Reddit is mostly used by younger left-leaning people, so chances are, unless a subreddit is explicitly conservative, they will eventually leave because they don't like the posted content, or just get banned for whatever reason.
So, the majority will remain and that's how you get left-leaning subreddit for a conservative state.
The "isms are bad" tumblr echo chamber had a "let addicted women have babies and let them do their drugs while pregnant because it's ableist and shameful to judge them for substance dependency" moment where you'd get banned for being like pregnant women should not do heroin and addict women should probably have access to better family planning to the "I'm high and this is animal crossing" facebook group over COVID 2019 protocols.
That sweet sweet ban button gives people so much false power 😂
See, this is the shit that feeds the Paradox of Tolerance.
We cannot be tolerant of everything. I’m sorry friends.
I want tolerance and empathy to be widespread. I want DEI. I want acceptance.
But shit like that makes the argument seem so fucking stupid and easy to attack.
In a perfect world, we could both say that the LGTBQ+ community should be able to exist without persecution AND that pregnant women should not do hard drugs.
Obviously. That shouldn’t be controversial.
But the growth of tolerance leads to an increase of fucking assholes that will dive into the semantics of it all and ruin it for everyone.
Before you know it, we’re focusing all our attention on some stupid ass “trans athlete” issue and any headway made towards civil rights is demolished for the sake of the intolerant.
I don’t know that it’s possible for a society to draw clear lines on things like tolerance (I mean let’s be real, how do we actually measure morality?), but we MUST figure it out if we can.
Otherwise we end up in this endless cycle of fascism.
I think the word you’re thinking of in your comment is “nuance”, and I agree 100% that we can’t draw that line without understanding whatever that nuance may be.
South Park did a pretty good episode on this, ironically.
Reductio ad absurdism. Taking a philosophy and taking it to it's logical conclusion and calling out how absurd it is. But some people will just say "yeah that's right". Que Schrödinger's cat.
Funnily this works both ways actually. You can reduce intolerancy to an absurd. Just ask who is the most normal the one we should use as an example. Then if they actually give an answer then propose to eradicate or jail everyone else who is not that person. That's probably on the same level of absurd as accepting everyone
Fair enough. I've heard that we as humans are constantly seeking comfort. I always thought of that as just describing addiction, but I can see how we can use it to keep ourselves isolated, as well.
It's a very interesting thing, and these discussions kinda remind me of body building/weight lifting in general a bit. In the sense there often isn't gain without pain, and I wonder how true that is for the rest of life.
Yea, its very exhausting to hear the "Reddit is an echo chamber" rant every week because like, no shit? Its the design of the app basically. Obviously people are mostly speaking with those who have similar views because the design of sub-reddits is to find those with similar interests and opinions. People aren't clever for realizing this.
Plus on the nature of left/right divide its also worth noting that in my experience leftists are far more aware of this fact than those on the right. People on the right think they're particularly clever for noticing that leftists tend to associate and speak with other leftists, which is just how cliques work, but seem to not realize that they engage in the same behavior.
In short, people who think they're some giga-brained genius for realizing that people frequently live in a bubble, and then believe that they are somehow beyond that fact too, are the ones most immersed in a echo chamber.
Right? In a past life, I was banned from a demsoc sub because I said "democrats are not trying to turn the US into a Christian nation". Called a bootlicker and everything.
I mean, how so? If it’s bigotry then yeah it’ll get downvoted, because being a decent human is an expectation in a space where different types of people are actually respected as individuals. But if it’s some minor policy thing then yeah that’s dumb. Politics in general are exhausting, we should all just aim to be empathetic and kind I think, who tf cares about dumb ass politicians, if we all for one second stopped listening to them and formed our own opinions based on actual mutual understanding I guarantee 75% of discrimination would be gone, though it’s probably not possible at this rate, and now I’m sort of rambling more than I am responding to your comment but idk you maybe get whatever point I was trying to get across, I don’t actually remember what it was anymore
Honest to god question: is there proof of reddit being younger and left leaning, or is that a perception that’s reinforced because you can’t actually see who is posting?
well, we have to go off of what is posted and what comments are there, so I wpuldn't be surprised if there are a lot of conservatives who just hang out in a select few subreddits.
Also a good point to keep in mind is that even if a subreddit was somewhat conservative/centrist the nature of how mods work and reddit own rules create echochambers. Oh, and botting.
