Crossposted from /r/HateSubredditOfTheDay
Today let's look at /r/SubredditOfTheDay, a subreddit with 114,784 subscribers.
The Mods
Willful ignorance
SubredditOfTheDay has been featuring subreddits for five years. According to top mod jaxspider:
SubRedditOfTheDay is a meta subreddit that helps promote well deserving subreddits. Thats the main goal.
Aside from that, no other qualifications for why a subreddit should be featured is made on the subreddit itself. So if a subreddit community is supposed to feature "well-deserving subreddits" then why have they featured a slew of subreddits focused on bigotry, sexism, and rape?
Perhaps other mods can provide some insight. ZadocPaet weighs in on the sub recently featuring /r/The_Donald and /r/TheRedPill:
You know, I was very pleased with the /r/TheRedPill feature. I felt it was objective and got to the root of what Red Pill Theory is. And, you know, I agree with a lot of it. I disagree with a lot of it. I guess I'd be a purple piller.
I can also say the same thing about the mods here, and the mods of the previous political features we've done this week; /r/TedCruzForPresident, /r/KasichForPresident, and /r/hillaryclinton. They're all good people who really honestly want to do what they think is best for America. Obviously people disagree, but that's okay. Having the right to disagree is a principle that America was founded on.
Well, I picked /r/TheRedPill. I won't lie. Knowing that it would bring publicity was a factor. However, the real reason why is that a fired mod used our bot account to be very ugly to them when they made their nomination. It was super unprofessional. So, out of fairness, I offered them a feature. But it was interview-only so as to not take sides. I agree with some TRP principles, like self-improvement, but not others, like sexual strategies. It is, however, a major culture on reddit. And that made it worthy of a feature. [Link]
Ahh. Good to know that the only reason why TRP was featured is because you are a RedPiller.
He provides further insight in later comments:
The thing that often gets lost is that no matter which candidate people support, they're not doing it for nefarious reasons. They genuinely believe that's what's best for America, and they're taking action. So good on them. Now, obviously people will disagree with what's best for America, but that's a basic American right, isn't it?
It seems a picture is starting to form. /r/SubredditOfTheDay mods seem to be a Phil Ochs type of liberal: "Free speech is the law of the land, so it's okay if you take advantage of it to trample over others." ZadocPaet isn't shy about showing his true colors in another post after /r/The_Donald is featured:
Funny. I was going to reply to that and say the truth, which is that we've invited every major sub for the remaining candidates to come here. Yesterday was /r/hillaryclinton, the day before was /r/KasichForPresident, the day before that was /r/TedCruzForPresident. Tomorrow's planned feature should now be obvious. But no. "It's It's because we're just trying to regain relevance by featuring hate subs because we've been losing popularity for a while and featuring KiA was a boon for us."
Or maybe. Just maybe, we want to focus on reddit culture. And it's impossible to ignore the U.S. presidential primaries.
EDIT 2: I also want to add that my interactions with subs that represent each candidate have been nothing but super nice, cordial, and dare I say, professional. I've been pleased with the past three features and I am pleased with today's feature. I've really enjoyed this series of features so far, and I have the mods and users of every one of the aforementioned subs to thank for that.
Also, I've learned a lot. Supporters of a particular candidate are easy to demonize. But they're just people. People with genuinely good intentions. Some of them may just have a different opinion. And that's okay.
And yet another comment:
Thanks. There's no agenda here. A lot of people look at SROTD as an award or a way to promote subreddits. In a way it is those things. But to me it's first and foremost about reddit culture. Reddit culture is largely political. Anyone who takes a look at /r/all without any filters already knows that. So it would be to ignore a large segments of reddit culture to not recognize that.
Ah yes, Reddit culture: a culture of pedophile apologia, rape culture, unabashed racism, Islamophobia, xenophobia, antisemitism, sexism, body shaming, LGBT hatred...Truly, it deserves to be highlighted. Sorry ZadocPaet, one /r/ShitRedditSays is enough, and we don't need another patting them on the back and saying things like, "They're just people with good intentions" when those people you are talking about want to murder Muslim immigrants and have fantasies where they kill African-Americans in "self-defense." "But love me love me love me, I'm a liberal..." But, oops, ZadocPaet then slips up and decides there was a completely different reason why they featured the_donald:
They're the most influential to reddit culture (of Trump subs). That's why them and not a smaller sub as our first choice. Though we did have backups.
