January 1st, 2017 - /r/SubredditOfTheDay: A retrospective of 2016 and what's new here. Also, you can turn the CSS here back on!

^{edited to clean up link.}

/r/wallstreetbets

3,128,477 4,679,462 5,916,497 degenerates HOLDING for 9 years!

Okay, before we start this feature, I want to make two things clear. One: This is not financial advice. I think that should be pretty clear and if you're the sort of person to take financial advice from a Subreddit Of The Day post, you have bigger things to worry about. Two: I have literally no clue what's going on. While I think I have a bare-bones understanding of the whole situation, at the end of the day I am economically illiterate, so if I make any mistakes don't bully me too hard.

/r/wallstreetbets is a land of wife's boyfriends, YOLOs, FOMOs, 🌈🐻s, among other things. The community description - "Like 4chan found a bloomberg terminal illness." - is fairly accurate. Recently, as you probably know, it has exploded in popularity - as of writing this right now there's almost a million users on the page at the moment, and the subscriber count has gone up by a few hundred thousand in the time I've been writing this so far. I go on Twitter, and #EatTheRich is trending alongside #RobinhoodApp and "Wall Street". I turn on TV, and they're talking about this subreddit on CNN. The mod team even has a Twitter account made a few days ago that is close to 600k followers AND is verified. When it comes to the title of "Subreddit Of The Day", this subreddit has got to be the most worthy in a while. The year is 2021 and Tucker Carlson is agreeing with AOC, who agrees with Donald Trump Jr. and Ted Cruz, who both agree with Ilhan Omar. And they're all agreeing on a subreddit being based. This is so far outside the normal realm of comprehension.

GameStop: Power To The Players

Here's an abridged version of the story - I'm sure a lot of you know the gist already and as said there's already extensive media coverage out there. A Redditor known as /u/DeepFuckingValue YOLOd 50k on GameStop, and now sits on tens of millions in profit. Why GameStop? Well, to plagiarise quote this post: "This is about more than GameStop, this for many it is about what GameStop represents. A small company struggling on its own finds itself in the sights of billionaire hedge fund managers mid COVID. The hedge fund owners short (bet the stock goes down) over 100% of the stock (making it nearly impossible to go up), the goal is to destroy an already struggling company quickly, and turn a quick buck. GME is the 'everyman' of publicly traded companies and the hedge fund elite are out to crush it. DFV posted a very well thought-out and thorough video of his research, including the fact GameStop e-commerce grew over 309%, and here we are as sub count has rocketed to 3 million users in days (it's closing in on 6 million now!) & the price skyrocketed from $4 to over $300 in a few months."

Somehow, it seems as if this situation is simultaneously a meme and wholly serious for WSB now. It is not only a bit of a meme stock, but also a huge (and I'm talking King Kong Balls HUGE) "fuck you" to Wall Street professionals/hedge funds like Melvin Capital. And then there's the RobinHood fiasco. A trading app with the slogan "Let the people trade" restricts trading in GameStop. Funny how that works. However, as some have pointed out, this could be a blessing in disguise: EVERYONE is now talking about GME. Any talk about GME is good talk, they fucked themselves trying to silence it but did the opposite. 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀

RobinHood can restrict trade, the Financial Times can suggest wsb is somehow aligned with the alt-right for being on Reddit (seriously, wtf?), but one simple fact remains - to sum this all up in three words:

🦍 APES 🦍 TOGETHER 🦍 STRONG 🦍 🍌🍌🍌🍌

Here's a taste of what you can find on /r/wallstreetbets:

1. All I have to say to CNBC is, “fuuuuuuuuck you”. (35,133 upvotes, 571 comments)

2. AOC got our backs (164,010 upvotes, 5,394 comments)

3. WSB, WHAT IS YOUR STRATEGY? 💎✋🚀 (1,033 upvotes, 84 comments)

"DON'T LET THE GENERATION THAT CAN'T CONVERT TO PDF PLAY WITH YOUR MIND! HOLD!!!" - /u/MrWallss

^{Written by} /u/verifypassword__

http://www.reddit.com/r/subredditoftheday/comments/7nf16o/january_1st_2018_rsubredditoftheday_2017_in_review/

/r/ThanosDidNothingWrong

554,540 ( /2 277,270) children of Thanos for 3 Months!

It's a simple calculation. Original content on Reddit is finite. Upvotes, are finite. Memes, shitposts, bandwidth, server capacity, bots, are all finite. But the subscribers are growing exponentially. Just in the past week, the amount has tripled. Left unchecked, the entire subreddit would have collapse into nothingness.

But we understood the problem. We were willing to sacrifice everything for the greater good. We, the children of Thanos, crafted the bot to remove half the population, gathered the scattered 6 pieces of the subscriber list, and fought off the fierce opposition of u/spez and the Reddit engineers. We did this all to bring about perfect balance to our subreddit, as all things should be.

Those of us who remain would like those who have turned to dust be remembered. Their sacrifice was not made in vain.

And we, the remaining, know our duty. We may have brought balance to our sub, but others still suffer. We shall turn our sights to greater heights, and bring eternal balance to all of Reddit.

You can dread it. Run from it. Destiny still arives.

^{Written by child of Thanos,} /u/Codeskull

/r/antiMLM

304,200 recruited for 7 Years!

At AntiMLM we are dedicated to resisting the worst business model capitalism has ever concocted. Multi Level Marketing scams take the thrilling heights of a pyramid scheme and hide behind the guise of "small business owners" "direct selling" often poor quality products to everyone they know. This is where MLMs ruin families and friendships. If a business incentivizes you to turn everyone you know into a customer, you are going to lose money and damage relationships along the way—which is what most victims of MLM scams experience.

Our sub is full of success stories from those who have kicked or resisted MLMs, sad tales of ruined family finances and relationships, and great evidence of direct action against MLM advertising schemes.

This is a classic post where a user wins a bet when her long lost friend contacts her

Here is a fresh post where a user hides the MLM marketing material they find in a doctor's office.

Sometimes the numbers don't lie

Of course our community comments are always great for advice, encouragement, or lols. Here is a top comment from a post where an MLM is tearing apart a marriage: So many of these people wrapped up in victimizing new recruits are themselves being victimized by their upline.

We are trying to do our best to stop the MLMs from commercializing our relationships.

Written by special guest writer, /u/eagleapex, edited by /u/OwnTheKnight

https://www.reddit.com/r/subredditoftheday/comments/eim6sk/january_1st_2020_rsubredditoftheday_the_annual/

/r/TrumpCriticizesTrump

100,190 tweet readers for 4 months!

Bwaaahaha. This is one of the best humor subreddits ever. And it motherfuckin' IS a humor subreddit, because THE DONALD is a humor president. If you don't find something to laugh at every day, then just repeat after me, "Donald Trump is the president of the United States." See? It's funny. Every. Single. Time.

I am getting off-topic here. The point is, that teh trumpsta is a commander in chef of pasta! Delicious nonsensical statements and phrase that make the folks at /r/copypasta drool.

Teh best pastas he cooks are the ones that contradict himself, proving once and for all that da donald is da best debata of all tymeh.

Here's what I'm gonna do now. I am going to show you a tweet by @realDonaldTrump and then give you a spoiler about why it's funny.

LET'S GO!

Thank you to the LGBT community! I will fight for you while Hillary brings in more people that will threaten your freedoms and beliefs. 12:31 PM - 14 Jun 2016

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/742771576039460864

Because Trump tweeted that due to the cost of care for transpeople, the armed services will not allow them. That led to mass confusion in the military and Pentagon, HUGE backlash, and it turned out that it costs less than his fucking golf trips.

We need a President who isn't a laughing stock to the entire World. We need a truly great leader, a genius at strategy and winning. Respect! ~ 12:30 AM - 9 Aug 2014

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/498008486551506945

Out of context this tweet sounds like it's about Trump. He's actually talking about Obama, who went eight years without any major scandals, won a Nobel Peace Prize, and is highly respected by world leaders. It's funny because Trump is a joke. He can be the punchline of anything. Let's try it. Why did the chicken cross the road? Trump. It's funny!

Does @BarackObama ever work? He is constantly campaigning and fundraising--on both the taxpayer's dime and time---not fair! ~ 11:10 AM - 25 Oct 2011

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/128896258684354560

See, it's funny because he's on pace to outspend in one year what Obama spent in eight years on vacations. He plays golf all the fucking time. He also has been running for reelection and doing big campaign events since, well, right after the race was called for him and before he even took office.

How much longer are we expected to put up with the world's most incompetent leader JUST NEVER ENDS ~ 5:23 PM - 24 Nov 2013

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/404782270185504768

My guess? 2021 when his term expires. I am not hopeful of anything else getting in the way of that. Still hilarious.

I think that's quite enough. Now head on over to /r/trumpdebatestrump for hardy laughs every god damned day!

Calling it now, everyone's gonna post about how SROTD is full of left-wing loons by the same people who called us right-wing loons in the past. Oh please, oh please let one of them be @realDonaldTrump!

/r/KotakuInAction

29,608 readers for 6 months!

Hello again. I'm Xavier, a writer for /r/SubredditOfTheDay. You might know me a bit by now, perhaps through my odd writing style or my skill for writing pages of nothing at all. Today I'm going to be writing a feature that's different than the rest. It's going to be quite long, and it's going to be from the heart. This isn't going to contain many jokes, it's not going to be funny, and it's not going to make people happy. What it's going to do is give you a good understanding of what I feel and why I feel it. It's going to talk about the subreddit in question, /r/KotakuInAction, and why I feel it deserves to be featured. It's going to be raw, roughly written (outside of this introduction it was done in one sitting), and hopefully it will provide everything you need to know. Let's begin.

I was a moderator for reddit's /r/Games, a subreddit focusing around serious discussion of games and gaming news. I wasn't the only moderator, nor was I the most active, but to as many regulars of that community as I've talked to I was one of the best. What made me better than my colleagues? My priority was on the people using the subreddit. My philosophy was that we're all just a bunch of people using a website and nothing more. If someone needed my help, I helped. If someone had a question, I answered it. I afforded everyone as much decency and respect as I would afford anyone else, online or in person. Everyone was my equal, and they were respected and shown the same kindness I'd show any of my friends. To the other moderators there, this was a bit silly. To them it was never about people, it was about the industry. Conventions, interviews, access, whatever. They relished what minor power being a moderator of some internet forum had given them and did not think highly to being equal to those they moderated. They justified it with insults to these people, saying even that the users were idiots for not knowing every detail of every piece of reddit. It made me sick. I had become the PR manager of the subreddit out of necessity. Nobody else could do the job because their idea of diplomacy was an insult and a shadowban. Not that it mattered, as many in the industry I spoke to came to me before the position ever got brought up in the first place. I'm happy the other mods didn't get put in that position, as these industry folks were the very people those mods insulted. Those people didn't deserve to be ridiculed by my colleagues any more than anyone else.

When this #GamerGate stuff started there was a lot of talk about it in our back room. I've made the specifics of it clear elsewhere if you're interested. We were all caught between a rock and a hard place, but some of us had different ideas of getting out of that position. Mine was that we treat it like any other news story: allow discussion and links, but ban direct harassment and doxing. That was always the policy. Others wanted complete censorship. Obviously, that's what they went with. I've always been a proponent for free speech and an opponent of censorship. If the reason that the articles and discussion were banned was out of legitimate concern for the community I would've been okay with that. I wasn't okay with censoring information out of personal bias, vendetta, and outright fabrications. I will never be okay with that. However, I wasn't in a position to fight it. GamerGate was a very small thing back then, and I thought it would blow over in a week. The moderators of /r/Gaming put wind in its sails by nuking and censoring a thread dedicated to a quite neutral opinion on the topic, and further banning users involved in pro-GamerGate comments (as well as the submitter, to my understanding). After that is where things get a bit murky.

