Why are people on Reddit so boring and unfunny? How is this

r/4chan is dreadful. "epic" posts you and I see everyday here get a shitload of upvotes there.

If I were back in college and also a sociology major, I would honestly do research on this. I've visited 4chan for a decade now - which is pathetic in its own way - but within the last 2-3 also started visiting reddit.

The point is it's so clear to me that the structure of both boards have lead to their respective cultures. 4chan is anonymous and has no voting, so the only method of feedback is basically to call each other fags. What naturally arises out of this tends to be a very chaotic and polarizing environment: the best posts on 4chan are leave-you-in-tears hilarious, shocking, raw, and real. The worst are the most disgusting, vile things you have ever read in your life. And again because there is no quantification of like/dislike, the comments skew more towards combative that also tend to be on opposite ends of the hysterical-repulsive divide.

>>38770989
In contrast, reddit has voting at its core as its main feedback mechanims. You can simply upvote/downvote and metaphorically walk away. Additionally this quantification also gamifies the environment to a certain degree, which is how you get the classic karmawhoring. What all this means is that the site is literally engineered (intentionally or not) to reward the anodyne. In regards to humor, your above-average post on reddit is barely amusing, however the worst post is just benignly lame. It's a sea of mediocrity as the average poster (consciously or not) works toward appealing towards the widest number of people possible, while exciting no one. I quickly discovered reddit's forte (to anyone who is not that middle schooler who repetitively regurgitates comedy movie quotes and thinks he's funny but is really just weird, annoying, and overbearing) is simply the consumption of information, like finding recipes.

I'll admit that personally I think with all that said, just overall 4chan skews towards being more funny on average than reddit; there's a reason there's an r/4chan but no /reddit/.

Kind of amazing though how simple decisions like that influence the entire makeup of a board.

>>38771024
As long as I'm posting this shit for no reason, I'll give an example: I would honestly estimate that 50-60% of all comments (not the main posts, but the comments - whatever they're called) consist of what I can only describe as "chained jokes" - responses that offer no unique perspective or wit, but merely signal to the original commenter and other users that they get the joke, can play along, and are basically a member of the tribe. To be more specific, let's say that someone comments by quoting Family Guy for some reason. An astounding number of people will respond with no other content or writing than to simply parrot back other Family Guy quotes, regardless of whether or not it pertains to the overall context of the thread, or is even funny to begin with. In contrast, because 4chan neither rewards nor punishes either good or bad behavior in posting, a simple quote could elicit all kinds of responses, both positive and negative.

>>38770207
because people on reddit work and we don't
that's actually more or less the truth
the human brain has in it like 6-7 hours of energy for work everyday
we NEETS browse and read "interesting" things all day (what else would we do), so when we interact with a person who isn't up to the latest news in whatever sphere they usually hold very basic or simple opinion on things
now if you work a boring job 8 hours a day there isn't much of a surprise that you become boring yourself

>>38770989
>>38771024
>>38771178
You put in a lot of work for these posts and I like getting (you)s when I put work into a post so here's a (you) to show you that I appreciate your analysis, also I hope you have a good day

>>38771280
Thanks my man. I have also wondered why reddit is so generically lame on average and that's the best hypothesis I've come up with.

>>38771336
I've considered the topic myself and came to the same conclusion as you. I think 4chan has the added benefit of being consequence free which allows any form of humor to fly, so that many types of people find their vein of humor, along with being exposed to new types of humor. 4chan is a big metaphorical wall anything can be thrown at to see what sticks essentially. This also means a very large number of things are inherently stupid and worthless but again lack of repercussions means it's simply bypassed and forgotten.

As you already stated above, just the act of having a Karma system leads to fear of branching out and simultaneously appealing to the lowest common denominator constantly