite. A guy once told me he loved
how he loved A guy once told me how he
loved the feeling of wearing casts. So he'd put casts
on himself for days or weeks on end, even if
he meant he couldn't drive and would be stuck at
(18:38):
home the entire time. He'd use vacation time just to
wear full leg and arm casts. Now that's unique. Yeah,
could be a listener.
Speaker 2 (18:47):
I oddly understand and relate to that for some reason.
I don't know why, Like I don't enjoy wearing casts,
but I could see that that would be somebody you
know who would love that feet everybody has like a
weird thing, you know, Like, for example, my wife thinks
it's weird that I love the smell of books like paper.
(19:08):
Like if I open up the book, I have to
smell the paper. She's like, that is so weird that
you love that. I'm like, I it's something about the paper. So,
you know, like someone who loves to wear a cast
I sort of get that person like it. That is
weird to me, But it's not any different than the
weirdness of me liking the smell of paper. That's a
(19:29):
great That's a great thread. We should definitely post a
link to that thread.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
Yeah, we can definitely do that. And the you know,
the ask reddit just filed.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
With these Reddit in and of itself is this. This
is a prime example of what makes it great.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
So what do you got for your roulette?
Speaker 2 (19:47):
This is This is a pretty simple one, and I
think people will get the visual of this pretty quickly.
But in twenty twenty, okay, so imagine back five years
ago what we were all doing in twenty twenty. Rick
Astley himself, yes, the Rick Asley of Never Gonna Give
You Up fame, posted a photo of himself from nineteen
(20:08):
eighty nine on Reddit under the username really Rick Asley.
The post was made in the subreddit Picks, with a
simple caption that says me, in nineteen eighty nine, I
think I was singing. It wasn't just any posts, though.
It became a viral Reddit treasure, racking up four hundred
(20:29):
and thirty eight thousand up votes. On top of that,
it held nearly perfect ninety nine percent up vote ratio
ninety nine percent. What made it magical was the unexpected sincerity.
People were bracing for a Rick roll, but instead they
got actual Rick Asley because it was him casually joining
(20:53):
the platform and embracing the meme legacy. So that's what's
kept this thing in the midst of like the best
up voted reddits or Reddit posts of all time. And
I think why it matters and why it's so reddit
is that it shows Reddit's power to revive and recontextualize
(21:14):
pop culture because this is the thing like Rick Astley, right,
you know, it's this rare example of celebrities just showing
up and being authentic. They're not trying to spin anything,
they're not trying to not trying to sell anything, trying
to sell or promote. Yeah, and he was turned into
a meme. He turned around and joined the joke, and
it was just him on a bike.
Speaker 3 (21:36):
Rick Astley on Reddit. Probably the first time he's been
mentioned on the show. But he deserves, you know, more attention,
more mentions.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
We should get him to chime in, give us a
little comment or at least upvote us on Reddit. I
feel like listeners right now. You think we're being paid
by Reddit to do this episode, but it's not true.
We literally just brain from this topic.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
I actually thought it was weird. We hadn't talked about Reddit,
you know, talk about something we hadn't talked about yet
in thirteen years. We hadn't really devoted a show to Reddit, right.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
But we're not being paid. It's not a promo.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
I don't think Reddit's you know, grabbing influencers or podcasters.
I don't think that's how Reddit rolls. And if they did,
I don't think they'd come for us.
Speaker 2 (22:21):
They might were the target audience, were like just the
average everyday guys. So I'll give you a little marketing
takeaway today about Reddit. Reddit isn't just a forum. It's
a focus group. It's a content generator. It's a trend
incubator and search engine all rolled into one it's a
(22:43):
place to listen, not just speak. If you're not lurking
on Reddit, you're missing the unfiltered thoughts of the Internet's
most passionate and brutally honest users. In other words, before
you launch your next campaign, if you're talking about doing
a marketing care or anything, maybe see what Reddit has
(23:03):
to say about it first. That's my takeaway.
Speaker 3 (23:06):
That is a great takeaway. Reddit great place to lurk
and listen, do some consumer research. You can learn a
lot about people's opinions on almost anything, any product, you know,
any topic. As I was saying earlier, in many cases,
I find it to be a better search engine than Google.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
Yeah. Well, and that's one of the reasons why I
say that is because you know, we've talked about it.
You might do a Google search, but you want to
also search Reddit see what they're saying. I think that's
a it's a good bit of knowledge, a little nugget
of human wisdom. If you will, oh, I will. Well,
we hope you really enjoyed everything about Reddit today. But
(23:46):
that's it for this episode. You can find current and
past episodes of the podcast on Speaking Human dot com.
Speaker 3 (23:54):
We'll be back in two weeks. With another episode of
speaking human. Catch it, then
Speaker 1 (23:59):
Youmans speaking human
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