A middle aged man leans nonchalantly against a wall, arms outstretched above his head. He wears khaki pants, a grey shirt, and a grin of triumph. Directly in front of him, a young woman clutching an air horn lurches at him confrontationally. She wears a bandana around her long hair, a black shirt, denim shorts, and an expression of unmitigated outrage. Behind her, a large, predominantly female group pushes indignantly towards the man. Some gesticulate, some shout.

There is a stark contrast between the cool indifference of the man and the fury of the group surrounding him. The women in the picture are marching in support of the anti-rape campaign, “Slut Walk,” and the man with the mocking smile has just exposed himself to them, mid protest.

The photograph was posted to the image-based subreddit r/pics (RedditReposter, 2012), where it drew a myriad of responses, from the critical to the supportive, and everything in between. It was heavily upvoted, cross-posted to several subreddits, including the male empowerment community, r/mensrights, and quickly reached the homepage of the site. The controversial image reignited an ongoing debate regarding sexism within the online community.

The relationship between reddit, women and feminist ideals is notoriously uncomfortable and frequently strained. Occasionally, this simmering resentment towards women festers into outright sexism and misogyny, manifesting itself in the form of objectification, “virtual rage and fantasised violence” (Adams, 2012).

Soon after the image went viral, user ‘LimaBreans’ posted to the women’s interest subreddit r/twoxchromosomes. Her post, “Why a man exposing himself to a woman is not as comical as many redditors on the front page tonight seemed to believe, I’d like to share my story,” detailed her own experience, when, at the age of 14, a middle-aged man exposed himself to her in a parking lot, before attempting to follow her home. The experience, she said, had left her humiliated and traumatised. “By affirming, and not condemning such actions, we are saying, hey, it’s okay to make women feel uncomfortable, because it’s just how things work,” she wrote (LimaBreans, 2012).

Posts on women’s interest and feminism subreddits frequently lament the attitudes encountered by female users within the wider reddit community. User ‘twocacti’ wrote in r/twoxchromosomes that reddit has a tendency to stereotype females as superficial and materialistic, and that discourse regarding women is often predisposed towards lewd, sexual commentary, even in non-sexual situations. She suggests there exists within the community an underlying bitterness towards women, and a general misunderstanding of what “feminism” actually means. “I think most Redditors are passive participants in all of this, upvoting sexist jokes and needlessly sexual pictures without really thinking about it,” she wrote (TheLateGreatMe, 2012).

In an article examining reddit’s attitudes towards women, Lauren Rae Orsini of The Daily Dot posed the question, “is reddit sexist?” concluding that the question, “hardly seems worth an argument: It is” (Orsini, 2012).

How then, do such attitudes prosper and perpetuate within a community that prides itself on its own intellectualism, open-mindedness, and decency?

Mia Kennett is a 21-year-old Bachelor of Arts student majoring in politics at Monash University. She has been a reddit user for two years. Once an active participant in the community, regularly contributing content and engaging in comment threads, she now interacts only as part of the “silent majority.” Known colloquially as “lurkers,” these users represent the 90 per cent of the online community who engage with online content and discourse by following posts and discussions, but rarely, if ever, actively participate (Nonnecke, 2000, p. 2).

Kennett would prefer it wasn’t this way, but says the attitudes expressed by the wider reddit community towards women have made active participation, for her, impossible.

In 2011, Kennett was drawn into an apparently innocuous reddit discussion about national stereotypes. She says her posting was not aggressive, rude or inflammatory; she was simply attempting to engage in a measured debate regarding a topic she found interesting. However, she logged into reddit the following day to discover her account had been bombarded with over 200 messages in reply to her posting.

She says few of these comments sought to further the original discourse in any meaningful way. Rather, she found herself the target of sexist slurs and abuse, leading her to conclude that both her views and gender were not welcome in the reddit community. “I’m sure they realised I was a female as my username included the word ‘ladybird;’ it was quite feminine,” Kennett says (Interview, 2012). “I began receiving private and public messages expressing very intense hatred towards me. I was called a whore and a cunt. The reaction to my post really concerned me; I was angry and extremely frustrated that I had no method of recourse. There was no means for me to redress the horrible sexist comments, or abusive private messages that I received on the back of just one comment that I made. After that I made the decision to delete my account.”

Discussion around the functional framework of reddit often depicts the site as a platform epitomising the theory of collective intelligence, put to the best of practical use. Although not exclusive to reddit, Jenkins describes the phenomenon as “[the] ability of virtual communities to leverage the combined expertise of their members. What we cannot do, or know on our own, we may now be able to do collectively” (Jenkins, 2006, p. 27).