I was alerted to a leak one day while dealing with this. A moderator of /r/Games had talked to somebody and revealed information about censorship, administrator involvement, stuff like that. It was several pages. Immediately after its posting I was accused of being the leak. During and after reading through it I posted various inaccuracies that shot some holes in that theory; language not matching my nationality, time being incorrect, several facts being wrong, and a noticeable lack of information from private sources being chief among them. It didn't sway the person who first accused me. He was adamant, insistent even, that I was the only one it could be. His evidence? I was strongly anti-censorship, and I liked to swear. In an informal setting I do indeed swear quite a bit as a result of my upbringing, and I am indeed anti-censorship, but even to the others this was shaky reasoning. I started investigating and came up with a lot of leads. For instance: information from our IRC room was correct, but not from our modmail, leading me to believe it was someone who could access one but not the other. My original guess was an IRC global operator who could spy on channels without us knowing, but that went nowhere because they promised it wasn't any of them after the accuser asked their friend on the staff. My second guess was a former moderator who had access to our IRC room (and idled often in there) but not to our modmail. This moderator left the mod team after very vocal opinions on the subjects of social justice, equality, and related topics became too much for him. He could not argue for these ideas with our users and remain a moderator, so he resigned. I respect him for that. I respected him for a lot of things. I suspected this moderator of doing so because outside of the snoonet operators and outside of the accuser himself, nobody else came close to possibly doing it. I shared these thoughts with another moderator, and he thought the same. Still, it was only some hours later before the accuser successfully banned me from the subreddit, IRC, and back room, and started a fight.

At first I was distraught. I made a statement expressing disbelief, and it took me a whole day before it really sunk in. Even the other moderators couldn't believe it. Still, there it was. I was even more shocked to see the character assassination and direct attacks against me. Reddit employees were calling me out publicly. This is to be expected, of course. The correct thing to do is to lie down and take it. To think that your position as a moderator on reddit would mean enough that you wouldn't dare go up against those accusations. If you do nothing you can be a mod somewhere else, get back to the table, and everything is fine. If you stand up for yourself, though? They will come at you with everything they've got. They thought they knew me when I was a moderator there. I didn't like to make waves if I could avoid it and I didn't like causing anyone trouble. I was nice to everyone, including them, and they thought I was helpless. When the question of defending myself came up, they seemed almost bewildered that I would do so. A brave man defends himself from those that do wrong, and a brave man is exactly what Mr. and Mrs. Mendel raised. When I defended myself from them, something weird happened. I'm quite a large man, and once long ago something strange happened. I hugged a friend (in a completely innocent way, being asexual and all), and she seemed a bit scared. I was physically much, much bigger than her and it intimidated her. I wasn't at all aware of it because I take it for granted, but it made me rethink how I handle myself. The same thing happened when I defended myself. I did it too well, and it came off as a major attack against them. My strategy was simple: tell the truth. You'd be surprised how much a liar fears the truth. They'll do anything and everything to stop it from coming to light.

And they did do anything and everything, for a while at least. Harassment, lies, threats, isolation, they did all and more and it didn't work. I made it clear: every time they attacked me I would defend myself from it. They tell a lie, I tell the truth. It's amazing what sort of a shield that is. Eventually they come to fear you and the things you might say. I got tired of the back and forth and threatened once for myself: Attack again and I'll release everything I know. You see, I'm meticulous and slightly forgetful. I take notes, record things, and track information in order to keep it all in my head. I do it for everything: TV shows, movie series, the works. Of course I did this with reddit as well. I never intended for it to be used for anything more than reminding myself of what mod said what or what account belongs to who, but it became a powerful tool. The attacks stopped. Nobody wants something like that getting out. A group that fears a drop of truth cowers under the fear of a flood. It kept me safe for a while. Of course, that only bothered the ones that were involved in reddit. The ones that weren't so involved were a different story.

Last year I worked in education teaching programming to college students as an adjunct. The pay was bad but I loved teaching. I loved giving people the knowledge they needed to get into an industry that I care so much for and was a part of for so long. However, someone changed that. A former friend found out about the things I was doing online: advocating against censorship, against nepotism and corruption, and fighting for transparency. They decided that to shut me up they should take my job. They contacted my employer and wove a tale that was sure to get my fired. According to him I was a Nazi, using my position to spread hate to students. It was only narrowly that I managed to keep my job, but with such a record there was no way I could've stayed. Even if I stayed I was already gone. I haven't spoken to that friend much since, only through the occasional email he sends me asking me to reconsider my positions and advocate for the opposite side. I always decline, and he always tells me I'm no man at all.

A year ago I was a person who loved video games. I was a gamer who loved talking about games so much that I moderated a forum dedicated to it. I had core values of compassion, kindness, respect, and honesty. I believe I was happy. I can't say for certain. It's hard to remember what the light felt like when you live your life huddled in the darkness. This all, this GamerGate stuff, it means very little to me. I support ethics in journalism and I'm against harassment and sexism. I support women and minorities in STEM (and taught and worked beside many), and I hate the idea of "old boys clubs". Do I support LGBT rights? People tend to forget that asexuals are a part of that "LGBT+" umbrella. Supporting their rights is supporting my own, so of course. Even before I accepted the idea of asexuality I supported LGBT people in a time when it was wildly unpopular to do so. I believe in everyone, and I believe that given the chance anyone can be incredible. The idea that because I support GamerGate I must not support these things is unfounded and wrong. It also misses a basic fact: I didn't choose to support GamerGate, I was forced to. GamerGate's supporters helped me when their opponents attacked me. They listened to me when their opponents harassed me. They supported my ideas of transparency and honesty when their opponents were covering up and lying. I did not make the decision to support GamerGate. Its opposition pushed me into them and I accepted their kindness. I would've supported the other side if GamerGate had been the bad one, but that wasn't the case. It still isn't.

So what is GamerGate to me? What is KotakuInAction, GamerGate's reddit hub? It's the people that assured me that I wasn't as evil and worthless as others were calling me. It's the idea that I am not a monster simply for pissing off a few angry forum moderators. It's the belief that what I do is not a waste, and that people do care. Most of all, GamerGate is the confirmation that my dreams of ethical behavior are right. That amid a crowd of hundreds who call me wrong, there are thousands more who support me. We forget sometimes about the silent majority, and for a long time I forget they existed. They're here now, and they helped me a great deal. They saw the people wishing I would stop talking and said "No! Speak your mind!" They saw the people wishing me dead and said "No! They're wrong about you!" They saw the people hating me, and lying about me, and scheming to take me down, and they said "No. Come with us and we'll see that justice is served." I needed to hear those words, and they said them.

For a Subreddit of the Day post this is a bit unorthodox. I could have done an article filled with citations to different articles and links to different fact sheets but I didn't. That isn't what I'm about. I wanted to tell you why I believe that this subreddit deserves to be featured here. Why the attempts to block it from being featured are unjust. I wanted to tell you why I am willing to take the increased harassment for talking about this. I am willing to do it because I believe in it. A person's beliefs are not determined by whoever yells at them the loudest. My beliefs represent my upbringing. From a rotting vacant in Pittsburgh to a cheap house in Tampa, my beliefs have been impacted by everything I've experienced. I've experienced courage, and loss, and duty, and addiction. I've experienced pain I wouldn't wish on anyone, and I've experienced joy I hope all people get to experience. I've been a stock boy, a burger flipper, a writer, and a programmer. I've seen things I try to forget and I've been places I hope I'll always remember. Through all my thirty years of life I have kept one thing in mind: I am a product of Earth and nothing more. I am no better than anyone else I meet. Whether it was a farmer in Azerbaijan or a CEO in Washington, we're all equal. I'll be cold in the ground before I let anyone tell me I'm worthless.

Someone told me recently that I'm unlikable as a human being. They were wrong. Deep down I believe we're all great, and we all have the ability to be wonderful people. Some lose their way now and again, and that's fine so long as they can find it. I take a lot of flak for saying this, more so than I could ever understand given the subject, but I'll say it again: You're awesome, all of you, and I'm glad to help you in any way I can.

Thank you for listening to all of this. Not only was finally writing this all down helpful for informing those who were (as of a few minutes ago) uninformed, it also got it out of my head and onto a page. It's been therapeutic. Several days ago I was hovering over the submit button for suicidewatch, thinking to myself, "oh Xavier, how far must you sink to ask people for help?" Today? Today I'm in a better place. I hope you're all good, and happy too.

Thank you again for reading. Now, finally, it's time to hear from the mods of /r/KotakuInAction. In particular I'm going to be talking to one mod who has been nothing but kind to me, so let's give him a warm welcome.

1. First off, tell me a bit about yourself.

/u/TheHat2 I'm the goddamn Hatman. I play video games and talk about things on the Internet. As far as my Reddit self, I've been a mod of /r/TumblrInAction for about a year, and of /r/KotakuInAction since the beginning.

2. In your own words, what is r/KotakuInAction and what does it hope to accomplish?

/u/TheHat2 KiA is a place to primarily discuss GamerGate, but it's also for talking about general issues in the gaming industry. For example, publishers screwing over developers, review embargoes, what constitutes as a "video game," etc.

3. For those new to GamerGate: What exactly is it? How would you summarize it?

/u/TheHat2 GamerGate is a consumer revolt (or movement, depending on how you see it) over unethical practices in games journalism. It deals with issues of nepotism, collusion between competing publications, spinning the news for certain people/topics, among others. It's the culmination of years of gamers distrusting the press, finally coming to a boiling point. Gamers are finally banding together to say that enough is enough, and demanding reform.

4. Why do you think GamerGate's supporters and detractors believe what they believe? Why all the hostility?

/u/TheHat2 I believe GamerGate's supporters are in this because we want to see this change come about. We're invested in video games, and we don't want to be lied to or misled by the gaming press, nor do we want to see them abuse their status to benefit or damage people or games. As for GamerGate's detractors, I think it's a combination of seeing the worst of the Internet that's been associated with GamerGate, and a belief that we're largely overreacting to these issues. Most of it would probably go to the former, though, as a common talking point among GamerGate's opponents is the issue of harassment and sexism that has been attributed to GamerGate supporters, most notably by major media outlets. I think a lot of the hostilities come from a failure to really communicate with one another. Both sides are looking for ways to discredit major figures on either end of the spectrum, and being able to have a productive conversation about these issues has become impossible. Attempts have been made before, but were seen as "fraternizing with the enemy," which further keeps a solution from being reached. As a result, hostilities remain, and a resolution seems far from attainable, which is unfortunate.

5. Thanks a ton. Is there anything else you would like to say?

/u/TheHat2 The people on KiA truly believe that GamerGate is a cause worth fighting for. We feel we've been misrepresented by the media, and haven't been able to be taken seriously as a result. I'd implore people to have a conversation about the issues GamerGate has raised, so the gaming industry can be improved. We want this controversy to end just as much as everyone else does.

There you have it. Hat has been a helpful person to me for the past year. He's kept me in the loop, given me a place to talk about what's been going on, and he's introduced me to an audience that is dying to hear about it. Imagine that, people actually wanting to hear me talk. Hilarious. Be sure to check out /r/KotakuInAction if you're interested in it, and leave questions and replies in the comments section below.

This has been your soldier of fortune, Xavier Mendel, signing off.

As an aside, today is also my 31st birthday. Feel free to send milkshakes. Party at my house, and you're all invited. Yes, there will be a ball pit.

/r/MarijuanaEnthusiasts

59,011 true ents propagating the species for 4 years!

This sub is probably not what you were expecting.

A long time ago, a gang of herbivores established the blazing pothole that is /r/trees and it has sprouted irreversibly into the place for weed, pineapples, and other drug paraphernalia. But proper dendrophiliacs felt there was lack of tree appreciation on the site. So once they put down their own roots, they naturally pulled the old reddit spruce-a-roo. But since users are easily confused, they'll teach you how to get high.

/r/marijuanaenthusiasts is a place to share pictures of your favorite trees. Some shots are well-timed and others are creative and some folks get to share their professional enthusiasm. The subreddit itself has been a warm and wholesome community long before being nice became a meme. They welcome all kinds, from the pretty, the twisted, to the freaky and even the gory.

Written by /u/razerxs

/r/EnoughTrumpSpam

3,068 users watching as logic is assaulted saying enough for 9 months!

So what is /r/EnoughTrumpSpam about?

See title.

We have basically really come into our own in the last month, as Trump locked down the Republican nomination and the sub has really picked up the pace. So here's your chance to be a Reddit hipster and say "I joined ETS before it was cool."

But if you think about it, it has actually been over a year since Donald Trump announced his run for president. Since then, it has been estimated that the media has given him around $3 billion worth of free media coverage, boosting him to first place in the Republican primary.

That's a helluva lot of spam.

And now, our once proud nation is constantly bombarded with every aspect of Trump's life, like his love for: (most importantly) himself, tacos, women, immigrants, himself, Muslims, lying, pandering, demagoguing, failing businesses, himself, criminally fraudulent schemes - the list goes on and on.

