I nuked my Reddit accounts today. Deleted all comments and posts, then the accounts themselves. The tool I used showed each comment as it was deleted, and it was bittersweet.
I watched old gaming and movie discussions I barely remember appear and then get flagged as deleted. Communities I once participated in and then moved on as the years past flashed by. I remembered how I felt back then, and then watched them scroll on into oblivion.
Now I feel…I guess it’s grief. Sadness for that part that’s gone. Sadness that it’ll never be there again. Like footprints on a beach wiped away by the tide. It’s like it never happened. There is no trace.
And I feel anger. Mad that it came to this. Mad that I let a corporation have so much of my time and thoughts. Mad that they made it clear my life was nothing but a product to them.
It’s over now. Time for a new chapter.
Anyone else have strong feelings about losing a part of the past like this?
I spent so much time there on reddit spreading knowledge of the things I had experience with and was passionate about (mostly piercing care, plant care, and science related stuff, which Ill admit is a pretty random combination of things).
For now, I can’t bring myself to delete it.
But I do look forward to spreading the things I learned to a brand new audience, so Im keeping my head high even if Im sad its come to this
…Now I’m wondering what Reddit does with user data… and who they’re selling it to. 🤔
Don’t know, but so far it seems like most marketing algorythms don’t know what on earth to do with me, cause I really be here on internet doing very specific things that don’t necesarilly relate.
They throw in the most random stuff, sometimes its things from countries Im not from, other times they think Im male, others that Im female.
On a very funny instance I got a youtube add (won’t elaborate on why addblock wasn’t on) recruiting me to join the sugar daddy / sugar baby business(??? (still don’t know if they wanted me to be the sugar daddy or the sugar baby, cause sure as hell I aint got the money and I aint got the goods).
You might want to check out the book Feed by M.T. Anderson. Dystopian syfi where if the algorithm can’t sell to you then you are in a tough spot. Your comment made me think of one of the main characters and how messed up that book is.
Oh that’s good to know, thanks for the recommendation!
Considering you can append any Google search with “reddit” and find something there means the entire site is indexed by Google, so there’s that at a minimum…