askReddit

You have message boards and you have message boards with a very interesting community.

reddit is one of those.

I've been a longtime lurker... rather... I have an account but I never really post on it. Reddit, what it is, it's a social news aggregator, meaning people post up links of something they find really interesting and others "upvote" or "downvote" it depending if it is "relevant to their interests."

You might notice "relevant to their interests" is in quotes. You'll see this on reddit and the whole internet. And that's why I mean when I say community. You see, reddit is different in that it has its own culture (usually revolving around narwhals and bacon.. don't ask why.) Redditors as they are called, have meetups and are very accepting of each other. Discussion on its comments are usually civilized and surprisingly insightful into issues. However, as intelligent and insightful as it gets, you do have a different type of people than the people who read The Economist or npr... whatever.

These people have welcomed strangers, their fellow redditors into their homes. These people have donated money to a kid's mom to help fight an unfair legal battle. These people have donated money to help a guy's mom's struggling soap business. It really isn't uncommon to see people asking for help.. and it's even more uncommon to see people respond to those pleas, whether it be relationship advice or even a return of inspirational stories for people asking for reasons why they shouldn't kill themselves. Some of them even met up in Santa Clara at a redditor's house to have a barbeque. Keep in mind none of these people know each other in person, but they're still willing to forego the modern-day fears of rapists and molesters everywhere.

They even have their own celebrities... karmanaut, P-Dub, and even the occasional novelty account. For example, jokeexplainer, I believe he's called. Someone will make a joke in the comments thread, and jokeexplainer will nonchalantly point out what was so funny about it. Puns are popular as well. Take for example, the recent oil spill. I'm willing to venture that someone made a comment saying "Man, that oil spill is pretty bad, but BP is being pretty slick about it." to which someone will reply, "Wow, I bet it was all rigged to blow." You really have to see it to appreciate it...

It's a really unique online community, a real culture in cyberspace.

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/