Playful participatory culture and design: The case of Reddit.com

Playful participatory culture through design: The
case of Reddit.com
Adrienne Massanari
Department of Communication
University of Illinois at Chicago
amass@uic.edu
@hegemonyrules

Wednesday, February 20, 13


Describe front page of reddit:
- account holders can subscribe to subs
- front page /all or not logged in shows highest voted and newest content
- users can upvote/downvote material (shown by orange/blue numbers)
- comments on each posting


Typical page on reddit. Comments thread and can also be upvoted/downvoted.
Notice rules about sub on right side of screen


50th most visited site in the US
Ranked #118 worldwide by Alexa.com
Users can create multiple accounts to interact on the site - these can be totally anonymous (not even tied to email accounts)


Top 20 subscribed - those in pink are NSFW subbreddits. Many of these are the default subs subscribed to when
you create an account. Each individual on Reddit may have a very different experience on the site as they choose
to subscribe or unsubscribe to subs of their choosing. Still, a look at the top-subscribed/most active subs
suggests something about the Reddit cmty - that it is interested in politics, worldnews, gaming, technology,
movies, popular culture, and atheism.

http://soshable.com/who-is-reddit/

This isn’t surprising, given who Reddit is (at least, who answered a survey about who Reddit is). It’s American,
Male, Young, and Educated. It’s a privileged community that is often unaware of its privilege. Thus we come
to...<click>

Theory

• Actor-network theory and activity theory (Callon & Latour,
1981; Kaptelinin & Nardi, 2006)

• Participatory culture and fan labor (Jenkins, 2004; Gauntlett,
2011; Baym 2000)

• Identity and community online (Donath, 1999; Ellison, 2007;
boyd, 2007; Nakamura, 2002)

• Design affordances (Norman, 1988; 1999)


ANT - particularly the idea of the network of relationships between humans and technological objects; AT -notion
of contradictions/tensions within activity communtity
Participatory culture - the idea that platforms for creativity are critical spaces to interrogate and understand
Identity and community - emphasis on the multiple and ﬂuid nature of identity and a blurring of the division
between RL and VL
Design affordances - how does design inﬂuence or afford certain interactions?

RQ: what does play look like on Reddit and how
does the platform’s design afford/support it?


Reddit as “carnival” (Bakhtin, 1984)


One important sensitizing concept in understanding Reddit I propose is Bakhtin’s idea of the carnival/
carnivalesque.
: hierarchies up-ended
: the “grotesque body”
: irreverence or rejection of established order
: excess?

The “magic circle” of Reddit (Huizinga, 1955; Salen
& Zimmerman, 2003)


Another critical concept is from game studies - the idea of a “magic circle” - a liminal, permeable space where play
happens.
: rules bound space
: interactions have special meanings for participants
: space is special - like carnival, hierarchies may be overturned
: looks weird to the outsider

(1) Play through memes - remixes and mashups


1. Remixing memes - Meme starts (like 3 AM chili and ice soap), Reddit gradates perhaps because they are ridiculous/gross/
disturbing/profound/hilarious/etc, then the remixing happens = 3 AM ice chili soap
1. How is this facilitated? Partially because karma points encourage people to repost/refer to older posts. Maybe also
because the community loves reliving its own past. Maybe something else?


A meme is born - 2AM chili - which is a ridiculous time to start chili as most commenters
noted. This, plus the humorous presentational style almost guaranteed that it would be
highly upvoted.


Around the same time, someone posted an idea for ice soap - frozen soap in a block of ice
you could use as a portable shower.


And, in classic Reddit fashion, a meta-meme was created - 2 AM Chili ICE SOAP. Reinvoking these memes in later
threads becomes a kind of cultural “touchpoint” for the community. Reddit members often codify their
membership in the community by retelling important stories or events, even (or especially) if they are dark or
titillating or ridiculous (in this case), while refracting/remixing them through a lens of humor. These exchanges
both solidify membership in the Reddit community (by signaling, “I’ve been here for a while, and I remember that”)
while remixing the original meaning and renewing its relevance to the community.

From: http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/thekog/6886709962/sizes/l/in/set-72157629710255725/

Starting here -from a ﬂickr stream that someone posts to reddit with the title: “My friend calls
him “Mr. Ridiculously Photogenic Guy”

RPG memes


Becomes an “advice animal” on the site with shorthand “RPG”


Finally does an AMA after appearing on television.