There are many instances where the reddit community has used the power of its collective intellect for the greater good. In the aftermath of the July 2012 Aurora massacre, reddit was praised for its user-generated, real time coverage of the incident. The New York Times declared the site’s user-base had effectively “scooped the press” with its coverage of the shooting, after 18 year old Morgan Jones, posting under the username, ‘integ3r’, constructed a comprehensive timeline of the incident as it unravelled, publishing information he was able to gather from his bedroom, through an audio feed of a police scanner in the area (Chen, 2012c). Other users provided eyewitness accounts of the scene. Combining this crowdsourced information with mainstream media content, reddit was able to provide more immediate and in-depth coverage than most news media organisations at the time. Yet, while the theory of collective intelligence, or “the wisdom of the crowd,” suggests the consensus of the group’s view has “an inherent rightness [the individual] cannot match,” so too does the rule of the aggregate pose its own challenges to the online community (Whyte, 2012).

Kennett believes original, innovative discourse is unlikely to thrive within the reddit community because the collective intellect of the community encourages and rewards groupthink behaviour, while those rare oppositional positions are frequently downvoted, with users brave enough to voice dissenting views often finding themselves targets of vitriol and abuse. “Personally, my experience has been that the anonymity and karma on reddit inhibits the quality of content and discussion,” she says (Kennet 2012). “I don’t believe it is currently a positive forum for rights and empowerment. The predictability of reddit’s reaction is a big problem.”

reddit’s collective consciousness is often described as “The Hivemind.” A 2011 survey of 32,756 reddit users revealed that the site’s user-base is predominantly male (jenakalif, 2011). Users from Australia, The USA, The UK, and Canada account for 82.3 per cent of the site’s user-base. Of these, 85 per cent of Australians users, 78 per cent of USA users 89 per cent of UK users, and 78 per cent of Canadian users, are male (Livingstone, 2011). Moderator of the subreddit, r/feminism, ‘Reddit_Feminist,’ suggests there is a push from the community to maintain this gap between reddit’s primary demographic of young males and the “other,” by driving away those who do not fit the mould: “I think as reddit gains popularity, there is an urge to make it more exclusive,” she told BuzzFeed’s Hillary Reinsberg. “The easiest way to do that is to make certain people feel excluded. That urge, combined with the self-determined nature of the site, creates an environment where sexist, racist, and generally bigoted attitudes are not only accepted, but encouraged” (Reinsberg, 2012).

The aforementioned r/mensrights is a subreddit that perhaps succeeds most obviously and openly in creating such community rifts. While more overtly lewd and offensive subreddits do exist, such as those created by ‘violentacrez,’ as mentioned in the previous chapter, these are generally accepted by the wider community as forums designed to “troll” users by provoking a reaction of outrage. The views expressed here are offensive, but that is essentially the point. In contrast, r/mensrights seeks to validate and legitimise the often deeply sexist attitudes expressed by its users. This is a community that staunchly defends and stands by its ideals. While ‘violentacrez’ set out to provoke and to offend, r/mensrights’s goal is to affect social and political change.

Declaring itself as “created in opposition to feminism,” r/mensrights contends feminism is a global conspiracy designed to oppress men and rob them of their human rights; claiming the feminist movement, “institutionally is far more damaging towards not just men, but women, children, and many facets of society, than it is positive” (kloo2yoo, 2012). While promoting itself as a platform for equality; seeking to draw attention to the injustices suffered by males as a consequence of gender discrimination, including legal and educational discrimination, male genital mutilation and false accusations of rape, r/mensrights simultaneously perpetuates vitriolic female stereotypes, vilifying women and victimising men.

In 2012, civil rights organisation the Southern Poverty Law Centre included r/mensrights in a list of websites it claims promote and cultivate misogynistic attitudes: “While it presents itself as a home for men seeking equality, it is notable for the anger it shows toward any program designed to help women,” the organisation stated in a 2012 report. “It also traffics in various conspiracy theories. ‘Kloo2yoo,’ identified as a site moderator*, writes that there is ‘undeniable proof’ of an international feminist conspiracy involving the United Nations, the Obama Administration and others, aimed at demonizing men” (Southern Poverty Law Center, 2012).

Combined, the concentrated demographics of reddit’s user-base, the social currency, karma, and the anonymous platform on which the site conducts itself has the potential to foster an environment that is especially vulnerable to the dark side of collective intelligence: groupthink and de-individualisation. This, in turn, provides an open space that enables prejudiced and discriminatory attitudes to prosper.

De-individualisation is the theory that individuals are particularly susceptible to the loss of self-awareness when interacting within a group environment. The risk of de-individualisation “applies to an extreme in anonymous group situations,” Lorelei Yang wrote in an article published in the daily student paper The Dartmouth: “To some people, spaces like reddit are virtual repositories for a stream of vitriolic, tasteless and borderline illegal content to which they would never put their names in public spaces. In these cases, the separation of words from personalities is tremendously problematic when it allows faceless personas to disseminate material that violates good taste or endangers others” (Yang, 2012).