I will repeat that I wanted to do the one that has the most influence on reddit culture, since it front pages every day. Everyone is aware of it.
Also, just let me add this. I've interviewed the mods of the largest subs for each campaign. Guess what? All of them are pretty nice people. All of them. They are genuinely doing what they feel like is best for their country. They're not doing anything to try and make America a worse place. Maybe you disagree with them. That's okay. They disagree with each other. All have been super nice people. [Link]
ZadocPaet then shows his true hand by right-out stating that the_donald isn't a hate sub but /r/European is:
That does actually seem like a racist sub. So not a thing I would do.
He's also flaired up in the_donald. But remember, he only did it because it was part of a series on presidential candidates! Wait, no, now it's actually because he wanted to highlight Reddit culture! Or there's door number 3: a Trump supporter saw an opportunity to promote his candidate and took it.
Some other mods are having their patience tested. New mod hatefullyemployed is having to deal with KiA allegations that they purposely shut down the TRP Subreddit of the Day thread because they're sexist against men. Hatefullyemployed makes their defense but the accuser still doesn't walk back on the accusations. It's the company you keep...
With all of this in mind, we can begin to see what sort of community the SubredditOfTheDay mods foster (and it's not difficult to see, considering their sidebar lists no basic post etiquette rules). They talk a big game about free speech, how everything is proper and professional and civilized (I'm glad you had a professional and civilized conversation with racists who want to murder minorities and sexists who want to rape women, ZadocPaet), all the while ignoring that they aren't the target of the hatred because they willfully ignore it. Whenever a sub known for its bigotry is featured, the writers doing the interview throws more softballs than the International Softball Federation.
XavierMendel
There is one more skeleton in the closet that we have yet to address when we talk about the history of the sub, and that name is XavierMendel. As will be shown later, XavierMendel was an ex-mod of SubredditOfTheDay who used the sub for their own agenda. They were unapologeticly pro-GG during a time when the /r/games sub was shutting down all links and threads about it (where they were also a mod at the time). When XavierMendel was kicked from the SubredditOfTheDay team for their obvious agenda-pushing, they posted irc chat logs proving a "conspiracy" that Games mods were shutting down GG threads. You can read the SubredditDrama meltdowns here and here.
XavierMendel never made it a secret as to why they did it. They did an AMA in KiA shortly after the whole ordeal. Here's a great exchange:
Why do Games mods dislike Gamer-Gate? [+58]
Why do monarchs hate democracy? It's a change in thinking that disrupts the comfortable status quo. [+118]
Bringing up XavierMendel is important, as they were the mod that started SubredditOfTheDay down the path it is on now. You will see that as we highlight some of the hate subs that SubredditOfTheDay has featured.
The Subreddit
/r/Guns
Submitted 4 years ago, shortly after the Virginia Tech shootings. I mention the Virginia Tech shootings because /r/guns first came to site-wide notice when they began to actively brigade anyone calling for gun control after Virginia Tech. SRotD (previous SubredditOfTheDay mod who left) makes no attempt to ask Guns mods any tough questions.
Nothing too terrible happens in the thread itself, except the usual NRA talking points being had:
"Is it ok to call a car a toy? Because they kill 40,000+ people a year in the US, compared to an average death rate of 12,000+ to firearms." [+12]
And also a bit of zero self-awareness:
One major issue with gun forums in general is that they're absolutely filled with assholes and racists. /r/guns is not." [+92]
Some examples that feature /r/Guns for what it really is:
/r/MensRights
Submitted 3 years ago. I know you were probably thinking, "Wait, I thought TheRedPill was the first hate sub they featured?" Well, this one went under the radar because "a glitch" supposedly deleted XavierMendel's write-up. That's okay, here's an archive that XavierMendel can't delete...er, have a glitch happen to.
