Social news site www.reddit.com reinforces Darwin's theory — the best post survives the fight for the first page

Matt0753 submits a photo displaying toys of people on wheelchair — titled ‘I am in a wheelchair and here's my Cripple Collection' — to ‘Pics'. Barely six hours later, the online submission attracts close to 600 comments, including this one by AvatarJack: “You should consider adding Oracle to your collection. She was Batgirl, but then the Joker shot her in the spine and paralyzed her. But she came back as Oracle and was much cooler than when she was Batgirl.”

Tickle your funny bone

FormalWhale sends a photo denouncing the use of guns to ‘Funny'.

A caption is scripted into the image: “I think the world would be a much better place if there were no guns. Then we could finally focus on the important things, like sword fighting, and how to kill a man with one punch.”

Posts by other people dwell on other topics, including weighty ones such as politics, science and world news. They include links to articles, images and videos and also users' personal accounts. Welcome to the front page of >www.reddit.com, where ideas fight for attention.

Votes decide

A new set of posts keeps taking over the coveted page and the older ones are quickly pushed to the back pages. The website gives a new spin to Darwinian theory — it subscribes to the view that the best posts (pictures, videos or articles) outdo others in the race for the front page. Redditors — as users of this social news site are known — hope their posts gain more ‘upvotes' than ‘downvotes'. Voting largely decides if a post goes to page one.

Redditors can customise their individual pages by subscribing to subreddits, which are communities promoting specific topics. (Founded in 2005, this website has over 67,000 subreddits). So, redditors can make their individual front pages look different from the general front page. Among other attractions is the facility to comment on posts, which makes the website a platform for discussions.

Forging friendships

The battle of ideas is productive and exciting, but most redditors don't stay confined to the ivory towers of ideas.

They try to connect with one another offline — from New York to New Delhi, local redditors meet at some neighbourhood coffee shop. Definitely not this website's unique feature — to give just one instance, Facebook friends do it all the time — but it's interesting that a totally impersonal exchange of ideas can lead to friendships.