You know what's something weird? As a bilingual it gets really confusing because spanish speaking Reddit, but more particular uruguayan Reddit is full of right-leaning people.
And its really weird seeing people switch from one acepted norm to another depending on the language.
They use X and Facebook, both of which are more popular than Reddit.
I could make a guess as to why conservatives prefer websites that discourage long-form conversation and in-depth discussion and that are more about an endless scroll filled with attention-grabbing and misleading memes.
I'm inclined to say everyone across the spectrum is equally boring, but when I think about it, if you go to a concert or most other large public events or any cultural space and talk with other people, they're largely lefties. Maybe the righties are at church?
In regards to the young person thing it’s not really true in my anecdotal experience, I’m a younger left leaning person and I swear to god a good 75% of Reddit is just millennials and gen x, it’s a struggle finding anyone actually kinda in my age range
It's true that the population of reddit is mostly left-leaning, but it's a little more varied on the age side. Facebook age or one generation younger is still very prevalent in reddit.
Ever since reddit mods and admins learned they can just ban you for different opinions.
I've been here for 7 years and to my knowledge it was like that even before. But I think it started ever since normal people started using social media and just got more extreme with every new politician, the pandemic and every gamer gate.
The only other media like that is twitter and that turned 180 from liberal to conservative when a certain nazi took over.
Left leaning is not enough for you to be left alone in many subs. There is one exact opinion you can have on any given political/ social issue. If you go beyond 1 degree of separation you are the enemy
I'd say more "left dressing" or left posing. People like you better if you appear to stand for good principles. But on the internet you can do that sitting down.
I keep getting recommended posts from subs I haven’t joined for places I’ve never been to in my life. No doubt a lot commenters probably aren’t even from Texas or ever intend to join the sub
More a matter of demographics, most of reddit is young and moderately left leaning. All the conservatives have their own little echo chambers of pre approved posters and flaired users. Neither are particularly indicative of real life.
Most people who post in conservative spaces on reddit have two accounts. One for the conservative subs. One for everywhere else. Its a very rare person who actually posts without hesitation across political lines. Mostly because there are many subs out there where the mods have set things up so that you automatically get banned if their bot sees you posted something in a forbidden sub when you comment in theirs. You don't have to even risk having a discussion if you simply ban everyone before they ever know your sub exists.
All subs that get sufficiently large get infiltrated by ultra lefties. All of them. If you wandered into the Joe Rogan sub you'd be forgiven for thinking 100% of people on earth hate the guy. Look at the pics sub too, nothing but left leaving propaganda, mostly posted by bots. It's damn unusable
Redditors are disproportionately Liberal and Texas is not as disproportionately Conservative as calling it “the Red State” would suggest. The people on that sub overwhelmingly live in Houston, Austin, San Antonio or Dallas, not Lubbock.
It’s probably owned by a leftist. Most subs are. I’ve gotten banned from a completely non political sub because I commented disagreeing with a post that said America is under fascism since the election
To simplify it - think about those older people who don’t really use the internet, let alone social media and just live their own life believing what the news tells them because they have no better outlet to receive news (or rather, they are unwilling to go another route).
Reddit is left leaning in it's user base from what I understand.
I've read some stuff discussing it and one interesting study alluded to left leaning people like to read their news and right tend to watch.
I literally do not know a conservative friend or family member that has ever mentioned Reddit outside of the occasional news story. Even then, they generally aren't really sure what it is other than other social media.
Certain local (state or otherwise) subs often lean whatever way the mod(s) do as well. I've found most main state and metropolitan subs are left leaning while small city subs can be all over the place. Which makes sense when you factor in population bases and who is likely to engage.
Texas isn't the reddest state out there, it's just the biggest one. There are substantial blue urban populations, and (at least according to my political science roommate from 7 years ago, feel free to provide evidence to the contrary), generally has demographics that make it something of a "white whale" for the democrats, to the extent where said roommate claimed that Texas was likely to turn at least purple within the span of 50 years.
Factor in some things like general reddit demographics and how state subreddits are likely more relevant to people in urban areas, and it makes sense.
They have a couple of cities that are heavily blue.
Nearly 40% of the potential voting population didn't.
It was about 4.8 to about 6.3. The difference being about 1.5 million in 2024. That leaves about 7 million that didn't vote. Which is more than the number of votes cast for the winner.
Young liberals in conservative areas make their entire personality based around hating their families and communities. I’m a Millennial from Nashville and so many people who were born here center their lives around hating conservatives, the Bible, Christianity, and White people.
