Dickens 1

Brandon Dickens
Enc 2135-37
November 23, 2015
What is Reddit?
Reddit embodies the many different styles of writing and diverse ways to express oneself.
Over time, these variations in style became known as genres, and these genres developed and
branched off into sub-genres and smaller, more specific pieces. When Reddit was created in July
of 2005 (reddit.com), it was designed to essentially be an online bulletin board, but as it
developed and increased in popularity, it has formed many tight-knit communities inside the
walls of Reddit. Subreddits, genres within Reddit, are designed to give specific information on a
particular subject, and although one composition may share aspects with multiple genres, they
can still be categorized and defined by their genre. Genres are flexible and can contain a large
variety of different styles which still fulfill the genres requirements. Along with these genres
formed genre conventions, which is what the audience began to expect and appreciate from work
within a genre.
Communities in Reddit exist due to the features of subreddits that attract people in as
they come together sharing common characteristics or interests. Communities can form under a
variety of circumstances and have completely different purposes, ranging from celebrating their
favorite popstar, to talking about situations and examples of police officers ignoring the rights of
a suspect, to almost any video game on the market. Communities will grow or diminish rapidly
based on the popularity or advertising of a common interest.

Reddit not only embodies the most popular genres, such as music and literature, but also
includes the smaller, ordinary genres, which are a part of everyday life. These genres include:

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food, movies, television shows, video games, and much more. The amazing part of Reddit is that
it is not limited to the restraints that inhabit other communities and its content is unlimited.
Although Reddit does contain communities focused on talking about food and recipes, due to its
digital platform and the average of Reddit users, as of 2013, being between 18-29 (Duggan and
Smith), most of the top communities are focused on funny or humorous pictures and videos,
video games, and advice forums (redditlist.com). With an understanding of the audience, it is
obvious that a popular community in Reddit will be based around video games. As the case with
all types of genres, video games possess multiple sub-genres which are composed of numerous
amounts of individual pieces. For example, a common genre in the gaming world is the shooter,
which can be broken down into first person, third person, tactical shooter, massively multiplayer
online first person shooter, and many more. These sub-genres each contain a broad community of
fans of that style of game. Along with these sub-genre communities, specific games will attract a
large community of their own, usually depending on the competiveness of the game, or if the
game is a popular series.
Reddit communicates through digital, text-based posts which often include videos or
pictures to add to or provide ethos to the topic of the post. Most subreddits have clearly stated
rules in regards to what can and cannot be posted and is moderated to ensure these rules are
followed. These rules exist to ensure that the posts follow the genre conventions of the subreddit
and appeal to the community. Posts are limited to topics that relate to the subreddit and provide
interesting, humorous, or important information that should be known throughout the
community. When creating a post, it is important to understand the audience, as it could be
anyone remotely interested in the community and one irrelevant or negative post could prevent
them from later becoming members of the community.

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Most posts are guided by a combination of rhetorical appeals including: pathos, ethos,
and logos. The author will use different appeals depending on the purpose of his post; if he is
trying to entertain the audience and make them laugh, he could use pathos. However, pathos can
also be used in other purposes, such as persuasion, specifically to try to join the community
together on a certain issue in order to attract the attention of the developer. Logos and ethos can
also be used for persuasion or for creating posts designed to help other members performances
in a particular field.
Often times, developers will look to their games subreddit to understand what the
community enjoys and what they want changed in order to further please their customers. For
example, it is not uncommon for an employee of the game development company, Riot Games,
who created League of Legends, to comment on a post pertaining to an issue or in-game bug.
Reddit provides for a digital platform for communication between consumer and producer, and
can mutually benefit both parties. It provides not only a platform for entertainment and
education, but also one that can raise awareness towards a particular issue that needs to be
addressed.
According to information gathered by Reddits API and provided by metareddit.com,
over half a million subreddits exist on Reddit with hundreds more being created every single day.
Although not all of these contain active communities and some probably havent had a new post
for a few months, they all were created due to an interest in a particular field which can be shared
by readers. Looking at the statistics provided by Reddit, one can assess the differences of genres
according to their popularity and understand how some communities exist as a part of larger
communities.