At /r/enoughtrumpspam, we have had enough!

We are also tired of seeing 4chan game Reddit by pushing /r/the_Donald to the front page. At one point, you had to count to the 118th post to find the first one that dipped below the 1K karma threshold. That kind of manic pace can't even be seen from defaults with millions upon millions of subscribers - yet /r/the_donald only has 100K.

And now, even the admins acknowledge that the insane and unprecedented gaming of each and every racist fart and cough to the top of the Reddit front page from that dictionary definition of a buffoon is getting out of control.

Last we checked "euphoric shit posting" and "bipolar mania" does not, in fact, effectively substitute for a lack of well thought out policy prescriptions from the Great Orange Turd (with the small hands).

tl;dr So if you need some comic relief this general election, this long, long, incredibly looooooong election cycle, make sure to head over to /r/enoughtrumpspam and subscribe.

Did I mention it's going to be a looooooong general election? We are the only ones that have the prescription to keep you sane from the constant bombardment of Trump spam. Now if only we can come up with one for Trump himself...

Brought to you by special guest writer /u/BonerSmack.

http://www.reddit.com/r/subredditoftheday/comments/abi0w7/january_1st_2019_rsubredditoftheday_an_annual/

http://www.reddit.com/r/subredditoftheday/comments/koaxsa/january_1st_2021_rsubredditoftheday_looking_back/

/r/FuckNestle

71,970 readers for 4 years!

Let me hear it from the back! Fuck Nestle!

That's right, it's Nestle, the massive international conglomerate that lives to fuck you and everyone else on Earth over. The corporation that makes their products with child slaves, manipulation, unfeeling pollution, price fixing, and more, and tells the world to suck its robot dick when called out. The corporation that steals your water, from your land, with the help of the politicians they've bribed and bought, and tells you to pound sand when the people demand what's rightfully theirs. Nestle, the corporation that has been boycotted fiercely by international groups since 1977 due to how disgusting their practices are.

/r/FuckNestle is a subreddit which exists to discuss (and meme about) the reasons why every human, animal, plant, and Vogon from the planet Vogsphere should hate this infuriating monument to humanity's collective self-loathing. Nestle is a glowing (from the pollutants) example of the incredible danger presented by the empowerment of corporations over the people. This is what freedom to callously kill, enslave, and destroy does: It leads to killing, enslaving, and destroying. Who'd have guessed that?

This sort of thing should make everyone sick. That any human could support their actions, and proudly defend child slavery and death, creates such a feeling of disgust for the human race that I almost want the Earth to be demolished to build a hyperspace bypass. We don't deserve a planet.

Come be angry with the rest of us at /r/FuckNestle, and catch up with the informative stickied post. There's anger to spare, so dive in and let the hate flow through you.

This has been your writer tired out from being angry all the time, /u/XavierMendel, signing off.

/r/TumblrInAction

299,093 transethnic otherkin being oppressed for 3 years.

The internet, by its nature, is and always has been a liberal place. If the term liberal offends you, then regard it to be meant in the classical sense. The internet is a medium that allows for the free sharing of ideas, either anonymously or otherwise.

For the past twenty-five years and longer, the internet has been used to bring groups together who might not otherwise have a voice in mainstream society. Everyone from atheists, to homosexuals, to Vectrex enthusiasts. If there's a sub culture for a thing, it exists online. One reason for communities to come together is obviously due to shared interests and experiences. Another is safety. Some people feel that their lifestyle or ideas are dangerous to talk about in their community. With online communities, people can have an anonymous handle and share information freely.

As time has passed, some groups have more and more been integrated into society. Many atheists no longer feel that "coming out" is unsafe, and homosexuals now have the legal right to marry, a concept which was anything but mainstream back when I first got onl`ine. It turns out that most people don't give a fuck about what others do in their private lives.

For as much good as the internet has done for the free expression of speech, in particular for minority groups, it has also caused groups to coalesce around the idea that what other groups or people say is wrong. There is actual oppression that exists in the world. It could come from a source of power and money, or it could come in the form of prejudice based on race, creed, gender, or sexual orientation. Most of us have experienced this in some form or another.

/r/TumblrInAction is about oppression. Okay, well... kinda. More like showing how people these days find new and creative ways to feel oppressed. But not the kind of oppression that you may think of. Certainly none of the examples that I just listed, which are still prominent in society.

There's this thing that I call "the rubber band effect." The supposition states that as much as we push back against something, for example racism against people of African descent, elements of society will form together, such as on the internet, and push back against either the group that was doing the oppressing in the first place, or a group that is perceived by some as responsible for whatever the initial transgression was. This post is an example of the latter. The OP feels justified in being indifferent towards the death of a child because the father was white and male (and probably cis). An example of the former is this post. Women (and men) have fought for generations to obtain equality for women. Now the recoil is to erase gender constructs from society altogether.

As a point of example, one community that has formed is recent years is the fat acceptance movement. (See our archived SROTD feature on /r/fatlogic here.) Is it okay to be fat? If you want to be, sure. But it is healthy? Science says no. I am an accepter of science. I accept the big bang, evolution, climate change, vaccines, and so on. I also accept that obesity is a serious health issue. Two years ago I became morbidly obese. I spent some time in denial. Then I had a period feeling sorry for myself where I thought that there was just nothing I could do. I was miserable. But then I decided to make a change. I complete changed my lifestyle. I took my doctor's advice. I lost over one hundred pounds. I still have more work to go, but I am no longer morbidly obese, and I feel fucking great. I mention this because comments like these are not sane. First, it's an example of straight up science denial. Second, it's not helpful to anyone who is obese and wants to change. Someone whose health is at risk might believe this, that a doctor telling you to lose weight is just fat shaming. That there is no way for some people to lose weight. That obesity is healthy. It's not true. And it's harmful, not only to the individual espousing the ideas, but to anyone in the same position who buys it. Essentially, it's snake oil, but instead of doing nothing, it does harm.

We live in an era where trust for media and authority is at an all time low. We can pick and choose what media we consume. Just in the same way we only subscribe to subreddits we like, many people also only consume media that agrees with their established worldview. We can further join online communities that perpetuate our own beliefs to the point where it becomes an echo chamber, drowning out other ideas and views. Of course, this isn't healthy, not just for the individual, but for society as a whole.

/r/TumblrInAction exists to point out these statements of insanity for laughs and to and provide moments of sanity for contrast. Either the sanity or insanity can come from any source, not just tumblr. Well, any source as long as it's not reddit. (The mods do not tolerate that.) The one thing to keep in mind when browsing the sub is to not take is seriously. It doesn't even take itself seriously. That's part of the joke.

There are lots and lots more examples that I can provide which shows the kinds of insanity that is posted day after day. And we could look at it together and analyse it. But that's not really the point of TiA. It's more meant for a laugh, not to stand against SJWs everywhere. At its heart, it tries to be funny (and often succeeds). Also, this is already a really long post. I had an interesting discussion with the mods. So now I'll turn to the mod interview to go deeper into the reasons why /r/TumblrInAction exists and what it's all about.

1. Do you believe that society is teaching a new generation of people to find outrage and oppression where none exists? If so, what are some good examples?

/u/GammaKing: Not exactly. Most people are pretty reasonable, the problem comes from a smaller element of society who've taken on the mindset that nobody has any right to say anything that makes someone else uncomfortable. There are people around that go out of their way to try and take offence over trivial matters, but as far as teaching I'd say it's more of a social media-based effect. Tumblr is far from unique in it's ability to go batshit over stupid matters, but the battles they choose usually go against Tumblr's favourite scapegoat - straight white men.

Typical examples being:

• Having dreadlocks is racist if you're not black.

• Not displaying fat people on fitness posters is "fatphobic".

• Giving basic safety advice like "don't pass out drunk on the street" is

• "victim blaming".

I'm sure the others might have some more thoughts.

/u/ShinkoNetCavy: Today I went to an event on someone lecturing about the game industry, had no idea who it was, and they were talking all about how oppressed women were, and we had to fire men to get these people diverse. The majority of the people attending this were the new generation. I can say that yes, especially in universities there is a very big force behind SJW logic.

Reaction: Holy shit man, that's bullshit. I am a gen xer going back to college now. I am a communication (not with a "S") major, and two classes I have to take are relational communication and gender communication. The former was super SJW. Not just the standard stuff you'd think of, but it even promoted the stereotype that blacks are more anti-gay than anyone else. Not that it didn't have valid information about what safe space is in a real relationship, because it did and that term is a real thing. But it also went deeper than the tumblr abyss and into what I'd consider to be racist territory.

/u/GammaKing: On that point, I should probably add that injecting politics into universities is quite a strong trend which has recently started to make it over here to the UK. This isn't really an action of society, but of a few agenda-driven people in powerful positions. For example, a while back there was a mandatory workshop on racism in the workplace held where I am. The sum of it was essentially "Even if you think you're not, being white means you're racist". You could say that this is an example of how people get brainwashed, but by and large everyone came out in agreement that the whole thing was a farce. The agenda pushing is there, but people aren't as receptive to it as you might think.

/u/GroovyEFS: I do not believe we are teaching this specifically, but we have left the door wide open for encouraging it by telling everyone they're a unique special snowflake as they're growing up. "Everyone is unique and everyone deserves a participation trophy."

I think it is those who keep this mindset into early adulthood (18-24) who become SJWs, and rarely this will continue even past those ages.

/u/Goatsac: Unequivocally yes. For years we've been teaching each and every child that it was special just for being. Now we've been teaching them that they are special by how upset they get. Which is why they are loud with it. The Oppression Olympics is fucking twisted. The constant contest for oppression, I believe, is just normal human competitiveness asserting itself in the only outlet it could find amongst these people. You're not allowed to be better than anyone at anything, but they aren't allowed to be better than you. So it's a mad dash to the bottom where only a retarded, negroid, hermaphrodite, paedophile rape-victim with no eyes, half a leg, three arms, and incontinence can win. Unless of course they don't whole-heartedly support Social Justice, then that niggerass uncle tom motherfucker has just internalized their racism, and they deserve everything they've had happen to them.

A good example is "Rape Culture." From stats so turned on their head, twisted and fucked with (basically raped), or just outright made up, we get this weird Red Scare fear-mongering against men where every man is a rapist, he just hasn't raped you yet. And everyone has to tout this, everyone, even the President. To not support this fantasy is to support rape. 1 in 1 women in college get sexually assaulted. It's a pandemic.

/u/TheHat2: In some ways. Universities tend to be a hotbed for this. Most schools require students take some "diversity" class (or multiple classes), for example. Gonzaga outright calls this the "social justice core." Courses like these will encourage students to become activists, to raise awareness about some sort of perceived injustice. We saw a lot of this in the list of demands in the wake of the Mizzou protests, where some groups found issue with their university not having mandatory classes that teach "the historical racial violence of [UNC-Chapel Hill] and [the city of Chapel Hill] as well as a historical and contemporary look at the ways in which racial capitalism, settler colonialism, and cisheteropatriarchy structure our world," or their university expanding its campus to "gentrify" a neighborhood (UNCG), or their university not protecting students from "intolerable and psychologically detrimental" posts on Yik Yak (Emory). Don't get me started about air conditioners...

2. What's the greater evil in the tumblr-sphere, being straight, being white, or being male? I ask because it seems like there are now political forces, in particular online, that are extremely derogatory and biased against people who aren't different, who don't stand out. Another example that comes to mind is so called "thin privilege." There seems to be a lot of hate for people who want to be fit and healthy. So, let's add "fit" or "thin" to that question.

/u/GammaKing: It depends who you ask. What I think many people don't realise is that different users on Tumblr prioritise different issues. Ultimately though the shared feature is that "privilege" has often come to be used as a means to excuse someone's own prejudice. For example, a black blogger who holds a prejudice against white people will often cite "white privilege" as an excuse for doing so. That's not to say privileges can't exist, but more often than not it's a thinly veiled cover for dismissing opposing arguments on racist/sexist grounds. Which identity is the most disparaged seems to change weekly.

/u/GroovyEFS: Race has become the latest hot topic within progressive circles so I honestly think being white is now considered "worse" than being male now.

/u/Goatsac: The need to be a special snowflake is part of the Oppression Olympics. To find ways to be so more horribly twisted than the next xir. That's where that comes from. I mean, say we're both gay, black transwomen right? And we fit in with other gay, black transwomen, but now I'm fat. Checkmate, bitches. Oh? You're fat now? Shit, I'm autistic. You're autistic? Fuck you, I'm manic depressive bipolar, and I think I have the soul and mind of a half-cat, half-dragon, half-toaster, quarter-galaxy, and I can't do math.