(2) Linguistic play



Pun threads - perhaps to reinforce a sense of community in a space that can be cluttered? Pun threads/song/story threads are
both collaborative (each comment in some ways builds on one another, whether directly through referencing the prior one or
indirectly, through engaging in the play to begin with) and distinguishing - that is, individuals are noticed for their contributions.
We can see how karma points encourage this behavior.
1. Downside: pun threads also become the target of many complaints on Reddit as people deride them for being so
prevelant
2. this example has a couple of things going on - a person whose username indicates the nature of their posting
(threesentencecomment) uses word play. Then people pile on.


Cultural references - Biella Coleman’s work on hacker culture is especially useful when
considering the kinds of humor Reddit often relies upon. Games, technology, science,
politics, pop culture (of a certain kind), zombies, etc. tend to be fodder for much of the play
on Reddit.

Like pun threads, much of the play on Reddit can be predictable. As in this case, with several
people contributing lines from the television series “Archer” when confronted with a picture
of a baby ocelot (a key point from the series). This string of commentary is recreated over
and over by different individuals, making it a cultural touch-stone for the community.


Often times, threads on Reddit will have comments that simply link to a response gif - like
this one.


verbal shorthand - here a gif/meme response is turned into aintnobodygottimeforthat.jpg.

(3) Novelty accounts and bots


Play on Reddit includes clever turns of phrase (aka the much maligned pun threads) to novelty accounts - which
are speciﬁcally enabled by Reddit’s technological platform. Individuals can register lengthy usernames and the
Reddit platform does not restrict the number of accounts one person can have. This, coupled with the assumption
that many usernames are already in use, requiring new Redditors to be especially creative in their choice of
username. Reddit’s love of play takes over, and the “novelty account” is born.


Shitty watercolour - illustrates stories or usernames


Following the popularity of Shitty_Watercolour, other novelty accounts have become popular on the site - this one
“AWildSketchAppeared” often responds


And “ICanLegoThat” does just that - responding to photos or illustrating usernames with Lego


or this one, that makes “Magic: The Gathering” cards inspired by individual comments on the
site.


Other novelty accounts play with language - in this case, “Gradual_BillCosby” starts out with a rather serious
comment, but inevitably ends by talking about Jello pudding.


Or this account, “Boos_the_worst_pun” that takes issue with the worst pun in a thread


And one of my personal favorites - a novelty account that poses discussion questions one might assign students
in a humanities class - in response to comments made by others.

Of course, not all novelty accounts are upvoted. Some, like one that posts “baby talk” in response to other
comments has been rewarded with much negative karma. So, there are rules around this play.


Bots - often related to novelty accounts, but not the same thing. These are automated (at least, presenting as automated)
accounts that reinterpret or respond to certain threads based on a programmatic choice. For example, haiku_robot ﬁnds
comments that are written in the style of a haiku (5-7-5) and reposts them in the style of of a haiku (with line breaks and a
different font to differentiate them from the rest of the commentary). Bots can receive a lot of upvotes, but I'm not sure if the
motivations are for upvoting the actual content of the comment or the *idea* of the bot to begin with.


But, not all novelty accounts or bots are popular. This one - a bot that simply turned images
upside down to “translate” it into Australian - is seen as an annoyance.

(4) Humor-speciﬁc subreddits


1. Humor-related subreddits: often grow out of comments or memes seen on Reddit. For example, /birdswitharms, /
harlemshake, /stapgirl, /catreddit. These take several forms:
1. Reddit mentions something, like, "I wish there was a reddit for cats" - poof, /catreddit.
2. Some are traditional humor-based, such as /photoshopbattles - common to other participatory platforms online (such
as worth's psd contests).
3. Some are peculiarly representative of Reddit's sense of humor - /fuckingphilosophy (http://www.reddit.com/r/
fuckingphilosophy) with posts such as "Dawg, I got a bone to pick with Marx" (http://www.reddit.com/r/
fuckingphilosophy/comments/14hn0u/dawg_i_got_a_bone_to_pick_with_marx_yo/) and "STOP THE FUCKING
PRESSES: PHYSICAL OBJECTS EXIST YO" (http://www.reddit.com/r/fuckingphilosophy/comments/14zvvs/
stop_the_fucking_presses_physical_objects_exist_yo/). Another example: (http://www.reddit.com/r/
RedditThroughHistory) - /RedditThroughHistory - where people present historical events as if they are current events.
Points to Reddit's fascination with "properness" (see the use of Esq. for all mods) and preoccupation with both Reddit
as a genre and the past.

But the “magic circle” of Reddit is not impenetrable


Questions abound:
how does reddit deal with the “real world”?
large questions, like how does the site handle inappropriate content, and what about
copyright in a playspace full of memes and remixed material?

Who can play?

Who can’t play?

What if they don’t like the “rules” of Reddit?



William Shatner calls out Reddit!