This was the first time XavierMendel reveals who he truly is. Let's take a look at some of his highlights, shall we?
/r/MensRights comes up a lot across reddit and, indeed, across the world as being one of the few centers for men's help. It's often attacked, and is always the center of one controversy or the other. My questions reflect that. MensRights is, undoubtedly, the home of great activists.
There were some people close to me that suggested I not run this article. That the repercussions of doing so would be unreasonably bad. Well, here you go, people. This is my way of saying that a good reporter doesn't care. A good reporter reports. It's not in my job to care about consequences. Now that that's out of the way...
Actually, a good "reporter" (I guess he meant journalist?) does care about a story and the consequences it may have. Such as, you know, highlighting a hate group and trying to paint it as something other than a hate group. Which I find is really surprising that XavierMendel doesn't know about, considering his fight for ethics in journalism. Don't take my word for it though: check out what the Ethical Journalism Network or Society of Professional Journalists has to say about it (hint: it doesn't side with GG).
/r/MensRights. Never in our society could the uninitiated imagine such a place. A place where feminism is questioned, and our culture is deconstructed to find what it's really up to. A place whose inhabitants are not afraid to interrogate the world. /r/MensRights is one of the last fortifications of free thought to exist on Reddit. "Surely you jest," one might tell me, "when you mean they're alone in this regard?" No, hypothetical 19th century British gentleman, I do not. I truly mean it when I say that. What other subreddit openly questions feminism? None spring to mind, and I make it my duty to catalog various subreddits. Most end up banned or run down within a month. Only /r/MensRights remains.
Ah yes, we better question that naughty feminism. What are those people thinking? Trying to bring equality to the sexes. That's absolutely outrageous. It's good XavierMendel knows that a hate group being tolerated on Reddit can only mean a good thing.
Nobody can say for sure whether or not they're correct in any single regard. It's certain that, due to the laws of probability, they're not correct in every regard. However, it's also certain that they're correct in most of them. Occasionally a wackjob or two will suggest that feminism is behind Cinnamon Toast Crunch (The taste you can see!™). The accuser latches onto those wackjobs to denounce the whole movement. It has happened thousands of times before, all over the world. Yet, when the reverse happens, the person gets the dogs sicced on them, saying they're anti-women, a rapist sympathizer, a terrible human, a misogynist, and more. Indeed, people have died over it. Nobody ever dies after being called a misandrist.
Sorry XavierMendel, but when the whole of the adult world says you are wrong (SPLC, Time, Aljazeera America, Vice, Political Research Associates) then you're wrong. Also, women who are labeled misandrist aren't being killed because the men who kill them don't bother to label them--being a woman is just enough for those types of people. Also, Elliot Rodgers killed himself, so it seems like the only people taking out misogynists are themselves.
I support the struggles of people who are in bad positions. I respect it, in a way, for I have also seen great struggle. My struggle is not over, nor will it end until my death. For I struggle with something that will not go away through legislation or social change. The Men's Rights Movement, however, struggles with something very changeable. Very malleable, able to be fixed within a generation if so desired. So I will support them, for they have a fighting chance.
Well, this makes it a lot easier. XavierMendel officially comes out as an MRA.
/r/MensRights is controversial for a reason. In the same sense as Jews of the 1890s, Irish of the 1850s, Hispanics of the 1350s, and many more. Each generation has their controversial improvement in society. We've gotten off easy so far, but we have to make it happen eventually. As far back as anyone living can remember, the table has been imbalanced in one way or another, favoring men or women. It's time the table stays level for once. We need equality.