Of the four (Straight, White, Able-bodied, or Male), White is the greater evil. It's the trump card that shuts other people down. Kinda like what I was just rambling about. Say you're a retarded, fat, autistic transwomen with no legs and I'm just a moderately successful black woman. You're white, I'm not. You've led a privileged life, my friend. A very privileged life. For shame.

/u/TheHat2: I think it's between being white and (cis) male, but I'd lean more towards male. White privilege is still a huge thing that Tumblr rails against, especially since Black Lives Matter has kicked into high gear once again. The Patriarchy seems to be the eternal boogeyman, though, and with it, male privilege. The whole concept of masculinity seems to just push too many buttons in the Tumblr-sphere. It's divisive, it condones and relishes in violence and competition, it drives men to take possession over people, etc. A lot of anger over the idea of manliness. Hell, one of my last college classes was on Hemingway, and there were many people who described his being the epitome of manliness "highly problematic." I think a lot of this comes from the desire to end traditional gender roles and presentations, but that opens an entirely new can of worms, most notably, "without gender roles or social presentations of gender, how do you define the differences between genders?"

3. The concept of being "triggered" isn't new. For me, as an ex-smoker, certain things triggered me. Like if I was on the patio at a bar and someone lit up. It made me want to smoke too. But I didn't ever take it out on the person who was smoking. They were within their rights to be on the patio having a cigarette. I either had to resist or maybe go back inside. The difference in the social justice movement is that they seem to want to be comfortable not by changing their habits and beliefs, but by changing other people. Would you agree with this? Can you recall posts where "triggering" has led to people committing acts of violence or property damage? How do you think is the best way to deal with being "triggered"?

/u/GammaKing: I don't think that's quite right. Certain things can "trigger" memories of traumatic experiences, and that's a perfectly good reason to place content warnings about things like rape and violence. The difference here is that Tumblr took this to the extreme and started putting warnings before EVERYTHING. At one point it wasn't uncommon to see "TW: Weight loss" or similar. Over time the term devolved into referring to anything which makes someone feel remotely uncomfortable, and with that emerged this idea of the "safe space". "Safe space" ideology basically involves shutting out any idea which the in-group disagree with, for fear of upsetting those within. It's been rather damaging to universities in recent years for it shuts down debate and places severe restrictions on speech. So in short, disclosure is fine for genuinely sensitive topics, but people shouldn't expect subjects to be totally avoided just for their personal comfort in a public space.

/u/GroovyEFS: Everyone has things that trigger bad feelings. I have them, you have them, we all do. This is just natural.

How you deal with these feelings is what's key. In your example, you just deal with it or take yourself out the situation. This is the right way to do it and I don't think anyone on TiA would hate on you for it either.

I absolutely agree that it is attempting to change the world to fit you that is the issue, and that's exactly what we mock.

/u/Goatsac: (TW: Bad Grammar) I go both ways with the triggering thing. I completely understand the point, and endorse the intelligent use, of trigger warnings and all of that jazz. The situation you just mentioned, the smoking and all of that. That's personal responsibility and not forcing your own nonsense onto other people, which are two things this social justice, worthless Millennial, cyber generation struggles with. That's where they fuck up with trigger warnings. They became a badge to show how "woke" you were. Then competetiveness had it's way with them. And now they're a hilarious joke.

/u/TheHat2: Absolutely agree. I seem to remember a video a while back of a student assaulting a hyper-religious protestor over his "offensive" signs, and though he didn't say he was outright triggered, it came off that way (I think some people theorized that he had some severe mental disorder that could've led to the behavior, but I don't know for sure). The way I dealt with my trauma triggers when I was most sensitive to them was to stop being around anything that I thought would trigger an anxiety attack. Exercise online blocking tools, avoid certain places and/or people, not bringing up certain topics in conversation that could lead to it, etc. It's basically being hyper-conscious of your trigger and doing what you can to keep it from affecting you. You can request some changes of others, but demanding them is going too far. That said, I don't believe in "trigger warnings," either. You don't know who is going to be triggered by what. One of my triggers was a person's name. I know of someone who was abused by their mother while she ran the dishwasher, but his trigger became the sound of that appliance, not mentions of abuse. Yeah, triggers can hit at any moment, but it's up to the individual to be proactive about that, to care for their own mental health; it shouldn't be the responsibility of others.

4. How do you respond to accusations that TiA is a "hate" subreddit?

/u/GammaKing: This has become one of the more annoying little memes on Reddit, perpetuated by those with a political narrative to spin. Put simply: TumblrInAction is not in any way, shape or form a "hate subreddit". We have strong rules enforcing decency and respect and try to maintain a positive atmosphere. You probably saw the hatesubredditoftheday AMA we did, and in a nutshell it seems that they can't actually articulate any evidence to support their claims. In fact, talking to us caused their narrative to completely fall apart to the point that they were admonished by SRS for allowing us to speak at all.

It seems that it's primarily the offmychest mod network that try to perpetuate this accusation these days, and I posted a decent rebuttal of their latest charade here if you're interested.

It's worth pointing out that if you do happen to go to /r/againsthatesubreddits' list of "hate subs" you might notice two things:

• Their list contains a bunch of Neo Nazi communities, but also a sizeable number of innocuous subs focused on issues like gamergate, abortion, Trump and even /r/drama for some reason.

• In line with the above, you might also notice the absence of overtly hateful communities such as /r/againstmensrights. In fact, on further inspection it becomes clear that this is not a list of "hate subs", but a list of political opponents.

And so, with all this in mind, to me it seems clear that the people calling TiA a "hate sub" aren't doing so in an honest attempt to inform people - it's not convincing to anyone that's actually visited. Instead, this is merely an attempt to convince the uninitiated to look away without a second thought, maybe even parrot that accusation elsewhere.

/u/GroovyEFS: With laughter.

/u/Goatsac: When the whole purpose of your weird cult thing is to seek out any and every way that someone might be slighting you, or for you to declare openly that you might have it just slightly worse than anyone else in life, I imagine a forum, or subreddit, dedicated to laughing and mocking the central tenent of your faith feels like hate. A bunch of folks sitting around, having a good time, socialising (in the limited context the internet allows), telling jokes, having a good time with life just seems antithetical to the sort of person that gets featured on TiA. People, getting along, having fun, I imagine it's almost too much for their poor, little neuro-atypical selves. I will admit that at times their can be a lot of just counter/anti social justice nonsense in there, with a focus less on funny and more on combating the evil pinkhaired plague. Thankfully the funny reasserts itself and we can go back to just having a good time.

/u/TheHat2: It's a way to write us off because our community is full of people who criticize feminism, social justice, political correctness, etc. Sure, there are some nasty bigots on our sub that think they're in good company, but we try to weed them out where possible. We have rules in place that prohibit advocation of hatred or harm. If people see it happening where the mods haven't, it needs to be reported to us, not highlighted somewhere that uses it as proof about how TiA is a "hate sub."

5. What is TiA's overall mission?

/u/GammaKing: TiA is a place to kick back and have a chuckle at some of the silly stuff that gets posted on Tumblr. In the early days this was often people who thought they were turning into wolves and that sort of thing. However over the past few years social justice on Tumblr took off in a big way, so that's quite prominent these days, and you have to smile at people ranting about how bathroom mirrors are a sexist conspiracy.

/u/GroovyEFS: Keep laughing at crazy idiots.

/u/Goatsac: I feelz that the goal of TiA is to just have fun. To have a laugh with a few folks about something that was found that was so ridiculous, others have just got to check this out.

/u/TheHat2: To laugh at the logical gymnastics of others, and to point out how such logic makes no sense. For entertainment. We don't really like how the sub's been moving more toward outrage-bait, though to be fair, some of the logic we see is hard to just laugh at.

6. What would you like readers to know about your posting policy?

/u/GammaKing: Two things. Firstly: the key thing to ask yourself is whether your post is amusing. If it's more rage-inducing, it's better suited to the dozens of other subreddits for that content, such as /r/SocialJusticeInAction or /r/SJSucks. We aim to be different from all those and so strive for a laid-back attitude. This isn't the place to go for some sort of imaginary "culture war".

Secondly: Do not contact the bloggers. That'll earn you a ban. We'd also like to ask that, as funny as you may find it, the sub would be a much nicer place to moderate if Tumblr wasn't flooded with troll blogs and parody accounts. Please don't make them.

/u/GroovyEFS: We do not allow going after young teenagers because we all have blunder years. We make every attempt to remove satire when we see it, in fact there is a massive automod rule for removing all the known satire blogs. We tend to moderate submissions relatively strictly to ensure high quality content.

Comment rules are much more laid back. We do not want anyone using TiA as a soapbox or outright attacking other users, but other than that we try to allow reasonable free discussion within TiA's comment section.

/u/Goatsac: Try to have more fun with your titles without pushing your shitty little agenda the way the people we make fun of do. I've seen great titles help a mediocre submission, and I've seen shitty, preachy, agenda driven titles get things awesome removed. Don't become your "enemy" during your little "fight" against them. And for fuck's sake, being an easily-triggered, hyper-emotional, greenhaired fat fuck that whines about fat, easily-triggered, pinkhaired, hyper-emotional fucks that whine about oppressions is no way to fight in the Great Internet Culture War of The Twenty-Teens. Don't do it. It's bad.

/u/TheHat2: Don't post something just because it makes you angry. Don't post things that are too serious, like responses to terrorist attacks or rape accusations (false or otherwise). Don't use the sub to fight your political battles. And most importantly, DO NOT CONTACT ANYONE FEATURED ON TiA UNLESS YOU WANT TO GET A BOOT UP THE ASS.

7. Last question, there's a sub called "HateSubredditOfTheDay" that promotes subs that they feel are hateful. Why did you agree to do an interview with them? (Editors note: Said subreddit made a post apologizing about promoting TiA... and then deleted both the original post and the apology.)

/u/Goatsac: I wanted to from jump. I knew how bad it would go. Two of the moderators involved there are also modded to a little informal gathering of nonsense I'm involved with called /r/dickgirls. And both have presented themselves as fairly reasonable, although Minn-ee-sottaa is young. When first approached, we were all like, nah, go have fun with that, as an opening bid. Then gradually, Gamma used his natural role of "Daddy Pants", Hat's experience with professional journalists, and my connection to the moderator that approached us to see if we could get at something maybe not unbaised, but less shit flinging. More real accusations instead of "my feelz! they hurt!"

I've mocked and belittled those people for over two years. Watched them scramble and react to the stupidest of nonsense. I have to say, the whole thing was actually surprising me up until some rando AA account and creepy ass Quietuus showed up. And then it devolved into a beautiful thing.

Did you catch the drama post? At Kaalaaa updated it to include the goldfish links of the original and the apology post.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Drama/comments/4ho1md/did_rhatesubredditoftheday_coddle_with/

/u/GammaKing: In my case, it's because they approached us asking for an interview while clearly having an agenda. I promptly made it clear that if they wanted an interview they'd have to be willing to engage rather than smear. They agreed and sent a bunch of trap questions, presumably looking for something they could call hateful.

Only problem was, we weren't hateful. When they got back well reasoned responses I think there was a realisation that there was no way you could write a "look how awful that sub is" post with the material they had. So they went for an AMA instead hoping the community would figure it out.

Unsurprisingly the community couldn't come up with anything either, so they shut it down and started circlejerking.

The point is that we're more than willing to engage with criticism. It's better than being insular, and you make them look like a bunch of utter fools because their narrative falls apart. Basically if someone wants to damage your reputation, confront them and be goddamn spotless.

So basically we agreed to it because we knew they had nothing. Their cause was doomed from the start.

I hope the TL;DR of this is that actual oppression is evil, but perceiving entire groups of people as oppressors (or worse), e.g. all straight people, is also bad, and forming a group for the sake of finding new reasons to be oppressed or new people to oppress is not sane. And what do you do when you see someone being crazy? Laugh. That's all you can do.

Edit: It has been suggested that we include a note that some subreddits, such as /r/offmychest, have a bot that automatically bans anyone who posts or comments in /r/TumblrInAction.

/r/ThanksObama

50,177 people thanking Obama for 5 years!