Enter SRS (Shit Reddit Says) - a “circlejerk” intended to raise awareness and otherwise mock the discourse that
happens on much of Reddit. The stated goal of /srs is not to “change Reddit” but to allow dissenters to not feel
alone when dealing with these issues.

Notice that SRS inverts the traditional game of Karma - only allowing users to downvote content in their sub. They
are playing a different game than much of the rest of Reddit.


Or this - as if “bitching” about a community of which one is a part is not allowed. Thus, the Reddit community
encourages discussion, and even criticism of the itself, if it is a part of the “approved” meta-conversation about
Reddit. One gets the sense that much of Reddit is one big Mansplaining attempt.

Or if the engagement with the community that /SRS performs is not considered appropriate “play” within the
unstated Reddit rules.

Enabling play on Reddit through design


Loose rules (redditquette)
open source
individual subs w/ differing rules - focusing discussion around artifact; have some control over look-and-feel
above all else - sense of community ownership (ties to ideas of free labor, but another talk)


Ease of registration - notice that even email address is optional - means that individuals are
encouraged to create accounts and can have multiple accounts. This might also explain why
novelty accounts became popular on Reddit to begin with - registration was so easy that
unique usernames were required b/c other ones were not available.


In principle, Reddit is open - as a platform for creativity, anyone can create their own subreddit off of reddit.com
(and recent attempts to limit even objectionable content are rebuked by the admins - more on this later) - and as a
code base, as Reddit is open source.


Reddiquette is an informal guide to the Reddit cmty - written by Redditors themselves. This
is a unique design approach for a participatory platform; not only allowing users to upvote/
downvote content that they deem valuable, but to author the rules by which the community
operates. Of course, these rules are subject to interpretation, and may not actually guide
individual behavior on the site.

And, what about karma?


1. Karma points - a biggie and toughie. Karma is based on an algorithm that takes into account both upvotes/downvotes and
the age of the posting. So, posts that are newer will ﬂoat to the top (and probably be up on /r/all) even if other postings
technically have more upvotes.
1. Downside of karma points - encourages what redditors refer to as karmawhoring where people repost previously
popular content and/or may engage in making the same jokes, references, etc. simply because they are often
upvoted
2. karma points = endogenous meaning (Costikyan) - no real-world referent, but relevant in Reddit space
3. Play around karma points extends to gifs made that display upvote/downvotes (think downvoting roman, beyonce's
upvote meme, beating a dead horse gif, etc)
4. Metatalk around karma points also occurs, but is discouraged according to REDDIQUETTE (so, saying "upboats" for
this post isn't supposed to be posted/upvoted)


Much of the play on Reddit centers around the accumulation of “karma” or the upvotes that one receives when
others in the community believe the comments made are valuable, interesting, or add to the discussion. As the
game designer Greg Costikyan notes about games in general, karma has only endogenous meaning - that is, it
has no meaning outside of the “game” of reddit. Still, accusations of “karma whoring” (or (re)posting stuff just to
get karma) runs rampant - but that’s another talk.

Why Reddit and not...



Twitter: Cats


Political ﬁgures


And, certainly there is a backlash against Twitter novelty accounts. Why is this?
- users typically sign up for gazillion accounts in beginning
- suffer information overload (lack of curated content - so no up/downvote on individual
tweets like reddit)
- either delete or heavily manage accts of less interest
- unlike reddit - accounts pushed to you regardless of interest (megaphone)
- part of reddit appeal is the discovery of these accounts unexpectedly (which is different if
you have to sign up for them like you do twitter) - synchronicity of clicking on a link/artifact
of interest and seeing novelty account’s response


YouTube:
: like reddit, conversation is artifact-driven
: not deep threaded discussion! only recently have you been able to reply to a speciﬁc
comment - have to click to see original.
: likes/dislikes does not move material to the top (except for top two); only sorted by most
recent comment
: relatively lacking user proﬁles are focused on uploaded material and not comments
: little sense of community around commenting


4chan
: completely anonymous - so no reputation associated with a particular account over time
: threading of conversation is challenging
: chaotic design, lack of archives, changes tenor of conversation
: seems like a club that you have to work hard to enter

Some conclusions

• Play on Reddit takes multiple forms - from visual memes/mashups to
linguistic turns-of-phrase to novelty accounts

• Play both reinforces and challenges community identity on Reddit

• Questions of who can play in this space and how this space interacts
with other social spheres still need examination

• However, play within participatory culture generally remains relatively
unexplored - despite game studies emphasis on the importance of play
to everyday life

• How can design better afford playful interactions online?


Thanks! (amass@uic.edu; @hegemonyrules)

Playful participatory culture and design: The case of Reddit.com

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