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What is reddit? - Video học tiếng Anh
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What is reddit?
What is reddit?
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Subtitles (91)
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What is reddit?
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For much of The Internet reddit is the gateway to everything interesting going on in the
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world.
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Checking reddit.com is like reading the daily newspaper except that reddit is
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- timely - interactive
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- personalized - participatory
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- horrifilying absorbing at times
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...basically, *good*.
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The way it works is that people submit links to reddit (blog posts or images or videos)
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and other people vote those links up or down. It's a simple idea but it makes reddit into
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a list of the best stuff that people are reading or watching on The Internet right now.
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The name is a contraction of 'Read It' as in: I already read it on Reddit, which if
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you spend significant time on the site, is what you'll say to everyone who tries to show
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you anything. It's a kind of awesome curse.
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Because there are no editors on reddit you never know what you're going to find but you
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can bet it's going to be funny or interesting or enranging because 1,000s of other people
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have already voted that it's something to see.
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Think of it this way: if Google is where you go to search for things, then reddit is where
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you go to see the things that people have found.
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But reddit is not just one list of stuff: reddit is a beautiful fractal with sections,
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called subreddits.
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If you just like politics or programming or funny image captions or sports or world news
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there are subreddits that list only that stuff. And there's going to be a subreddit for your
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city or country or region.
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Love a TV show that ended years ago? There's a subreddit where people are still talking
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about it as though it just aired.
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Tech have geeks their technology and flag geeks have their vexillology and -- and on
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the off chance you're interested in something the doesn't yet exist, just press a button
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and a new subreddit is born.
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Each subreddit works just like the main page: an updating list of interesting stuff according
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to the people interested in that stuff.
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And when a subreddit grows large it can be terrifyingly good at this: for example AWW,
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a section devoted to adorableness, is a GLOBAL 24-HOUR-A-DAY BATTLE TO FIND THE CUTEST IMAGES
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EVAR!
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Turns out if you give people with baby animal photos a place to have their baby animal photos
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compete the result is the highest density of cuteness human civilization has yet created.
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But without editors running the site, how does that sorting process work? There's no
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time to get into the code, but you can think of it like this:
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Links people sumbit are balloons floating up and down the list. When someone votes up
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a link it adds a bit of helium and a down votes sucks out little bit of helium. Periodically
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reddit puts weights on all of the balloons -- giving newer links that show up later a
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chance to compete against the ones that have been around longer.
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This method is shockingly good at sorting stuff, be it international politics or pictures
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of computer setups.
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Of course, when a website covers the whole of human endeavor things get weird: like subreddits
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for only photos of birds... with arms or only photos of hitler... with socks and then there
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are always the other kinds of photos humans like to look at and sometimes collections
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of horrifying things that cannot be unseen.
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So yeah, this has taken a turn for the worse. But remember reddit can be weird not because
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reddit is weird but because humans are weird. And the great thing about reddit is that it
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changes to suite you: as you join subreddits you like and leave those you don't the main
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page becomes *yours*: listing all the best stuff from all the subreddits you follow and
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leaving out stuff from the ones you don't.
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So reddit is lot like life: it is what you make it.
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But links are only the tip of the redditberg, because people can discuss the links and this
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is where the true heart of reddit lies.
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Most forums on The Internet are hideous, but Reddit ain't your grandma's bulletin board.
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Just as that baloon sort method finds the best links there's some math that's more complicated
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(and less explainable) that finds the most interesting comments in a discussion and brings
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them to the top. And reddit displays comments in a way that encourages back-and-forth discussions.
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(Unlike some *other* comment systems).
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This sorting and threading means that the discussion of a link on reddit is always more
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interesting than the link itself.
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So there are subreddits that are nothing *but* discussion: such as Change My View for debates
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or Ask A Scientist where experts answer questions. Or there1s 'IamA' where people say what they
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are "I am a fireman" or "I am an Escort" or "I am a prison guard" and answer questions
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from the comments.
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And because people on reddit are anonymous, discussions are way more interesting and open
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than if people were forced to use their real names. ::cough:: YouTube & Google+ Integration ::cough::
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Though, with anonymity you'll find that not everyone's private thoughts exposed are beautiful.
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And sometimes it can be uncomfortable to see what the faceless group thinks about a topic.
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But luckily reddit has a way to deal with comments you think are unhelpful. And despite
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people who act badly it's clear that reddit can only exist because the majority of people,
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even when anonymous, are good.
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But this anonymity isn't required, however so you'll also find Actors and Authors, Presidents
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and prime ministers all on reddit answering questions from the community.
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And reddit really is a community with it's own culture and history and that increasingly
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has an effect on the physical world with things like: meeting up in person and raising money
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for charity and defending the Internet and helping a family be with their sick child
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and holding the word's largest secret santa and sending teachers the supplies they need.
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With its rapid-fire democracy and shocking quick reactions, reddit can sometimes makes
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you feel more like a citizen of the Internet than a citizen of your own country.
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But in the end it's hard to understand reddit without just jumping in and commenting and
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voting, which you really should. And once you get the hang of the place, you'll wonder
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how you ever Internetted before.
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[After credits]
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P.S. If you are already a user of reddit and love the site, you should consider buying
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some reddit gold to support it. I was surprised to learn while making this video that despite
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its increasing popularity reddit still isn't profitable. So if, like me, you use reddit
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*all day* it's more than worth a couple bucks a month.