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The general gaming subreddit has 8.5 million subscribers. Individual games could be
considered micro genres under the blanket of gaming but even the most popular games dont
reach close to the attention that the gaming subreddit achieves. Some of the most popular
games today are, League of legends, Minecraft, Dota 2, Pokemon, and Hearthstone, each
attracting a significant amount of attention with 700,000; 440,000; 229,000; 444,000; 253,000
subscribers respectfully but dont even come close to the 8.5 million of the gaming subreddit.
Although r/gaming is a much broader subreddit and therefore it would make sense that it
attracts a much larger audience that is not the only thing causing this discrepancy. As a member
of the r/leagueoflegends subreddit, it is evident that a huge part of the League of Legends
community would have no interest in joining the subreddit. This community exist for the purpose
of sharing clips and memories for entertainment purposed and also educational texts to help
improve the skill or knowledge of the reader. However, if the reader cannot understand the
language of the community, he would gain no benefit from it. A significant portion of the League
of Legends fan base exists outside of North America and most of them do not speak English.
Since the subreddit consist of English texts and videos, most people who do not speak English
will not take the time or have the ability to find the subreddit and have the text and audio
translated. League of Legends breaks the barriers of language and allows for a huge community
to join together with a common interest, outside of Reddit a community that will rarely be
experienced in a face-to-face environment and is entirely based on an interest of a game on the
internet. Although composed of many different languages, all can watch and enjoy the game as
27 million people tuned into the League of Legends World Championship in 2014. It is very
interesting how someone in North America can be playing the same game, at the same time, as
someone halfway around the world in Korea and can share that connection with them, that

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interest and communality with them. When fans and players of League of Legends gather
together in community they do so to promote the game and find entertainment through it. As
fans, it is always exciting to see an interest grow and evolve. This benefits the community
because the more money the company makes, the more money they are able to put into the game
to make improvements and changes in order to enhance the experience and attract more attention
as the process repeats itself.
Reddits use of text-based, multimedia posts are very effective as readers consistently
revisit the site for more. Posts on Reddit are effective due to the community conventions and the
interest shared between members of the community. Most members of a community will not
click on every post they see on their communitys page, but instead scroll through and decide
which ones seem most interesting to them. This is beneficial because it gives everyone freedom
to experience what they want to. Although two members of the same community may share that
interest in common, they might be particularly interested in different aspects of the community
and have no desire to read information on other portions.
According to reddit.com, over 3.6 million redditors visited the site last month (August,
2015) as it powered 9,330 communities. Reddit also claims to have received over 202 million
unique visitors last month alone. This shows that a large majority of the people who use Reddit
monthly are not involved in any communities but instead view the home page or lurk
communities. This is important for communities like r/leagueoflegends to realize because their
opportunity for growth is immense and they should try to be newcomer friendly. As communities
develop, the language of the community will change, often it has more jargon and inside jokes
will be used, making it harder for newcomers to understand and find a place within this
community.

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Although the communication used on Reddit is quite effective, shown through the
massive numbers the site pulls in, there is room for improvement in communities in order to
achieve more growth and interest more readers. For example, every Monday r/leagueoflegends
creates a megathread in which they encourage members of the community to ask questions about
the game or the community in a judgment-free thread. This gives an opportunity for newer,
inexperienced players to ask questions that veteran players may be able to answer. These posts
are important because they help new players understand the game and feel welcomed into the
community. Negative replies to questions are usually deleted relatively fast by an admin to
ensure a positive experience for newcomers and to allow them to feel more comfortable in the
community. This can be improved by having these threads more often as most of the times
people will have frequent questions, a lot more than just once a week. Its also important that the
other posts are also newcomer friendly and are not full of sarcastic replies when someone wants
to know something. When a community is friendly and welcoming, viewers will be much more
likely to want to join, and when there are over 200 million viewers on Reddit each month, there
is a lot of room for growth in every community.
Genres have a much bigger impact in everyday life than what one would expect if they
were unfamiliar with what a genre really was. When most people hear genres, they tend to think
of music and movies, but genres can include any type of composition that can possess multiple
characteristics. A genre is a compositions kind, category or sort and can be expressed in many
ways. With the recent progress in technology, most compositions and communities are digitally
based. Reddit possesses a unique ability to harness the genres we experience in every day, faceto-face life, and transform them into a digital experience for others to enjoy. Reddit allows users
to share their experience, with others who are interested in that topic, and educate or entertain

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their audience. Oftentimes, something one may find interesting or excited may be boring to their
immediate friends and family, which leaves them unable to express their interest. Reddit brings
together like-minded individuals to express a common interest and share their experiences with
each other.

Works Cited

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Braziller, Amy, and Elizabeth Kleinfeld. "Chapter 1." The Bedford Book of Genres: A Guide &
Reader. N.p.: n.p., n.d. N. pag. Print.
Duggan, Maeve, and Aaron Smith. "6% of Online Adults Are Reddit Users." Pew Research
Center Internet Science Tech RSS. N.p., 02 July 2013. Web. 23 Nov. 2015.
Misera, Thomas. "Metareddit - All about Reddit." Metareddit - All about Reddit. N.p., n.d. Web.
23 Nov. 2015.
"Tracking the Top 5000 Subreddits." Redditlist.com N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Sept. 2015.
"We Power Awesome Communities." Reddit.com: About Reddit. N.p., 15 Sept. 2015. Web. 21
Sept. 2015.