The problem is that you can't talk about "the" Reddit community. Reddit is millions of people. There are many communities. Making gross generalizations about Reddit is like saying all Americans do this or that.
Are there horrible subs on Reddit? Yeah, sure, there's horrible places in the US, too. There's also well-run subs on Reddit, too. (Despite the admins...)
People say "the reddit community" to designate the net effects of reddit's users as a whole. When reddit admins banned FPH, "the reddit community" flooded the main subs with toxic content. Nobody means that to say everyone did, just that this was the net effect of the behavior of a part of the user base.
The same way we can say "Americans" have this or that behavior. Nobody means that to say all Americans do. That's what a generalization is: trying to discern patterns that apply to a majority of members of a given group. The danger is to fall into stereotyping, and certainly there's a stereotype of what reddit users do... But you can still draw some generalizations about reddit users which, while they will never apply to everyone, are still valid in a general sense.
For instance, if I say "reddit as a community is pro-freedom of speech," we both know not everyone is like this. But there's a large enough, vocal enough group of users that voice this, and the statement, as a generalization, is true enough to stand scrutiny.
The problem is that you can't talk about "the" Reddit community. Reddit is millions of people. There are many communities. Making gross generalizations about Reddit is like saying all Americans do this or that.
Are there horrible subs on Reddit? Yeah, sure, there's horrible places in the US, too. There's also well-run subs on Reddit, too. (Despite the admins...)
People say "the reddit community" to designate the net effects of reddit's users as a whole. When reddit admins banned FPH, "the reddit community" flooded the main subs with toxic content. Nobody means that to say everyone did, just that this was the net effect of the behavior of a part of the user base.
The same way we can say "Americans" have this or that behavior. Nobody means that to say all Americans do. That's what a generalization is: trying to discern patterns that apply to a majority of members of a given group. The danger is to fall into stereotyping, and certainly there's a stereotype of what reddit users do... But you can still draw some generalizations about reddit users which, while they will never apply to everyone, are still valid in a general sense.
For instance, if I say "reddit as a community is pro-freedom of speech," we both know not everyone is like this. But there's a large enough, vocal enough group of users that voice this, and the statement, as a generalization, is true enough to stand scrutiny.