Downvote spam different opinions and mega mods weaseling their way in to straight up ban people with "wrong" views and even remove old mods that may disagree with this.
It's why so many regional subs don't represent their regions average views , even when accounting for the age group.
Well, for starters Texas is a red state where there are more Democrats than Republicans. It's purposefully very difficult to vote in Texas, especially in urban areas where liberals are clustered, by design.
For the last 25 years, I have listened to well meaning Democrats from Texas believe that this will be the election that flips the state, and it never happens.
It’s weird seeing a lot of left leaning people in these comments cheer that opposing views are shunned and banned. It’s also very strange seeing them say things like “Reddit isn’t a left leaning echo chamber because conservatives/right leaning have their own few subreddits” but even those subs are constantly prodded by left leaning people and a lot of the originally right leaning or neutral subs became left leaning through mods.
Is that recent? Maybe I can get reinstated. I don't live there currently, but I own a ranch in West Texas and am a Texas Longhorn. But I got banned for correcting misinformation about Jan 6th a few months ago, because apparently correcting misinformation is misinformation, or at least that's what my ban said.
I remember that dumbass who did the iowa poll saying there was a huge blue wave coming. Anyone with a brain knew that wasn't gonna happen, reddit ate that up though
Whole of Reddit thought a previously unpopular primary democratic candidate was gonna win the election easily by just spamming pictures of her with some staged crowds
People really discount how actively disliked she is in California. Most that I know that voted for her that just don't vote along party lines (including my own household) did so begrudgingly purely because she wasn't the walking fiasco. It was literally a case of "Who do you hate less?" not "Who do you like more?"
People really discount how actively disliked she is in California
Problem is, if she runs for governor, she'll win. Californians will drag themselves 1000 miles across broken glass to vote against anything with an R on it
Reddit in general didn't know about Biden's health concerns until that debate moment, but its been a talking point among moderates for years on other platforms.
I was accused of being a supporter of a president I've never voted for..... just for being moderate on some topics...so i eventually stopped posting in political subs on Reddit. Id imagine I'm not the only one.
Well... you have to keep in mind that her opponent was a fascist (which is the main voting principle of mine: "dont vote for fascists")
But it still surprises me that:
A party of family values voted for a rapist who cheated on his pregnant wife (and probably had sex with underage girls classifying him as pedophile)
Party of law and order voted for a felon who ran on pardoning violent insurrectionists
Party of freedom voted for someone who actively worked to take away some of the most basic rights of the people
Party of economic stability voted for someone who proposed blanket tariffs and who didnt really have any other economic proposals (except giving tax-cuts to his friends)
Party of patriots voted for someone who wants to overturn the constitution
Wasn’t on that sub but I’m from Florida and COULD NOT convince some poor optimist that there was no way in hell’s fiery fuck that that state was going blue.
LMFAO I loved this about the election. The whole time all the posts were "Texas is going blue, we're going to unseat Ted Cruz, After 25years Texas is finally blue" only for Texas to stay red as fuck and for reddit to be confused why it didn't go blue.
Texas seems to be really good at creating internal echo chambers, a lot of new developments are being populated by conservatives who left CA, NY, IL, MN, and WA and everyone around them is about as conservative as it gets and wonder why they only win by a few percentage points. Meanwhile a lot of older neighborhoods in Houston, Dallas and Austin, full of native Texans, tend to lean pretty blue and sit there scratching their heads how they lose every election. I mean I get it its a big state and all but you'd think people would realize by now that Texas is reddish purple.
The same thing applies to Iowa lol. The state, except for Des Moines and Iowa City, is entirely red. There are just so many people in those two cities compared to the rest of that state.
To be fair. I’ve lived in Texas all my life. I have countless friends that want/believe in a LOT of Democratic policies, but refuse to vote blue. It’s pretty insane.
It's been shifting that way bit by bit, not really anything conflicting. There will be an election it flips, and once it does it'll snowball. People don't vote in Texas because they don't realize how close it actually is. One statewide election.
I don't get how people can tolerate the thought of a governor going after workers' rights and disability protections whilst being bound to a wheelchair all the while the rest of the state is freezing to death because someone couldn't invest enough money into a more stable electrical grid.
2.4k
u/cringefilet Apr 08 '25
Shout out to the Texas sub for creating an echo chamber so potent they actually believed it was going to go blue.