Oh jeez...did he...did he really just compare white men to Jews and Hispanics? And there's that classic white nationalist line drop about the Irish. Sorry XavierMendel, but the Irish have been white for some time now. I do like how he thinks there's been a pendulum swing between men and women being in power. Hey, remember any period in history when women had more power than men? Yeah, me neither. For more lols on XavierMendel's descent into sexism, read Skepchick's write up of taking him apart. (His original comparison included "the blacks" but he edited it out)
Let's see what sort of community SubredditOfTheDay has fostered with this feature:
Mini-PSA: If your main problem with /r/MensRights is their opposition to "feminism", it's likely that you might be using a different definition of feminism. [+439]
The only thing MRM has a problem with is sexism and hate against men. [+181]
How often will we read that false equivalence? Men are born, feminists are made. You choose to align yourself with a movement that for all its good PR has a dismal record of misandry, intolerance and discriminatory activism — while men had no choice about what sex they were born with. Saying that feminism is about equality regardless of gender is about as accurate as saying, "Christianity is about living moral lives, and therefore you'd have to be a really evil scumbag to oppose it." [+21]
A lot of MRA's might agree with this, but I'm not so optimistic. I believe a lot of the MRM's issues are due to humans' biological tendencies which are hardwired into the way we treat people based on their sex. I don't think of feminism as the root cause, but rather a symptom. [+74]
MRAs aren't against what most people think of as "feminism," i.e. equal rights for women. But we are against this modern version of academic gender feminism that redefines words like "sexist," so they can't be applied to women, denies that men have any problems at all that aren't the fault of "patriarchy," and violently protests against equal treatment under the law. [+199]
There's an endless shitshow in that thread from MRAs so I'll just spare you the rest of it. And if you need to be told why MensRights is a hate sub then you're part of the problem. Either way, SubredditOfTheDay mods sat back and let this one happen. The thread was not locked down.
/r/PCMasterRace
Submitted 2 years ago, shortly after the sub was banned for brigading /r/gaming and trying to doxx a mod. Yet again, no tough questions are asked. A highlight from the thread:
Wait a second here. After getting their sub banned, being a bunch of dicks on r/gaming, and then crying til they got their own sub back we've now decided to reward this sub? It may be a satirical sub but that doesn't excuse their actions over the last couple months. [-155]
As if that wasn't enough, it was then featured again 1 year ago. Of course at the time nobody knew then mod XavierMendel did it purposely to push their agenda. The mod team seemed none the wiser when the usual suspects came back for round two:
Wasn't this sub started as a satirical sub, but then users started taking the whole 'masterrace' -'peasant' thing seriously? [-22]
Examples of what /r/PCMasterRace really is:
/r/KotakuInAction
Featured 1 year ago. The feature, like ones before it, was not a coincidence. While GamerGate was starting to pick up traction by last year in March, the mod, XavierMendel, specifically chose to do the write-up on March 8, which is International Women's Day.
Unlike other mods who claimed to be about being "impartial" and showing "both sides," XavierMendel purposely takes KiA's side after they were ousted from the Games mod team for being pro-GG. They produced some hilarious copypasta that is used to mock KiAers to this day:
So what is GamerGate to me? What is KotakuInAction, GamerGate's reddit hub? It's the people that assured me that I wasn't as evil and worthless as others were calling me. It's the idea that I am not a monster simply for pissing off a few angry forum moderators. It's the belief that what I do is not a waste, and that people do care. Most of all, GamerGate is the confirmation that my dreams of ethical behavior are right. That amid a crowd of hundreds who call me wrong, there are thousands more who support me. We forget sometimes about the silent majority, and for a long time I forget they existed. They're here now, and they helped me a great deal. They saw the people wishing I would stop talking and said "No! Speak your mind!" They saw the people wishing me dead and said "No! They're wrong about you!" They saw the people hating me, and lying about me, and scheming to take me down, and they said "No. Come with us and we'll see that justice is served." I needed to hear those words, and they said them. [+1813, x9 gilded]
This is where SubredditOfTheDay finally gained popularity--in a hate movement. I won't bother with showing examples from KotakuInAction (others have done a better job than I ever could), mostly because there's plenty to choose from the SubredditOfTheDay thread itself:
(Gawker bashing) "And remember when they doxxed reddit moderator Violentacrez against his will and he lost his job because of it? He had a wife and children dependent on him." [+157]
As more and more evidence of lies and conspiracy came out I felt betrayed. I never held the gaming press in high regard, especially after GerstmannGate, but I suppose I was naive and didn't expect it to be so systemic within the industry. So I was slowly edging towards supporting GamerGate from the get-go. Then the "Gamers are dead" articles hit in unison and the screams of "muh-soggy-knee" started to ramp up. That, along with the GameJournoPros leaks pretty much cemented my support of GamerGate. [+230]
I'm glad you found a voice. A true society which is free must, by its very definition, have freedom of expression. And censorship is incompatible with such principles. [+120])
Yesterday I was told I lack basic human decency when I tried to defend a friend of mine against an aggro horde that brianna wu sicked on him and he was kicked out of pax. He made a joke and brianna wu took it out of context as she is known to do and got her white knights to give him shit. It makes me wonder how people can still be neutral when the opposition is this despicable. [+92] (The joke, by the way, is that his friend said he was going to "finish the job" after Brianna Wu was getting death threats)
All we want is more transparency and less politicking in game journalism. [+103]
XavierMendel was actually kicked off the mod team for this. The mods, however, chose to not lock or delete the thread. You have to keep that valuable conversation flowing, right?