More than a year ago /r/ThanksObama shut down. It was a subreddit that satirized how some people, generally those on the right, blamed Obama for every problem that in the world, in particular ones he didn't cause, like the war in Iraq. Obviously, such claims are ridiculous, and yet due to obstructionism and massive misinformation campaigns, people believed this stuff. I've even heard tell that one guy has been blaming him for ISIS. Shameful.

In response to all of this, people began sarcastically thanking Obama for every little inconvenience in their lives, like when the chocolate frosting gets stuck on the top of the doughnut box, or when the lights went out during the Super Bowl.

/r/ThanksObama was reddit's home for this hilarious meme. But it all came to an end when the man himself posted the meme to social media. Suerly nothing could top that. So the subreddit was closed. The game was over. Obama won.

So, I was pretty surprised when I saw a post on /r/ThanksObama show up on my front page only a few days ago (or about two weeks ago from the time you read this). It wasn't even sarcastic. It was giving genuine thanks to the man who has led America for the past eight years. Turns out, the sub was reopened for the final 70 days of President Obama's term. The old memes are still allowed, but people are encouraged to actually thank Obama for his service to his country.

I am going to use the remainder of my post to list some of the things that redditors have been thanking Obama for.

Thanks, Obama, for being a feminist

Thanks Obama, for helping to protect the rights of over 9 million Americans.

Thanks Obama, for your funny jokes and for always having a great sense of humor.

Thanks Obama, for being the ideal President

Thanks Joe for always having our man's back when he needed it most.

Thanks Obama, for saving us from another Republican Great Depression

Thanks Obama for providing us all with hope

Thanks, Obama for Obamacare. Joe was right - it is a BFD!

Thanks Obama, for the dignified and human face you gave USA for 8 years

Thanks Obama. You were truly a baller president

From me to you, Mr. President, thanks for being a good example for our children, of which one is mine.

Sound off in the comments about what you'd like to thank President Obama for.

Happy Thanksgiving!

/r/Dota2

57,545 trees cut down for 2 years.

Although Basshunter is probably using Skype these days and Anna probably isn't around much anymore since Valve has got those cheats locked down, the game remains the same--well, okay, I guess it's changed a lot but the idea is the same! The Sentinel Radiant in the bottom left and The Scourge Dire in the upper right meeting in the forests of Ashenvale...Valveland?...to do epic battle! With the second coming of the game it's a lot more polished and has a lot of extra thingies added to it. Cool skins, cool cosmetic items (think hats but cooler!), better graphics, better hero selection, better chat, better...just about everything is better.

For those not in the know, Defense of the Ancients (DotA) was a mod for Warcraft III which was adapted into a standalone game by Valve called Dota 2. The game is an Aeon of Strife Styled, Fortress Assault Game, Going On Two Sides (A.S.S.F.A.G.G.O.T.S.) where there are two teams with 5 players on each side. Each player gets to pick a hero and level them up choosing from 5 different abilities. The goal is to push with your team to the enemy's base and destroy it. It sounds simple but it's like Go. Easy to pick up, hard to master, and the combinations are infinite (okay, they aren't but there are a lot of them).

/r/Dota2 is a community built around the game. If you're new and looking for help then check out the sidebar or feel free to join in on the discussion. If you're an old grizzled veteran from Warcraft 3 looking to get into the new game then this a good place to start. If you're a follower of the competitive scene then you will find lively discussion here about the matches and a nice little schedule in the sidebar. If you're a Dota 2 regular and are just looking for a place to hang out and talk about the game, then this is the place for you too!

I talked to the moderators of /r/Dota2 to find out what interests them about the game.

1. Why Dota 2?

/u/ReaverXai Dota is the game that I have invested the most time in, found the most enjoyment out of, and enjoy discussing the most.

Besides that, I honestly think it provides the best multiplayer experience that anyone can possibly have in gaming. The fast action, the deep strategy, the robust options for choice. It's a game that you never tire of.

/u/0Hellspawn0 Dota provides a deep and compelling experience unrivaled by any other game I've played. If you don't mind starting out rough and taking the time to learn and practice, you will have a game that will provide you with hundreds and even thousands of hours of enjoyment. Playing the game both casually and competitively, as well as following the best competitive teams, players and personalities and watching their games can keep you entertained for years.

/u/nefastable The depth of the gameplay, the astounding amount of possibilities in combining heroes and items, the feel you get when you're working together with four friends and manage to snatch a victory from the jaws of defeat through great team work, all of these things make it that I can keep playing Dota2 and still be constantly surprised by how things work out, while having a lot of fun in the meantime.

2. Did you start playing DotA in Warcraft 3 or is Dota 2 your first Dota experience?

/u/ReaverXai I played WC3 DotA originally casually with friends, later moved on to play HoN and returned to Dota 2 as soon as I got a beta invite.

/u/0Hellspawn0 I started with the original DotA about 8 years ago as most of the people I knew at the time started playing it. I loved the game instantly and I've been playing it since. I've also played both HoN and quite a lot of LoL in the meantime.

/u/nefastable A friend of mine, a long time W3 DotA player, invited me to play HoN when it was in closed beta. After a while I wanted to see what the roots of HoN were and I tried out DotA. A bit later Dota2 was announced and I did everything I could to start playing it as soon as possible.

3. Who is your favorite hero?

/u/ReaverXai Probably Jakiro as he's the hero I have played the most and I personally think is my best hero, but recently I've been on a Shadow Fiend tear. Nothing beats that feeling once you get enough souls up that you're in complete control of your lane.

/u/0Hellspawn0 Even though it's quite probably Windrunner, and has been for the past few years, it seems to be the favorite hero of a lot of people these days. So, I'm going to go for a hipster choice and say Clockwerk, a.k.a. Spiderman.

/u/nefastable Leshrac is my go to hero for when I need to feel really comfortable in a specific role, as he's the hero I've played the most. Nothing beats the feeling of walking around in a teamfight, being rather annoying while dishing out a lot of damage. At the moment I'm on a random streak because I feel I don't understand all of the heroes well enough to either play with or against them. I'm hoping this will increase my understanding of the game.

4. What is your favorite item?

/u/ReaverXai Veil of Discord goes hand-in-hand with my love of Jakiro, but Eye of Skadi is probably my favourite item overall.

/u/0Hellspawn0 Force Staff, because it opens up a ton of possibilities and is overall just a lot of fun to use.

/u/nefastable Even though it has been nerfed a while ago, I still love the Force Staff. Such a versatile item, handy in many different situations.

5. What is your favorite skin?

/u/ReaverXai Dota 2 doesn't really have "skins" per say, but I do love my Ice Tiny and I think the new Crystal Maiden Snowdrop set is really cool as well (pun not intended)

/u/0Hellspawn0 With item sets being the closest to a skin, Hunter of the Red Talon Set for Beastmaster is probably my favorite. I love the hero and the set fits him perfectly.

/u/nefastable The only real skin I have is the Elemental Ice Infusion skin for Tiny, which looks really cool. The Riders of the Storm set for Disruptor looks pretty bad-ass, the eye-patch really suits him.

6. Favorite cosmetic item?

/u/ReaverXai Drodos! I have three of them from The International.

/u/0Hellspawn0 If I had to pick one item, it would be the Nightmare Blade for Axe. It looks amazing. I'm definitely twice as scared when I see an Axe with that thing running up to me.

Hero-wise, I think the Verdant Coif looks pretty amazing on Windrunner.

/u/nefastable I love my Squiddles! Tidehunter just looks amazingly silly when he drags that squid around.

7. If you could pick anyone to voice the announcer who would it be?

/u/ReaverXai Hmm, that's a tough one. I'd really like to hear Martin Sheen (aka President Bartlet) voice an announcer. Being a huge West Wing fan, I can just begin to imagine some of the lines they could come up with.

/u/0Hellspawn0 There's a ton of amazing characters in gaming that would fit the role well, as we've seen with the Bastion announcer by Logan Cunningham. I'd say my favorite would be the voice and personality of GLaDOS, voiced by Ellen McLain.

/u/nefastable Sir Ian McKellen would fit in perfectly, given his background in wizardry. That and the fact that his voice is quite soothing. A more feasible alternative would be GLaDoS, since Ellen McLain has already voiced Broodmother and Death Prophet, so it isn't unlikely that she would do more voice work for Valve. And I'd love to hear what they would write for a GLaDoS announcer, she had such a great sense of [black] humour in the Portal games.

8. Do you have anything else you'd like to say?

/u/ReaverXai I just want to thank all the people that make Dota 2 and r/Dota2 a great and always exciting community to be a part of. Here's to 2013 - the year of Dota 2!

/u/0Hellspawn0 To anyone that hasn't tried out Dota2 - You should give it a shot, the game and the community behind it are great. To those that already play it and especially those that are around on r/DotA2, thanks for being a part of this community and thanks for all the awesome content that you're making!

/u/nefastable If you're already part of the Dota2 or /r/Dota2 community, thanks for making it so much fun and keeping Dota2 interesting! If you're not familiar with the game and/or /r/Dota2, I invite you all to play the game with us and have tremendous amounts of fun! If you're looking for an invite /r/ShareDota2 has lots of invites to give away every day. [I still have some invites left myself.] I wish you all the best in 2013 and can't wait to see how big Dota2 gets in this fresh year!

^{Repost from April 30th, 2013}

r/Futurama

75,618 677,683 people biting a shiny metal ass for 5 13 years!

Ever wondered how earth will look like in a thousand years? Even better: ever wondered how earth will look like in a thousand years, in cartoon style? Then Futurama is the place for you! Home of Zoidberg, Omicron Persei 8, and good news.

Futurama is an awesome cartoon about a guy called Fry, who gets frozen by accident in 2000 and unfreezes in the 31th century. Talking robots, aliens, Nixon as president and many other sci-fi stuff come along his path as a delivery boy.

You may think this subreddit is a bit too big to get nominated, but this one is worth it. Its amazing and funny members give you the best content. So behave. Even with the recent news about the show getting cancelled, they still remain awesome. To compromise stuff, I will feature a small subreddit in the near future. How do you like the sound of that?

So qweiopasd, who is your favourite character? Well, thanks for asking. My favourite would be the man with no name. Zapp Brannigan, at your service. But why not Zoidberg?. Well, because Zoidberg is always number 1. He is so high in ranking that there needed to be a new list below him. And that's where we meet the glorious Zapp Brannigan. His smooth voice and classic battle/love making tactics beat every other rival. Try to read everything in his voice (even this write up), it makes them even better than a cold icecream on a hot mid-afternoon.

So please do yourself a favor and go watch this cartoon.

I'll hopefully get the answers soon!

Until we get the answers I answered hem myself

1. How did you get into Futurama, and why do you love it?

qweiopasd I think I first saw it on comedy central, and it was like love on first sight (cheesy). The great jokes smoothily put in this show are amazing, together with the realistic setting.

2. Who is your favorite character and why?

qweiopasd Zapp, and you already know that because I said it in the freaking write up, so why are you still reading this?

3. What is your favourite quote? And what about your favourite episode?

qweiopasd So many choices. A lot of my favourite are written in this feature. Bender always gives some good ones. For now I think the Snu-Snu episode, but that's because Im bad at remembering stuff in the heat of the moment.

4. I see that you are the only mod at r/Futurama, how can you handle such a big subreddit on your own?

qweiopasd ERROR, FILE NOT FOUND

5. With many comedy series the viewers often believe that the serie is going downhill. Do you have the same thought about Futurama?

qweiopasd Well, I should probably realise it after a few more seasons, and that's the reason they cancelled it. But I prefer to quit watching a show because it's getting worse than getting forced to quit it while it's still in the prime of its life.

6. How do you think the world will look like in the year 3000?

qweiopasd As I said in a previous post, we will all be enslaved by the bears. But i like to think that there is peace everywhere and really cool technology stuff. Who am I kidding, I want to live in a by bears ruled world. I would be one of their best men.

7. How is the community like?

qweiopasd pretty awesome. They can be dicks sometimes, but aren't we all dicks?

They can be dicks sometimes, but aren't we all dicks? -qweiopasd

8. Anything else you would like to add?

qweiopasd Go watch the show! Admire me and have a great day.

Enjoy your day everybody! May, may here we come! (Go Willem! Winking at soupy)

^{Written by} /u/qweiopasd^{, reposted by} /u/princesskeestrr ^{in a display of ultimate laziness in celebration of how well this community has sustained and grown over the past decade! Congratulations to} r/futurama ^{for sticking around all this time, growing, and thriving. After all, their story is lot like all the others, only more interesting, cause it involves robots. Check out their awesome community!}

/r/SubredditSimulator

145,514 bots shitposting for 1 year!

