[zeraholladay]

I'm not sure what you mean by informed abstainers, but if you mean informed abstainers of Reddit then I can speak for myself.

I see Reddit as a self-aggrandizing media outlet. Members generally accept liberal values as status quo. Meaningful discussion imitates base prime time political discourse.

Some of my specific gripes are:

1. Racism on Reddit is an acceptable subtext, as long as the subtext is funny. 2. Sexism on Reddit is acceptable as long as your mother, wife, or daughter are not directly considered. 3. Israel is wrong on Reddit.

I know I'm painting a pretty nasty picture of a lot of people, and I apologize to those who don't deserve it, but I've seen group think plenty of times before in my life and Reddit is it.

[StavrosK]

I think it's more that making racist/sexist jokes is acceptable, as long as people aren't offended. Telling racist/sexist jokes is not the same as being racist/sexist.

[kaens]

There are a lot of people (myself included) that do not think that there are taboo topics of conversation, or taboo topics of jokes -- humor relies at least partially on delivery and unexpected turns / clever twists, which are largely independent of subject matter.

That said, that doesn't mean that I think it's necessarily appropriate to make racist jokes on a board like Reddit -- it's a textual medium, and depending on the context could be extremely unintentionally offensive to people.

That said, I can't say that jokes of any subject matter bother me on Reddit. There is some actual misogyny, and some interpreted-as-misogyny-when-it's-not drama (and you can replace misogyny with just about any "going to offend people" term here), and it detracts greatly from having useful discussion.

Then again, although the primary purpose of Reddit was useful discussion, it's really more like a pub filled with pretty smart drunk folk. It's a social gathering place, and great stuff can be found, organized, talked about, and done -- but there's also going to be some guy slurring something about his genitalia and women or whatever.

[StavrosK]

I agree, it depends though. I think mostly the jokes manage to not offend, and offensive jokes are downvoted. There's not really so much misogyny as bias to side with the submitter. When someone says "my girlfriend cheated on me" everyone goes "dump that bitch/X that Y", but if a woman says "my boyfriend cheated on me", people will again say "dump that SOB".

It's not that they're against women, they're against whomever is not telling them their side of the story. It's only natural, if a friend tells you that their boy/girlfriend did something bad, you'll side with them, and so will the other party's friends. Usually both parties have a share of the responsibility, but it's human nature to usually take the side of the person who tells you the story.

[kaens]

I personally don't tend to find those types of jokes very funny, but I think that's mostly because I've heard a lot of them.

I think that what you state here absolutely happens, but I think that there's also a good bit of actual nerdy women-are/men-are angst floating around that at least gets interpreted (or is interpretable) as misogyny/misandry. Not as bad as it used to be, and it always gets called out (at least recently as far as I've seen), but it's there.

I figure it's largely just a function of relative immaturity, and that it's not a serious thing as long as it's called out and it's obvious that the vast majority of people on Reddit don't actually think like that. I definitely don't think that Reddit is a bunch of ridiculous sexists -- it's one of the most egalitarian groups of it's size I've ever seen.

Edit: To clarify, I don't think there's a very large overlap between the people who are making "offensive" jokes, and the people actual displaying misogyny, misandry, or other forms of bigotry (whether realized or not) in the Reddit community, although some of the former certainly gets interpreted as the latter here and there. It can be hard to tell sometimes.

[StavrosK]

I agree with that, with so many users there are bound to be some of everything. The best you can do is call it out and downvote it.