/r/TheRedPill
Featured last week. SubredditOfTheDay featuring TheRedPill is actually was what prompted the formation of this subreddit.
Basically, the entire write-up is a whitewash piece to paint TRP in a positive light by ZadocPaet (who seems to almost want to come out as a RedPiller with the questions they ask). Here's some softball or leading questions they ask:
On the outside, TheRedPill (hereinafter referred to as "TRP") seems to be a subreddit for two goals; (1) to help men lead productive lives mentally, emotionally, and financially, and (2) to promote sexual strategies. The subreddit comes under a lot of fire for the latter. Do you see the two things as one, or do you see TRP as one subreddit for men where the reader can get out of it what they are looking for?
Great lead there, ZadocPaet. "Comes under fire." In fact, there can be no doubt that the subreddit "comes under fire" for being a pick-up artist hangout for would-be sexually-frustrated individuals who advocate for rape. Or maybe it "comes under fire" for being part of an actual hate group. I'm glad you were able to look at both sides of the issue without bias, ZadocPaet.
Isn't it possible that increased sexual attraction is a side effect of success and not always the motivator? Sure, I'll concede that it can be a motivator, in part, for some people. But I only think it's part of the picture and not the big picture. When you're talking about sex as it relates to fitness, and in my opinion not just fitness, but things like oral hygiene, I agree. Health and sex go hand in hand.
I wasn't aware ZadocPaet was a sexual psychologist. Yet here they are, conceding that TRP fallacies (which aren't supported in any psychological community) might be true.
Do you feel that in western culture that it's more difficult to be a man, or is that perception more of an internet thing? For example, I often see the term "cis white male" used as a pejorative online, but I don't think I know a single person in real life who even knows the term "cis."
Another great lead to give the TRPer a soapbox to talk about how oppressed white men are.
I am a guy. When I am with my guy friends our bar or fishing banter is a lot of the time in line with "Red Pill Theory," in particular when it comes to a financial and fitness perspective; the idea that self-esteem or self-worth comes from self-improvement. What are the core areas that TRP thinks a man should look to to improve upon himself?
Oops. I guess we don't have to guess if ZadocPaet is TRP--they admit it right here. I'm glad this was all done without bias though.
The thread skyrocketed in comments. Let's take a look at some highlights:
Holy Shit I just woke up and this annihilated This subreddit's comment record. What a hornets nest has been stirred up!
Mhmm, and TRP gained ~ 500 subs, almost up to 150k now. No publicity is bad publicity. [+27]
"Hate" women is a strong word, though I'd be an idiot to say there aren't people there that do. The true inherent misogyny in TRP is that its theory tells you to treat women differently than men because women are different than men, not that you should hate women. [+26]
People say be yourself but being yourself doesn't work. A lot of guys like myself got picked on when we were younger and we're told be a nice guy. Thats just not right there's so much to actually getting your life in order. All the red pill has done is get guys to realize these things aren't normal or glorious as they're pushed to be like being fat and lazy isn't as great as it seems everywhere in ads and media. [+121]
ITT: People seeing 'trp' and getting triggered, without bothering to actually read it. [+439]
Gizmodo did a story on SubredditOfTheDay featuring them. /pol/ picked up on it and joined in on the brigade. The thread ultimately had to be shut down as the mod team was understaffed to handle the massive amount of brigading that occurred. You'd think that would make the mod team learn a lesson (and also demod ZadocPaet for obviously pushing an agenda), but nope...
