Thursday, March 10, 2011

Ethnography Results, Week 5

Nothing much to say about /r/politics that I haven't said before, so I'll instead discuss more general trends.  I have found that in the less serious subreddits (i.e. /r/pictures, /r/funny, etc.) that it is not uncommon for a successful post to have many copycat posts that follow shortly after.  These usually involve altering something from the original post (adding words/photoshopping images) or posting some kind of rebuttal (i.e. "No, this is the best _________").  People who dislike this trend complain that the copycats are simply looking for easy karma, which may indeed be the case.

I also paid closer attention to /r/ama (ask me anything) and what it can be used for.  In most cases, it is truely used as a teaching/explination device, as in the case of a California congressman and a terminal cancer patient.  Sometimes it seems it's someone looking for the spotlight or someone who just wants to let people know more about them (such as a user claiming they were Ken Jennings of Jeopardy fame).

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