moment in the sun
luka doncic is devin booker father
bits and bobs
howdy. happy friday. I made a collaborative playlist for this little guy. Please consider this an open invite to add songs you’ve liked moving forward.
It’s almost the end of January, and the days are still short, but I’ve been feeling very grateful. A lot of what I’m trying to do is get out my own way, be a little more open to the flow of life, and try my best to accept it.
Some days, (+ weeks, months) are more exciting + easier than others, and I’m slowly learning to enjoy the steadiness that comes with stability. Consistency is good. And so is sleep.
A very quick shoutout to Mr. Man, our new feline friend who loves to make his presence known at 4am. We are becoming best friends.
When I first started to interact with the internet in my own way, I went straight to Reddit. Most of that was initially because it had the largest gathering space for other Arsenal fans, and I could consume what felt like infinite amounts of content in a space where I could just lurk if I wanted to. That was a dream come true for teenage Ben.
Of course, the site isn’t immune to controversy. CEO Steve Huffman came under pretty intense fire for charging third-party apps, bots, and companies for using Reddit’s Data API last year. This led to over 7,000 of the site’s largest subreddits going dark in June to protest these changes. That’s over 300 million total subscribers, just under half of the site’s total active monthly users.
The changes still went ahead, and I think that’s a story in and of itself. What it did demonstrate, though, at least to me, is how powerful these communities can be and how much people care. Other apps have come and gone in my daily rolodex, but Reddit’s stuck around. I include every google search with ‘reddit’ at the end because I’m convinced I get the best answers.
I was speaking with a friend about how now that the platform formerly known as Twitter has eaten itself, Reddit is, even if imperfectly, one of the last few places where cogent discourse is attainable.
I use the word ‘attainable’ here intentionally, because even though it’s possible, that doesn’t mean it necessarily always happens. The ability to freely express oneself often results in unique cultural evolutions within subreddits, with these communities sometimes removing any language or ideological constraints.
My experience is that they become almost over-agreeable while removing and reaffirming ideas that are already accepted in the process. For a quick example I need point you only to r/wallstreetbets.
r/nbacirclejerk
Although the term "circle jerk" is graphic, it’s an apt description for the self-indulgent behavior many communities fall into from time-to-time, and the sub-communities that form as a result. There are hundreds of circle jerk subreddits, ranging from gaming to movies to skincare.
I had some trouble explaining what these subreddits really do, going so far as to even test drive an explanation IRL with less-than-positive results. They give off a similar energy to a fringe group — micro-niche, bound together by an agreed-upon ethos (or collection of memes), and are immaculately tribal.
I asked a friend what being part of r/nbacirclejerk, in particular, meant to them:
“To me, circle jerking is reveling in the absurdity of fandom. Most of the posts in r/nbacj, for example, are all extremely self-aware. The more tongue-in-cheek the better. People that participate in these communities aren’t necessarily haters or obsessives — they’re normal fans who like to poke fun at what they love.”
I love this quote because I can’t argue with this very personal experience of engaging with a community I’m not a part of. I can’t say I totally agree, though, or at the very least, I’m really curious where the line is drawn between being a hater or obsessive and poking fun at something everyone, by simply existing as a group, acknowledges they love.
My intention here isn’t to be the arbiter of what is and isn’t proper discourse, especially in an area of the internet I don’t frequent. That said, I do want to explore something that happened in r/nbacirclejerk a couple of months ago, because what went down (and continues to go down) is one of the more insane things I’ve recently seen online. I also think it serves as an effective litmus test for how we each feel about online community and what we do (or don’t) sacrifice to engage with and feel part of something bigger than ourselves.
u/mrsunsfan
Quick contextual lore:
A key meme pillar of r/nbacj is that the Phoenix Suns are very, very bad, with Suns’ guard Devin Booker serving as the face of the bit.
If you’re a Suns fan and pull up to this subreddit genuinely trying to defend them, you will be met with a type of multi-later trolling only possible in a community with hundreds of thousands of anonymous users. And it’s all good. There are unwritten rules that, when intentionally not followed, make for some of the best content.
In a perfect Reddit world, these sorts of interactions work great, with the downvote button typically taking care of anyone being naughty (pro tip: sort by controversial). Moderators also have the scope to remove anyone who doesn’t follow the subreddit’s rules.
Since the platform lends itself to anonymity, there’s a slight layer of detachment from the idea and end user, helping foster the type of discourse that props up our culture.
Somewhere along the way, though, things got muddied in r/nbacj when a user named mrsunsfan started posting. I know — someone with that name, in this community, is arguably setting themselves up for whatever comes their way. It seemed like a lot of folks agreed, and the more he posted, the more karma he gathered on the subreddit and the more he was bullied.
I heard about all of this second-hand, but at some point, somebody decided to take a peak at mrsunsfan’s post history and broadcast it across the subreddit, with hundreds of users quickly following suit.
This is next-level trolling. The type of trolling that can only be accomplished when a massive group of people with shared vernacular unite together for a common cause. Except this cause was in the name of meme-ing mrsunsfan into a dimension of the internet never-before-seen, except for maybe these infamous folks over on r/wallstreetbets.
My first instinct after reading these and saying “oh my god” 15 times was to feel really bad for the guy. I couldn’t help but feel like he’d been violated in some way even though he’d made these posts and become active in a community where he probably knew he’d get some.
I’m not sure mrsunsfan would agree. Instead of recoiling, or maybe even understandably pushing back at the abuse he was receiving, he took it in stride. He ran with the bit. He owned the meme. And everyone loved it.
It’s hard for me to consolidate my own feelings about what happened here with mrsunsfan’s response. While some of the comments made me shriek-laugh, others didn’t.
It’s left me asking things like to what extent is my lack of involvement in this community contributing to my emotional reaction? If I were an active member, would I feel differently? If mrsunsfan is okay with how things went down, does that mean I should be? Where does that shared love of basketball come into play here?
If mrsunsfan didn’t have that post history, or sign up with that username, there’s no way he’d have achieved the notoriety he did. Maybe his own stake in something bigger than himself — in this case, a subreddit filled with die-hard basketball fans like himself — made the sacrifice worthwhile if it meant he had the opportunity to be seen and known in that context.
Maybe what was actually said or shared wasn’t as important as the fact that he was the subject of conversation. I can’t lie and pretend there isn’t a part of me, on the most ego-based level, that doesn’t find that sentiment at least a little appealing.
I still wouldn’t want my own post history shared — not because it’s as cringe as this guy’s (literally impossible) but because I love the anonymity Reddit affords users. There’s minimal room for me to even subconsciously curate my posts because it’s attached to a larger contextual identity. And I think that’s pretty cool.