Step 1: Post anything with a rage bait title
Step 2: Some poster comes in with an obviously bad take
Step 3: That obviously bad take gets upvoted/liked/whatever
Step 4: Now people have to engage with it because it's been pushed to the top
Step 5: Drama/engagement/so much traffic tho

Social media sites just automated steps 1-3 and all us dummies fall right into it.
I wish there was a meta category? Is there? #meta-tildes
Edit: oh there is a ~Tildes. apologies.

I haven’t touched reddit since the APIcalyspe. I’m planning to delete my account but haven’t gotten around to it yet. I was a heavy Apollo user on iOS but never subscribed to it for its push notification service, instead I kept the official reddit app installed and the only thing I used it for were its notifications. I still have both apps installed.

Anyway, I was surprised to see one pop up yesterday, especially since it wasn’t connected to my user activity (a new private message or reply to an old comment of mine or something). The notification was just an ad. More specifically, it was promoting some trending post on the site that had “>12,000 upvotes.” In many many years of having the app installed I’ve never seen that before. Is it new?

Reddit’s had a mildly antagonist relationship with its users for ages, but it feels like they are REALLY intensifying things now. I’m glad I got off the train when I did. And sorry for making yet another post about reddit, I think we’re all getting tired of harping on it here.