The Net's Window into the American Nightmare

The Internet, among other things, is a compendium of human nature; an emergent portrait of everything that we are. Discussion forums in particular, most especially Reddit, are an endless encyclopedia encompassing all of humanity’s creativity, kindness, brutality, eccentricity, and boredom. Reddit can occasionally inspire, and the right corners of the site can teach you a lot, but it often demonstrates what kind of person you don’t want to be—or what kind of person you might have been, had different circumstances intervened. Some of the people who feature in these latter Reddit realms—featured mostly in subreddits like Tales From Retail, JUSTNOMIL, and various threads about buffets, debt, consumerism, and other ersatz Americana—merely exhibit poor tendencies compounded by poverty or force of habit. Some of the anecdotes are amusing: there is the miserly old woman who spends half a tank of gas driving around to find a payphone that only charges 25 cents. Some sit on the line between humor and desperation, like the poor renter and compulsive shopper who searches the house for unopened items to return every time rent comes due. Read Full Article »