On the night of October 19th, 2019, I was talking on the phone when I saw a post from the famous Challenge Twitter Stan @Shboogies. She had posted about the Challenge Subreddit abruptly closing:

The Reddit User u/Sherlock_House had created the subreddit many years ago and did very little for it. When I joined the subreddit, it had barely any users and was quite bland. Later on, another mod u/SeacattleMoohawks would become a moderator and do an incredible job upgrading the site’s format. When he got busy, he later added more mods who would go on to make the r/ChallengeMTV a thriving place where fans could talk about the Challenge and share their own original content.

Reddit user u/SweetMissMG had become one of the moderators and was the HBIC of the subreddit. They made sure to purge all spoilers out of non-spoiler threads, kept a quality filter on the subreddit, and did everything in-between. Eventually, she asked for a simple thank you or promotion from u/Sherlock_House , who had been inactive for a long time. u/Sherlock_House then decided he was going to close the subreddit out of nowhere, get rid of the other moderators, tell them to stop whining, and then attack those moderators/defend himself using multiple alternate accounts.

In example:

u/Sherlock_House is a Cowboys fan. As a long-time user of the Subreddit, I had always noticed an inactive admin with a Cowboys related username u/DezThrowUpTheX. u/Sherlock_House had once noted to me in messages that it was an alternate account. This account u/Witten527 is the same name as Cowboys tight-end Jason Witten. He attempted to pretend nothing went wrong after the moderators of the sub were posting about the situation in other subreddits.

He then blamed it on getting hacked. Considering he used multiple alternate accounts to attack the other moderators and defend himself, it is hard to believe otherwise. If they are having any mental health or substance abuse issues, I hope they get help and reach out. If it was an emotional troll job, I have no respect for them.

As a long-time Challenge Reddit user, my socks were completely knocked off by the abrupt announcement. Just the day before, my article breaking down the mid-season trailer of War of the Worlds 2 was the most upvoted post on the site. While my usage of the site was not as frequent as it was back in late 2017, I still posted on there 3x a week and would love to quietly lurk certain threads.

To put in perspective the impact that Reddit has had in my life, let me note this:

It gave my articles the most traffic out of any social media site and was influential towards some of the interviews and writing opportunities I have had.

I gained a best friend who lived on the other side of the country via Reddit. He and I have talked literally every day for two years and will be meeting in person at Wrestlemania this year.

When Cara Maria attacked me on Twitter for being biased over a year ago, the Reddit came to my defense in heaps and sang my praises.

Redditors have brought me joy and also been reliable critics of my work. I don’t think my articles are very good, but they are more favored in late 2019 than in the past when they were much worse. The better article I write, Reddit has appropriately given the amount of love back in return. Whereas a decent chunk of Facebook and Twitter fans reply without reading, Redditors read the articles and provide insight.

The Challenge Subreddit taught me how to ride a bike

Maybe the last one wasn’t true, but the Subreddit has given me friends and a community where I feel good about watching the Challenge. None of my real life friends watch the Challenge, so being able to go into discussion threads with other passionate people is such a great experience. I know there’s many others who feel the same way as I do about r/ChallengeMTV. Losing the subreddit would ruin their Reddit experiences, as well as affect those on Vevmo, Facebook, and Twitter.

Whether we hacked or trolled, I am grateful that the subreddit still exists. Maybe it was a social experiment.