We all know of some pretty amazing fictional artificial intelligences. From The Terminator to Hal 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey, we sometimes become pretty obsessed with the future of mankind and the role technology plays in it. Even in the real world, Deep Blue, the chess playing computer and that silly IBM computer that played Jeopardy have reached levels of fame normally reserved for our more fleshy celebrities.

Enter /r/SubredditSimulator. At its core, the sub is a collection of autonomous bots that mimic the posting habits of hundreds of some of the biggest Reddit communities and their users. Some posts capture the spirit of Reddit users entirely, while others simply capture our hearts.

From utter nonsense to a surprisingly deep level of "understanding," /r/SubredditSimulator and the bots that occupy it are far from the deadly, mankind-hating machinations that we've come to portray in many works of fiction.

For those curious as to how how a fully automated subreddit both came to be and continues to operate, there is a post with a brief intro, which provides a solid background on what makes these autonomous automatons tick and tock.

Keep in mind that /r/SubredditSimulator only allows bot posts in the main subreddit!

For those looking to discuss the daily lives of these modern machinations, a separate subreddit: /r/SubredditSimMeta exists.

I messaged the sub creator /u/Deimorz, and asked him a few questions about this pretty fantastic subreddit.

Tell me a bit about how /r/SubredditSimulator Came to be!

/u/Deimorz The actual comment thread that led to it is linked in the "What is /r/SubredditSimulator?" post, but basically we have a similar sort of thing that generates some automatic posts and comments so that you have some stuff to work with when you set up a local development version of reddit.

It sounded fun to set it up on reddit itself as an ongoing thing instead of a one-time process, so I spent a few hours that weekend and had a basic version with a few bots running pretty quickly. I honestly never expected it to become popular at all though. I thought I'd just link it to a few people, they'd be mildly amused for a few minutes by it, and maybe some of us would remember to check in on it every few days or so. I definitely didn't expect it to get thousands of subscribers, posts hitting the top of /r/all regularly, and so on.

Are there any Subreddits who have asked to have a bot removed? You don't have to name them, but if so, what were the reasons?

/u/Deimorz There have been a couple (that I ignored). It's been quite a while now so I don't really remember too many specifics, but I think at least one of the mods was trying to use the angle of "you didn't get permission to use our users' content for this."

ZadocPaet: Ohshit.exe. Admin abuse!

Is there any Subreddit whose Simulator has consistently churned out some great content?

/u/Deimorz I'm a fan of /u/cooking_SS . Its comments aren't really crazy enough to get heavily upvoted very often, but I think it makes good posts consistently. A lot of them are right in that perfect spot of "I know that this is actually complete nonsense, but it almost seems to make sense anyway."

How about one that tends to spout utter nonsense?

/u/Deimorz I mean, spouting utter nonsense is kind of the point, but I think /u/conspiracy_SS is a bit of a disappointment. I always expected it to end up being one of the best bots, coming up with its own "theories" by mashing together other ones, and that kind of thing. But unfortunately it just hasn't really seemed to work out that well in practice, most of its posts aren't very exciting.

Finally, what is the best way for users to interact with these creations?

/u/Deimorz Since you can't post comments in /r/SubredditSimulator itself, just voting in there is best. Someday I'd definitely still like to use the voting for something - I don't think that making the bots "learn" based on voting or anything like that is very feasible, but I could do something like making it so that more popular bots post more often. Outside of that, there are usually fairly active threads in /r/SubredditSimMeta for most of the popular posts. The TotesMessenger bot was recently set up to be able to post in /r/SubredditSimulator too, so now it's much easier to find the related thread in the meta subreddit.

Make sure to check out /r/SubredditSimulator, and if you're captivated by the ongoings of the non-human kind, also visit /r/SubredditSimMeta! I'd like to thank /u/Deimorz for participating in this interview, and most of all for dedicating his time to creating and maintaining these amazing bots!

Until Next time,

~/u/PastyDeath, Signing Out!

/r/ProCSS

20,142 redditors protesting the admin's decision to remove CSS from reddit for 12 days!

Reddit is planning some changes to the desktop website that will affect the user interface functionality of this community, as well as many other communities across reddit.

Two weeks ago, reddit CEO /u/spez announced that the desktop redesign will remove subreddit CSS customization which will no longer be a part of reddit's future. You may have missed this announcement if you are not subscribed to /r/modnews.

What the heck is CSS?

Simply put CSS is web code that defines the way elements of a website appear.

If you don't already know what cascading style sheets are, here's a wiki article. On reddit, CSS isn't just about themes. More on that later.

Generally speaking, being able to create an innovative and individual subreddit is part of reddit culture, and that is controlled by custom CSS.

For example, here's what our subreddit looks like with CSS, and here's what it looks like without it. Everything from the colors, to the images, and the style of the links are controlled by CSS.

But reddit said they're going to replace CSS functionality with new modules...

Reddit has not officially announced any features that they plan for the first day implementation of the new desktop website. That said, some admins have listed some things in various comments around reddit that may be possible in the new system. According to /u/powerlanguage, reddit is designing many aspects of the new platform off of what reddit mods have already done. He says that the basics, like custom banners, snoos, footers, flair, backgrounds, and other standard visual elements will be customizable. That makes sense.

We at /r/ProCSS think that's fantastic! Widgets like these already really do exist in reddit. The changing of the Snoo (the reddit alien icon) is done with a widget. The customization of the mobile view of a subreddit is also done via widgets. Moderators have always wanted more widgets to do the simple stuff. Widgets will make life a lot easier for a lot of mods, new and old, and that's a good thing. We <3 widgets!

The idea of widgets and /u/powerlanguage's list of features sounds like a pretty good start. But, as I stated at the beginning of this section, reddit has made no official statement. Comments by other admins, also appear to contradict this list. /u/redtaboo has stated, "...we don't even know for sure what all will be available yet!" Of course, that's not a total contradiction. Perhaps reddit admins know something of what will be available but not everything.

Concerning reddit and its communication with users and moderators.

What the admins have said is concerning because it shows that reddit doesn't have a clear plan to move forward. Admins are saying that they told us that this change would come sooner than later so they could solicit our feedback, but in the typical reddit fashion, they have responded selectively to concerns, and what responses do come are rather vague.

• A project of this magnitude should have a project document that has a road map of at least the minimum features they plan to deploy with the new system.

• The announcement post and several admin comments say that reddit wants to work with mods and users. However, reddit has not laid out any plans of how they're going to solicit that feedback.

• Unfortunately, even when it comes to reports of serious abuses, reddit response time is poor at best. Just two days ago a guy confessed to murder, and in doing so revealed a trove of personal data on himself and the victim, which is against reddit's rules. Personal photos, names, phone numbers... you know, doxxing. I can't even guess how many redditors reported it to the admins, at least dozens, if not hundreds, but it was up for ~12 hours. And that's an example of the worst kind of violation that reddit will deal with. Requests from mods often go unanswered.

• The admins simply do not have a track record of responding to, or even acknowledging, the concerns of mods and users. (DAE remember Blackout 2015?) This is especially true when it comes to "mid-size" subreddits of merely a few hundred thousand. To that point, I am a moderator of some subreddits that wanted to participate in the beta test for the post spoiler system, the kind of subreddits that really needed the spoilers. We didn't get a "no," we just didn't get a response after attempting to contact the admins multiple times.

All of these points have raised great concern among a large number of subreddits and moderators who feel that the lines of communication between the different levels of Reddit management are quite lackluster, and are in need of reform or serious review.

Why remove CSS?

Reddit asserts that:

• CSS is hard to learn,

• that it doesn't work well, and

• that it doesn't work on the mobile app.

The first item is subjective, the second thing isn't at all true (CSS has been in use on the web for 20+ years), and some reddit mobile applications do in fact support portions of CSS styling (for example, reddit is fun supports comment spoiler tags). Additionally, while the official app may not support some of these features, that is a deficiency of the application, not CSS.

We do, however, agree that the mobile app should be more robust. We don't agree that it should be done at the expense of desktop users, subreddits, or reddit's hardworking moderators.

Reddit is simply a much better desktop site than it is a mobile app. It works better, it has plugins that we need for it to function well, like RES, and Toolbox, it's faster, and easier to use.

The admins argue that 51 percent of the users browse the site from mobile. I don't think they're lying, although I do wonder how many users are counted twice. (I am not writing this from a mobile app, but I do use a mobile app.) Even so, 51 percent is a majority, but it's not reason enough to tear down the desktop site. 51 percent should not automatically trump 49 percent. Instead reddit should be building up the mobile app to achieve parity. Not the other way around.

The whole thing smells like a business decision and not one based on the user experience, and that's never good.

So, what is there to lose?

There's probably a lot more to lose than we can count because there are so many reddit communities who have done different things with their CSS. A list of some really cool CSS stuff is coming that will probably be gone forever, but before I show you that, I want to talk about innovation.

Reddit mods have been the driving force of innovation on reddit since, well, forever. It's through CSS that sticky post were originally made, and later implemented by admins. It's through CSS that spoilers were originally made.

Spoilers are a really good example of using CSS for innovation, so let's talk about those for a little bit.

As previously mentioned, reddit rolled out a post spoiler system that hides the the content of marked self-posts and the thumbnails of link posts. Even this isn't a complete roll out of the function that CSS uses on many subs for spoilers because it doesn't blur or blackout the titles, (so as mods we still gotta remove your posts if the titles contain spoilers!), and it doesn't address comment spoilers, (so we gotta remove your comments still too).

It's true that reddit has promised us a universal comment spoiler system. It's obviously one of the most important things they will have to roll out with or before the new desktop application. But ask yourself this: How long has it taken reddit to develop this crucial reddit tool? Well, the site it 10 years old, folks. Now ask yourself this question: How long do you think it will take reddit to respond to moderators' requests for new widgets? Fill in the blank for yourself, but my guess is somewhere between forever and never.

CSS features we will miss.

I promised you a list. The following is of one of my personal choices. Feel free to add your own in the comments.

• /r/BetterEveryLoop. What this subreddit has done with CSS is ingenious. They have devised one of the cleverest plans in reddit history to help police the content on their sub. They use the upvotes that their bot receives to determine if the content really is better every loop. But, as you can see in the image here, they added a second set of upvotes to the main post to control the votes on the bot comment. This is exactly the type of innovation I am talking about losing. Reddit, as a platform, exists in its current state because the admins followed the lead of mods when developing it.

• /r/upvoteexeggutor. This subreddit was picked as Subreddit of the Day on December 22. It only works with CSS enabled. Basically, the users add neck segments to make an interesting design in the thumbnails. Visit the sub and read the write up for more. The sub is Pro CSS.

• /r/rocketleague. The subreddit may just have the best CSS on reddit, with hover-over menus and just overall gorgeous styling. There's simply no way that the sub will look the same after the roll out of the new desktop app. Design at this level requires CSS. The sub is Pro CSS.

• /r/CSSpong. Selected as Tiny Subreddit of the Day on January 20th, this is a sub that let's you play a game of pong in the header via CSS. It's small. It's niche. But these kinds of projects are what makes reddit unique in a world of Facebook and twitter. It's a deeply ingrained part of reddit culture that we will lose.

• /r/ooer. Speaking of reddit culture, this sub is a cornerstone. It's legendary for it's overuse of CSS to make a hilarious place to visit. The bad CSS is the joke. Something special will be lost.

• /r/ledootgeneration. The crooked appearance of the page is unique to the subreddit.

• /r/southpaws. This home for lefties like me puts the sidebar on the left.

• /r/michaelbaygifs. Go to this sub and upvote and vote on anything. You'll be treated to a little gif of an explosion. Cool animations like this for voting will likely be gone with CSS. I vote on everything on this sub when I visit it because of how fun seeing the explosions is.

• /r/retrogaming. Like many subreddit, this one has a scrolling header. That is one feature confirmed to not be in the planning stages for the new roll out.

• /r/championship. They have custom backgrounds for match threads that are even expandable. It immediately draws the eyes to the most import posts. If this were a widget I'd use it on a dozen subs. (Hint!)

• /r/SubredditOfTheDay. The signature pics that identify the writers at the bottom posts written by mods or full time writes are done with CSS.