William H. Whyte, Jr. explores the phenomenon of groupthink and de-individualisation in his 1958 article for Fortune Magazine. He contends that group environments increase the risk of a loss of connection to the self, and that in these situations, the sense of identity from which we derive our morals and values may be compromised: “One participates for the end of ‘social integration,’ for ‘community-centred cohesion,’ for better ‘interpersonal relations,’ for ‘group harmony,’ for the reduction of ‘social tensions,’ for adjustment to the environment. One participates, in other words, that he may participate,” he wrote (2012).

David McRaney (2011) argues that this behavioural reaction to the anonymity and lack of accountability that exists within group environments may explain what motivates an otherwise rational, upstanding member of society to maliciously yell, “jump!” as some tormented fellow member of their own species hovers, perched upon the brink of some great height, contemplating ending their own life. Similarly, this phenomenon could explain the sexism, and other forms of prejudice and bigotry that exist within some reddit communities.

McRaney suggests that as users are encouraged and emboldened by the attitudes and actions of other users, and driven by the anonymity, and consequent lack of accountability provided by the platform, “The finely crafted individuality you usually enjoy is suppressed, and the cues from your environment steer you and the others in your group.” (2011).

As reddit’s user-base grows, the potential for widespread de-individualisation and Hivemind driven groupthink becomes a more pressing issue, one that may come to endanger the potential for reddit to provide a platform for new and innovative discourse. Tyler Huggins of Highbrow Magazine argues that the karma-driven structure of reddit is fundamentally limiting because it encourages premeditative posting, groupthink and conformity: “reddit, through the website’s karma… sometimes rewards homogeneity, confirmation bias and doublethink. Act as the subreddit hive requests, receive approval. Act against the grain and be down-voted into irrelevance” (Huggins, 2012).

Karma plays a highly influential role in content curation and community attitudes within reddit as it creates a currency based system; rewarding content that conforms to certain cultural expectations with “upvotes,” and in turn reinforcing the dominant ideologies and opinions of the community. This perhaps goes someway to explaining why sexism and other forms of prejudice have managed to gain such traction and apparent legitimacy within the reddit community.

Kennett is no stranger to the oddly addictive nature of karma, and admits that the online social currency has in the past, directly influenced how she engaged with the community: “I was much more interested in getting karma than in contributing to the conversation in any meaningful way,” she says (Interview, 2012). “It doesn’t make sense, because karma doesn’t actually ‘mean’ anything. But I wanted it. I would often steer away from posting content I knew was going to be unpopular. The demographic of the wider community is predominantly college-aged males. So when you’re posting, you have this ‘typical redditor’ image in your mind and, whether consciously or subconsciously, you gear your commentary towards this demographic. I started posting and I earned my first karma points, and even though it ultimately meant absolutely nothing, it was strangely addictive.”

After three years using reddit, 20-year-old Jacob Spicer shares Kennett’s views regarding karma’s influence. “I think karma has a definite impact on content,” he said (Interview, 2012). Spicer believes that in seeking to attain karma, users are not so much attempting to win a point-based game, as courting the acceptance of the online community. “They’re seeking acceptance from a group of people that they respect or enjoy engaging with. However, the karma and upvote/downvote system creates a very limited scope of opinion,” he says.

Anthony Wing Kosner of Forbes Magazine lamented that while the Internet functions as “a universal market, university and public square,” the collective unconscious is also made up of scores of users that are arguably easily swayed and influenced by the dominant ideologies of the group: “From tech journalists to paedophiles, there is a herd that can be driven with the lightest of prods,” he wrote (2012). Within the framework of the reddit community, karma functions as such a “prod,” subtly influencing content curation and community attitudes and ideals, as users seek the attainment of what are essentially Internet points that hold no value outside the online community, and debatably, little value within.

While online communities such as reddit provide users with an opportunity to create an anonymous persona, to become a part of a community, and to form an online kinship, the narrow demographics of reddit and the community’s resistance to change, risk the perpetuation of an unhealthy social vision. Reinforcement of such ideals within the online community supresses the individuality of the user, shaping and influencing their behaviour within the online realm, consequently creating an environment where damaging attitudes of prejudice stifle innovative content and discourse, and community diversity. “Technology is

not our overlords, and should not be,” says Zeynep Tufekci. She argues that online communities must seek to be more vigilant to socially, culturally and ethically push against the negative side of discourse. Otherwise, “we will sink lower and lower as it becomes more and more normalized to prey upon children and violate women” (Zeynep, 2012).

* Please note: reddit user “kloo2yoo” resigned as moderator of r/mensrights before the publication of the Southern Poverty Law Centre report concerning the subreddit.