Reddit Is Not the Front Page of the Internet ⇥ thedailybeast.com

Samantha Allen, the Daily Beast:

But Reddit became a web destination and a traffic powerhouse by virtue of the clicking, viewing, and typing habits of a relatively narrow subsection of Internet users. Seventy-four percent of Reddit users are men, the highest of any social networking website. Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube all come much closer to gender parity. Describing Reddit without making reference to its gender asymmetry is akin to reporting on Pinterest, which is 72 percent female, without noting that the site caters to women.

And, indeed, when The New York Times reviewed Pinterest in 2012, they rightly referred to it as “female-oriented,” but when the CEO of a 74 percent male social network resigns after facing intense criticism from its users—much of it laced with misogyny—they somehow forget to label Reddit, in turn, as “male-oriented.” Reddit too often passes in the media as unmarked and neutral territory while sites like Pinterest get pigeonholed as girly.

I used to browse a few specific subreddits occasionally — Panic History is pretty funny — but either it became far more hostile, or I began to notice far more hostility. In either case, the site is a cesspool of the worst kinds of human beings (read: men) with internet access on the planet, and it’s outrageous and presumptuous for them to think they are the “front page of the internet”.