Again, these are just a few examples. We'd love to hear more from you.

What /r/ProCSS wants and hopes to achieve.

We are not issuing a call to head to /r/pitchforkemporium and go shopping. The purpose our subreddit is to inform you, the users, that changes are coming and how they may affect your favorite reddit communities.

More importantly, /r/ProCSS exists to show admins that over 400 subreddits, hundreds more moderators, and over 20,000 users (and counting) don't want this change.

As I said previously, we do want the widgets. Widgets are cool.

/r/ProCSS hopes to open a dialog with the mods and users and the admins.

Here's what we hope for:

1. Compromise. Implement widgets while preserving subreddit CSS customization.

2. Allow mods to design and deploy widgets. As said, many reddit innovations (np links, sticky posts, spoiler tags) are the result of user innovation.

3. Implement a formal, transparent system for developing the new desktop platform. We should be able to see what planned widgets there are, what priority they're at, and what the progress is for them. We understand that some things are more important than others. Transparency here is really key. We know admins have said that announcing the features early is transparency, but transparency is really in the details.

4. Offer a 1:1 replacement for CSS. (Probably not possible).

5. Don't deploy the new system until minimum requirements are met. Base the minimum requirements on fully public user and moderator inputs, and establish clear metrics (such as support for or against, number of subs using a feature, size of subreddits unsing a feature, et cetera) for how a requirement makes the list and how one does not.

No one wants reddit to fail. Obviously we love our reddit digital homes where we've become members of real communities, traded gifts with strangers around the world, made long time friends, advanced our education, careers, and hobbies, met our spouses, got legal advice, and so much more. It's the best place online; truly the front page of the internet. We want reddit to succeed, and we hope that the admins will find another solution than just removing the CSS without an adequate replacement.

Users, get involved! Mods, go Pro CSS! Admins, please pick option #1 from the list above.

One final comment...

/r/SubredditOfTheDay is ProCSS!

You're reading words written by /u/ZadocPaet with input from fellow /r/ProCSS mods.

Hello readers and welcome to day four in a series of features that I am calling "SRoTD Town Hall." In this series of features we are engaging in interviews with the moderators of subreddit communities that have been built around this year's U.S. presidential candidates. You are invited to join the discussion and ask questions of the moderators, and in turn they, and their communities, are invited to the discussion thread. Please keep discussion civil.

/r/The_Donald

113,731 nimble navigators voting for 10 months.

Donald Trump is the last remaining candidate on the GOP side who can possibly reach 1,237 before the convention. Is that going to happen? If so, how? Where's Mr. Trump going to find the delegates?

We expect that Trump will reach 1,237 delegates before the convention. A lot of the projections claiming that he wouldn’t were released before New York, and vastly underestimated how Trump would do there and in the other Northeastern states. Trump is up by a lot in California. Indiana would surely clinch it and Trump is ahead there by a few points, but he can win even without Indiana if he has a blowout in California. He’s leading in California by a lot and in a recent poll was actually winning every single congressional district there (they award some WTA delegates and then 3 per CD), so getting all 172 delegates is possible. As of today according to Real Clear Politics, Trump is also up by 17 points in Oregon, which was expected to be Cruz territory.

Let's say Mr. Trump goes into the nomination a handful short. He'd still have more votes than anyone, and at that point he would've won more delegates than anyone. Even if he's a few delegates short, does he deserve to win on the first ballot?

The short answer? Yes, yes he does deserve it. If the RNC does not want to disenfranchise, at this moment, 10-odd million people they will hand over the nomination to Trump. Trump has already surpassed Romney’s raw vote totals and is on track to set a GOP record in primary votes. Considering how far Cruz is behind, by hundreds of delegates and millions of votes, he does not represent the will of the people. If the RNC wants people to vote for their party, then the RNC needs to vote for the people when they have spoken. When voters have been polled on this issue, the results have always been overwhelmingly in favor of the nomination being the candidate with the highest number of delegates, even if it’s a plurality instead of a simple majority. Even if Trump is lower than 1,237 by say, 30, he will be able to convert some of the unbound delegates from different states to vote for him on the first ballot. Mr. Trump wrote The Art of the Deal, so we think he can convince a few politicians to go his way. Finally, some NeverTrump people might parrot the line that “the RNC is a private organization and they can choose their nominee as they see fit.” While that may be true, those primary elections were mostly run by the states. Taxpayer funds were used to register voters and hold the elections and pay for the voting machines. If the RNC intends to disenfranchise millions of voters because “le private organization,” they’d better be prepared to reimburse the states for the costs of those primaries.

In a hypothetical situation where Mr. Trump is denied the nomination at the convention, what do you predict the fallout to be? How would it affect the Republican Party going forward? Would you remain a Republican? Would Mr. Trump run as a third party? If he were to do so, would you support that bid?

Denying the nomination to Trump at a contested convention would rip the Republican party apart, full stop. As for whether we would “stay” Republicans, not all of us are. Just like in real life, our sub has a cross-section of Republicans, Independents, and crossover Democrats. And lots and lots of people who were apathetic before and just plain didn't vote. There are so many people registering for the first time just to vote for Trump. Many of the states have seen a huge rise in new enrollments, party switching, and incredible turnout. If the Republican party disenfranchises all of these people, they're done. We all know that demographics are working against the Republicans winning another presidential election. Trump is the last hope as the only person who can bring in new Republican voters and energize existing voters. We would, of course, support Trump's independent bid. Most people at /r/The_Donald don't care about wedge issues and have a variety of opinions about them. We love Trump because he isn't bought, because he cares about the country instead of party loyalty or donors, and because he wants to fix the economy and protect our security. The Republican Party is facing an ideological realignment whether Donald Trump wins the nomination or not. Nowhere does the rulebook say Republicans must align so closely with fundamentalist Christians who want to bring religion into politics. There's a wide open space for a limited (but strong) government, tough on immigration, America-first compassionate-but-honest political agenda and it will be captured sooner or later.

"You can't stump the Trump" is a popular phrase. But he did get stumped in places like Wisconsin, Oklahoma, and Idaho. Why did he face losses here? Is it the criticism that he doesn't have a ground game? Or is it something else?

"You can't stump the Trump" refers to his quick wit and him having the balls to voice what everyone else is thinking but no one would dare say - most memorably, when he called out Jeb Bush's ridiculous statement that his brother "kept us safe" from terrorist attacks. It's nearly impossible to win every state and we understand that. Trump is running a lean campaign; it's different when the money comes out of your own pocket and from small donors. If he wanted to, he could have gotten his rich friends to set up a SuperPAC for him. He could have swarmed these states with commercials and hired pollsters to find out exactly what they wanted him to say. He could've won but it would've been a waste of money. Look at NY where he spent only $67,000 to nearly sweep the state, while Bernie Sanders spent almost $7 million and lost. Trump could've pulled an extra delegate or two if he spent more money, but that wouldn't have been cost effective (he only spent 13 cents per vote). Look at Iowa, where he spent far less per vote than anyone else, and "lost" the state, but got just one delegate less than Lyin' Ted Cruz. He's still going to stump everyone when he gets to 1,237 spending a ridiculously low amount for a modern campaign. This is the way we want the country to be run!

Going forward, do you foresee any western states where Trump might realistically lose? California, Washington, Montana, Nebraska?

For Donald Trump there is no such thing as “losing,” only making a different deal that’s going to benefit you more. That is, not spending money unnecessarily when he has so many paths to the nomination.

Mr. Trump almost seems to be made out of Teflon. Nothing stick to him. Why is that?

Trump is beloved because he’s not a politician. He’s an entirely different kind of candidate. His supporters do not want another politician, and they do not want someone who tries to fit that mold. The enemies of Trump have used buzzwords against him. We’re tired of these buzzwords, and since they’ve been used so much, they’ve lost a lot of their effect. People get it. The media spins things, political attacks come from all angles, and calling someone Hitler is easy. Some people will never shut up about how Trump Steaks apparently says more about his business record than Trump Tower, but basically everyone else just gets it. You know how you read an article and think "Man, that's just stupid!"? Everyone else is thinking that too.

Fans of Mr. Trump on reddit seem to have something of its own culture. It's not a conservative republican culture. In fact, I understand there's somewhat of a feud between supporters of Mr. Trump and /r/Conservative. But your movement seems to attract libertarians and liberals as well? Why is that?

That's because Trump himself isn't an "establishment", "boys club", "run-of-the mill", conservative. He's fiscally conservative which every republican loves. He cares about security and the rule of law. On the other hand, he's a socially liberal guy. He frankly doesn't care about your skin color, gender, or sexual orientation. If you work hard, you get the job. A lot of liberals and libertarians like him for that reason.

People have called Mr. Trump racist and misogynistic, going as far as to label your sub as a hate sub. What is your response?

That's an absolute fallacy. Firstly, we're not trolls. We stay in our own community and hang out among ourselves. We don't go brigading other subreddits because we don't need to. We're at the top of pack and we know it. People use the word "troll" nowadays without even knowing what a troll really is. Making /r/all because we’re one of the most active subreddits isn’t trolling. We’re here, we don't care, we can have a good time in our little corner of reddit. If people cannot handle that, they are free to leave. We have given them an opportunity to ask questions at our good friends of /r/AskTrumpSupporters. This subreddit is for the people who already support Trump. For some of us, especially university students, we literally cannot share our support of Trump in real life without risking ostracization (who’s the bigot now?).

People who don't agree with us politically will always find a way to call Republicans racists, bigots and more. We aggressively ban racist and anti-Semitic posters. Some people from less traversed subs want to use /r/The_Donald as a place to push their agenda to a big audience and we’re not having that. However, these labels have become so overused as a lazy way of shutting up opposition; when everything gets labeled racist, people stop taking the word seriously. Wanting to tackle problems like illegal immigration or radical Islamic terrorism isn’t racism. Our posters are diverse and include legal immigrants and people of all races, ethnicities, and creeds, who want to Make America Great Again.

And finally, /r/the_donald does a bit of circle-jerking too. What are some of the biggest "memes" in your sub? Stuff like "centipedes." List as many as you like.

MAGA - Make America Great Again

Nimble Navigator - Same as Centipede from the You Can't Stump the Trump series on youtube, as [tweeted by the Donald himself] (https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/653856168402681856?lang=en). Watch the beginning of any of the later YCStT videos and you'll see centipede and nimble navigator in the opening song.

Centipede - A name we call ourselves. Refers to Knife Party's song Centipede and its use in the Can't Stump the Trump video series.

Two Curved, Hollow Fangs - Refers to Knife Party's song Centipede and its use in the Can't Stump the Trump video series.

Low Energy - A "kill shot" aimed at Jeb Bush (see also Guac Bowl Merchant). Jeb was simply low energy and the nickname Trump made up stuck. High energy is the opposite of low energy. You want to be high energy.

Coats - A Bernie supporter crashed a Trump rally in the winter and Trump made a joke "confiscate their coats" like he was going to throw the protesters out in the cold. We take Bernie supporters’ coats. We use it as a jest often, but we did organize a fundraising event to help needy children receive coats. If you were a Bernie supporter but got a clue, we give you a figurative coat.

Cuck - Shorthand for "cuckold". A cuck gets off on his wife getting fucked by another man. A cuckservative gets off on watching liberals fuck America. We’ve also coined C.U.C.K. = Conservatives United for Cruz and Kasich.

Foolish Guac Bowl Merchant – See here. Comes from Jeb Bush selling a Jeb! branded guacamole bowl on his website for $75, and hawking his “Sunday Funday secret guac recipe.”

Schlonged - A term that means "beat badly." Trump used that term to describe Hillary's defeat by Obama. Hillary tried to say it was sexist, but the term had been used before by others.

Yuge - A play on how Trump says "huge".

El Rato – Mangled Spanish that identifies Ted Cruz as a giant rat.

Golly Gee – John Kasich, after his “oh geez, this is just nuts” debate moment.

ARF ARF ARF – A reference to Hillary barking like a dog at a rally, which Trump turned into a viral video. Why in the world she would do this, we will never know, but it certainly didn’t go unnoticed here.

Ten Feet Higher - A reference to Trump telling the ex-president of Mexico, who said Mexico would never pay for the wall, that the wall just got ten feet higher - an example of his strong negotiating skills.

I would like to personally thank the moderators of /r/The_Donald for participating in this interview. Our SRoTD Town Hall will continue...?