/r/the_donald
Featured yesterday. The mods claim featuring /r/the_donald was just a part of the sub featuring all of the candidate subreddits (which was convenient after getting hit by Gizmodo for their feature on /r/TheRedPill). However, this makes a second time a hate subreddit has been featured in as little as a week apart from each other. Again, more softball questions are asked and no serious investigative journalism is had.
People have called Mr. Trump racist and misogynistic, going as far as to label your sub as a hate sub. What is your response?
No mod has taken credit for this write up, but I can probably guess who lobbed this one across the plate for them. One of our own has already done an exhaustive write-up on how the_donald is a hate sub. I myself have been compiling a list to keep track of all the garbage Trump himself has said. At this point, all cards are off the table with /r/SubredditOfTheDay, especially as they try and now hide under the blanket of "free speech."
Let's see what sort of great community they chose to highlight:
KEEP YOUR HATE SPEECH OFF THIS CAMPUS
KEEP YOUR HATE SPEECH OFF THIS CAMPUS
wheeze
KEEP YOUR HATE SPEECH OFF THIS CAMPUS [+1147]
TRIGGLYPUFF [+498]
Can't wait to see how triggered SRS gets from this. [+502]
Places that will be triggered:
/r/ShitRedditSays
/r/SubredditDrama
/r/hillaryclinton
/r/Cuckold [+247]
I think you get the point that the majority of comments are just memebots on a broken track loop screaming "cuck" and "triggered" because its the only words it knows how to say. But great job again SubredditOfTheDay for fostering such a mature and...how did ZadocPaet put it? Civilized community. Yeah, that's what the_donald is.
Bonus: /r/Jailbait
Featured 2 years ago as an April Fool's joke. Except the person who submitted the "joke" was XavierMendel, where they go on a random tangent:
I understand reddit's right to dictate what content it allows on its site, but as a proud feminist I believe that women have the right to show their bodies as they wish, even by being posted on anonymous imageboards. It's their body, and reddit has violated them by not allowing it to be shared. Not only is this act an unforgivable action of tyranny, it's also rape. More to the point, any criticism of the ban is met with even more bans. Five months ago, /r/ShitRedditSays ran a campaign to get /r/Jailbait unbanned, again citing freedom of women to use their bodies however they wish.
Considering what we know about XavierMendel now, I think it's pretty obvious that they were not joking when they wrote this. Even so, they managed to attract the pedophilia crowd even with a "joke" thread.
As someone who actually opposed banning /r/jailbait, I must say that this post is fantastic and I look forward to being crushed by your sarcasm any time! [+61]
Free expression ends where child porn begins. I'm 100% for the banning of /r/jailbait, and I hope it never comes back. [-4]
child porn
jailbait
Choose one. [+8]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_pornography#Typolology
The stuff on /r/jailbait went all the way up to level 6. So yes, it was child porn.
Baby photos are on that scale...
Also, one groups definition of child pornography is not the widely held definition. [+9]
I guess they "forgot" to moderate those "joke" comments.
This concludes our write-up for why SubredditOfTheDay is featured as today's Hate Subreddit of the Day. They knowingly foster and promote hate speech through their promotion of hate subreddits while hiding behind "free speech" much in the same way someone might say they don't support abuse when they look the other way and don't make an active effort to stop it. Plus, ZadocPaet has proved to be the current XavierMendel of the mod group, being an unapologetic TRPer and Trump supporter who has admitted that he is using the subreddit for his own agenda.
Congrats, SubredditOfTheDay: you have been featured as the first subreddit that employs the "I'm a liberal" defense when it comes to ignoring the hate speech and hate subreddits you support! We look forward to the next hate sub you highlight and promote and justify it in the name of free speech.
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