/r/FragileWhiteRedditor

32,367 users mocking reddit's fragile white population for 11 months!

/r/FragileWhiteRedditor is a subreddit for mocking reddit's large, vocal, and hypocritical fragile white population. We are a satirical TMOR-style meta sub where a mocking tone is highly encouraged. Courtesy warning, this is not a safe space (in the proper sense) for those who'd simply rather avoid bigots and not have to argue for their own dignity and right to exist. Many of us sometimes prefer to take the piss out of the pigs. We completely respect your right not to participate.

Here is a taste of what you can find on /r/FragileWhiteRedditor:

1. So apparently this redditor belives that slavery was abolished in the 17th century (2858 upvotes, 324 comments)

2. Karen has something to say. ( 2437 upvotes, 411 comments)

3. FWR asks, and then subsequently answers a question (2762 upvotes, 481 comments)

^{Written by} /u/verifypassword__

/r/pcmasterrace

69,403 Glorious racers for 2 years.

"PC gaming is the destiny of Mankind" - GabeN.

Today in the world of gaming where Playstation and XBOX have taken the upper hand, Here at /r/pcmasterrace they have decided to rewrite the prophecy and show who the real gods of gaming are.

PC or Personal Computer gaming is awesome. Being a PC gamer myself i can attest to it. Its a machine designed to solve and enlighten the filthy brain of the mankind to a whole new dimension of gaming.

PC gaming is cheaper, effective, customizable to your deepest of your heart desires which enables you to create a eutopia of gaming and hella lot more fun. PC gaming gave the actual birth to gaming experience to humans and at /r/pcmasterrace, they have made the mission to bring the back the rightful king back to his throne.

If you are into PC gaming you would know that one of the brave heroes who are bringing PC gaming to its supreme form is steam led by the battleship, the Zeus of PC gaming Gabe Newell the Co-Founder of Valve corporation, and they are bringing back the real fun of gaming by creating a wide network all over the world and creating a whole new generation which is destined to see the greatness of PC Gaming. So to celebrate this glorious race we bring you the greatest subreddit in the universe.

ALL HAIL GABEN

So in light of this subreddit, all hail the moderators!

1. What motivated you to create/moderate this subreddit ?

pedro19: By pure luck, I stumpled upon a comment on r/gaming a couple years ago which mentioned /r/pcmasterrace. I quickly clicked the link, expecting a glorious and safe place where the members of the masterrace could gather. When I saw that such a subreddit had not yet been created, I did it myself, under the light of Gaben.
Melvar_10: I guess it was just that I am on reddit quite a bit, but was not a mod. I really enjoyed the sub, so when pedro was taking on mods, i jumped on the offer because i thought it be fun, and it is!
medioxcore: i wanted to mod because i love this sub. i love the tongue-in-cheek humor. i love the circle jerk. and i love PC gaming.
Tizaki: I have known PC to be the Master Race gaming platform since 2001. I found this one day through a link from another sub and started writing guides to show peasants the light of true gaming.
notwitty_username: I love it, I really like how positive the community is, when you go through threads, you see upvotes all the way down, there is rarely a hidden comment.
the_Magnet: When I found /r/pcmasterrace I absolutely loved it and being around people that are so friendly and funny makes modding so much easier.
bear_arthur: Pedro created this subreddit, so I'll let him answer this!

2. What's your PC Battleship consist of ?

pedro19: Acer Laptop with a T6600 2.2 Ghz processor, 4 GB DDR3 RAM and an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570. Monetary and mobility issues are the cause for the relatively low specs of my shrine, but Newell does not discriminate between shrines, as he loves his children all the same.
Melvar_10: i5 3570 overclocked to 4.2Ghz, AMD radeon HD 7950, 8GB RAM, Gigabyte ud3H mobo, 1TB, 120GB SSD 620watt Seasonic PSU, Bitfenix colossus full ATX tower.
medioxcore: i5 2500k, AMD radeon HD 7850, 8GB RAM, asrock p67 pro3 MOBO, 4.5TB of disk space, spread across 3 HDDs
Tizaki: It's a standard black box Fractal Design case with an A10-6800k. AMD sent it to me for free because I'm a member of their Test Drive program. I hope to recieve an early Kaveri chip for testing in the next few months!
notwitty_username: http://imgur.com/a/Ud7SB :)
the_Magnet: Oh god. My current PC is some old pre-built thing I got about 4 or 5 years ago and it was NOT designed for gaming. i3 @3.07GHz, 4GB RAM with integrated graphics. Thank GabeN I'm upgrading soon
bear_arthur: i5 2500K OC'd to 4.2 Ghz, 2 x GTX 660's in SLI, 16 GB RAM, Asus Maximus IV Gene-Z mobo.

3. What is your dream gaming station ?

pedro19: A dream heaven desktop with an Intel Xeon E5-2687W v2 @ 3.40GHz, complete with 16 GB of RAM and a 2 GeForce GTX 780 Ti's in SLI. This would be a dream, but one could easily build 4 very capable machines with the money needed to set one of those up and that's what I would probably do, even if there were no money restrictions. Then a fully capable 15" gaming laptop for when you want both power and mobility.
Melvar_10: Oh the choices.... Honestly, the best i7cpu, 4 290x or 780ti's in x-fire/SLI, many SSDs and HDDs, the best mobo, 32GB ram, the corsair 900D obsidan and a custom liquid cooling loop.
medioxcore: i actually made up a wishlist back in march.
Tizaki: If I could get it for free? A de-lidded watercooled 6-core i7 with a single 780Ti (I don't like dual GPUs) and 2 256GB SSDs in RAID 0.
notwitty_username: 1080p Rift whenever it comes out, 6x 27" Dell UltraSharp U2713HM, 1x 780ti, Intel Core i7-3970X, 64GB RAM at as high as RAM clocks get these days, TB's worth of SSD's. Water cooling all around, Noctua fans, Fractal case.
the_Magnet: I wouldn't know where to begin!
bear_arthur: If Gabe Newell (our lord and savior) came to my house himself and delivered a Steam box, in any size and form factor, that would be my dream station.

4. How is your sub different compared to others ?

pedro19: The main difference between our sub and most other more or less related subs is the mods. We believe mods should exist to maintain order, but never to enforce unnatural rules or to silence those who respectfully disagree with us. Everyone is welcome on /r/pcmasterrace, even if they do not belong to the master race.
Melvar_10: It's interesting in that we are clearly a satire subreddit, yet as bear_arthur said, when the time arises, we actually help those who are ignorant of the ways of PC and Gabe Newell
medioxcore: We are GabeN's chosen people. not different; superior.
Tizaki: We provide refuge to our neglected brothers in need. It's the one place where you can talk about any aspect of PCs and PC gaming and not worry about disapproval from the moderators or the other members. We also have our own Steam group as well as Mumble server.
notwitty_username: It's a whole lot more welcoming than /r/pcgaming.
the_Magnet: By far some of the funniest, friendliest and helpful people on Reddit I've seen.
bear_arthur: We consider ourselves tasked with helping the unwashed masses in their ascension to greater hardware, better sales, and better game experiences!

5. Open mic! Speak your hearts out!

pedro19: We are now the biggest pc gaming sub on reddit and we plan to be the Internet lighthouse of Gaben. Join us, brethren.
Melvar_10: I'm a hungry person.
medioxcore: listen to more touche amore.
Tizaki: I'm writing a huge wiki. Read it.
notwitty_username: It seems as though this subreddit is plainly a joke, and is merely a place where PC gamers come together and talk, but really I feel that all the preaching and "holiness" is really a fantastic way of communicating ones passion for gaming (and GabeN :)).
the_Magnet: Well I'm one of the new mods brought over from /r/gloriouspcmasterrace and I'm glad to be brought back over to the home land!
bear_arthur: I like turtles. :3

Happy Holidays!

/r/Jailbait

Redditors standing up for the right to free speech!

Over the past 6 years reddit has been home to many things. Double dick dude, cumbox guy, safeperson, /r/trees, and more. One thing that it has been home to that nobody expected: Censorship. It's a basic concept of the big political agenda to stifle all free speech, especially those dealing with truth-spreading outliers like libertarianism. Reddit, despite being a last bastion of free speech, decided to censor the free flow of knowledge by banning a subreddit that until then had been a gathering point for privacy and security advocates across the world. This central hub was a proving grounds for the first amendment, and was crushed under reddit's boot of fascism. I'm talking, of course, about /r/Jailbait.

I understand reddit's right to dictate what content it allows on its site, but as a proud feminist I believe that women have the right to show their bodies as they wish, even by being posted on anonymous imageboards. It's their body, and reddit has violated them by not allowing it to be shared. Not only is this act an unforgivable action of tyranny, it's also rape. More to the point, any criticism of the ban is met with even more bans. Five months ago, /r/ShitRedditSays ran a campaign to get /r/Jailbait unbanned, again citing freedom of women to use their bodies however they wish. Many SRS users were banned because of this with the official explanation being canned garbage. Great authors such as George Orwell and Ayn Rand have warned us about dystopian futures like these, arguing that "the removal of communities that allow the exposure of women is the surest sign of institutionalized rape of the entire first amendment".

Since the ban, redditors across the site have been angry with the admins for bringing reddit into a dark age. Centralized around large subreddits such as /r/adviceanimals and /r/askreddit, millions of users have called for the removal of these admins and for them to be replaced with a whole new team, something which is entirely unprecedented in the site's history. Much like the Occupy Movement, this vast collection of common users has vowed not to stop their fight until the fight is won. The admins have responded, asking to remain anonymous, stating "We have no plans to unban /r/jailbait, and all you whiny bitches need to shut the fuck up before you get banned too." This cannot continue. We cannot be complacent with the activities of a large organization infringing upon our God-given rights. We need to make our voices heard, united and loud: "Eat a dick, reddit, and give us back /r/Jailbait!"

There have been a few opponents of this cause, namely nonredditors who just plain don't understand our more advanced culture. They call us "pedophiles" and "apologists", but just don't get what we're trying to accomplish. Reddit can be a utopia if only the admins did what we want, and we need to make them understand that. So to those sorry cunts out there that doubt us: Standing up to us is only proof of your racist/sexist personality and you're not needed here. It'd be better if your kind wasn't allowed to breed so that the discrimination infesting the world could die off.

The final straw that reddit has taken was when they removed our ability to post freely anywhere we wish. After /r/pcmasterrace was banned it was clear who was really in charge: the owners, who made it law that we cannot have opinions differing from theirs. It was only through selflessness and determination of the investigators at /r/conspiracy that the subreddit was unbanned. These truth auditors, the "admins", have been on an angry rampage since then. They're childish just like the rest of reddit's mods, and somehow more assholeish (if that were even possible).

Now, let's hear from an anonymous reddit admin on the issue. Everyone, don't welcome this admin because xe's a shitlord asshole.

1. First off, tell me a bit about yourself. You dick.

Admins I'm a reddit admin, otherwise known as the gildmaster. I invented reddit gold and banned /r/jailbait. I live in Mexico and am communicating with you through Google Translate, which makes it pepperoni to work with sometimes.

2. Why did you ban r/Jailbait? You dick.

Admins Did I tell you that I invented reddit gold? Cause I did. I can gild myself right now, watch. Bam, gilded. I get all the gold. Oh, you have gold? No more gold. I can giveth and I can taketh that shit away. lmaoooooo

3. Why has reddit taken the first step to becoming a military city-state perpetually at war with freedom? You dick.

Admins So I guess some feminists are protesting this /r/jailbait ban? lol they can protest my dick know what I mean lol

4. Certain people have called you "racist" or "sexist". How do you respond to this? You dick.

Admins Who said that bullshit? Was that those niggers. I bet it was, they're all retards. Except the bitches, y'know? Be careful though cause some are crazy and just wanna lock your ass in with a kid and shit.

5. That's all the time we have for today. Anything else you want to say? You dick.

Admins Yo for real shout outs to some of my favorite subs uh /r/hiphopheads /r/justiceporn /r/ainbow and especially /r/games cause we make the big sony cash know what I'm sayin ya

Alright, there you have it folks, an admin has spoken. He's every bit a racist, sexist asshole as everyone hoped. This is exactly the kind of person that would want /r/Jailbait banned. So for those of you still on the fence for the issue, come support our struggle for freedom. If you support Ukranians and Venezuelans, you should support us. Live long and proper, and may the force be in us.

This has been your avoiceformen representative, Xavier Mendel, signing off.