2 years before Kim Kardashian’s Photoshopped ass “broke” the Internet’s IQ, I committed my own act of e-vandalism, on half-purpose.  It was the last semester of my undergrad, and I had been freshly introduced to and consumed by Reddit.  In my haze of undergraduate overconfidence, I was certain that with a bit of effort I could make a front-page (top-ranked) post, and made a significant wager with a friend that I would accomplish this by the end of the semester.  I had 3 months, no problem.

Within the first week of my quest, I learned 2 things:  a disporportionately large amount of Reddit users were convinced I was a homosexual; and if you submit enough shitty posts, your account will get frozen and you will be unable to post anything for an inconsistent period of time (I ended up with 5 separate Reddit accounts to compensate for this).  The following 2 months were bleak.  I tried memes, photos, questions, comments, videos, and anything else that I saw successfully break onto the front page.  None of said efforts were remotely successful.

Then one day, a post known as “the safe” was added to Reddit (see link below).  This post was an absolute beast, gaining almost 2.5 million hits and generating almost 6000 comments.  The really crazy thing about this post wasn’t so much it’s success, but that for the following 2 weeks people were creating hundreds of memes about the safe, and gaining front page recognition.  Obviously I had to jump on this bandwagon, and I was able to create my first somewhat successful post, gaining 1400 Karma points (a SLAIS equivalent of about 80% – the bare minimal standard of decent/good work). However, it didn’t make the front page, and I was 3 weeks away from my deadline.

In a mild state of desperation, I tried to step back from my posting-frenzy and really analyze what made a good post.  Why was the safe such a hit?  The answer I arrived at was that a really successful post consists of original content (as opposed to memes and other posts that have a template or ‘reused’ element) about a real-life event, that can create a dialogue for a wide audience to engage in.  With this realization, I was able to clearly identify my situation:

Goal: create an original post that users will engage with

Issue: nothing in my life is interesting

Solution: lie

Now I’m not trying to promote dishonesty.  I consider honesty as a crucial component to one’s character, and have put myself in some unpleasant situations because of an unwillingness to lie.  But the way I justified it in this context was that I didn’t actually know any of the people reading my posts, and the ones that did engage with me weren’t very kind.  And after 3 months of failed attempts, there was no chance I was actually going to create a successful post, right?

Super wrong.

Within an hour after posting, my post was on the front page (see link below).  8 hours later, I had over 1 million hits and over 3000 comments.  Over the next few days I was contacted by New York Daily News, Good Morning America, and Outside Magazine, all requesting interviews so they could write about my story.  Buzz60, an online news channel, even did a 60 second showcase on the post (see link below).

Needless to say, the friend I made the wager with was pissed.  He tried to guilt trip me and said that I should feel bad about being a dirty liar.  Initially, I didn’t feel bad at all, and subsequently felt bad about not feeling bad.  But in my mind it was pretty easy to justify.  How many times was I called terrible names and downvoted for the ‘honest’ posts that I made?  What obligation did I have to tell the truth to an anonymous and generally hateful group?  I did feel a bit ashamed because my only success came in the form of a lie.  But on the flip side of that, I dabbled with writing every so often, and this confirmed that my fiction skills were on point (half-kidding).

At this point in my life, I’m far enough removed from the situation to see it all as pretty funny, both in regards to the undeserved/overwhelming success of one post, and the hundreds of dogshit posts I made prior.  I don’t feel bad about the post’s lack of factual events.  I’m familiar enough with Reddit now to know that most of the posts contain at least some element of dishonesty, and that the majority of users understand this.

It might have seemed like this blog post was going delve into the philosophical implications of truth and Internet identities, and that I was going to divulge an ultimate lesson I learned from this experience.  I apologize if I lead you on.  The only thing I really learned is that lying equates to winning (am I kidding?).

the safe – http://imgur.com/a/A8vF2

my post – http://imgur.com/a/Mj7UU

buzz60 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-b7c49NGT8

Welcome to UBC Blogs. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

This is my first experience with blogging so I’m interested into how it’ll turn out.

A bit about me.  I was an undergrad student for far too long (7 years, full time, including summers).  While you may squirm at the cost of such an endeavor, I should mention that my dad is a professor and I was able to coattail on free credits for the majority of that time.  After completing this marathon degree, and being 2 weeks out from beginning a master’s in speech pathology, I decided I needed a break from school and moved to Shanghai.  And no, I couldn’t read/write the language, nor did I know anybody there.

Shanghai is fucking crazy (in a good way). With 24 million people bustling around the first and only free trade zone in Mainland China, the rate of expansion in every sense is astounding.   In my minglings with Chinese nationals working in various fields, there was a type of question that kept popping up: “How would a Westerner do this?” Or, “How would a Westerner expect this?” The idea behind these questions is so basic, yet very profound in their implication. Because the Chinese language is structured in such a fundamentally different way than English and other Western languages, the structuring and formatting of information is just as foreign. As more and more organizations are gearing their focus towards the West, the need for the translation not just of language, but a translation of the structural bodies of information and how they can be located is growing as fast as the country.

Adding to this buzz is the country-wide blocking of almost every popular social media site (Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia…).  Although there is a small population of young people and foreigners who use VPN services to bypass the blockages, the majority of Chinese nationals rely on what is permitted.  The main social media app, WeChat, is a combination of Whatsapp and Facebook, with shadows of Twitter and Instagram lurking in the background.  Because WeChat, like everything in Mainland China, is heavily monitored by the government, the communication of ideas that the government wouldn’t approve of is relayed through the creative use of memes and emojis.  I’m not going to pretend that I understand all of this (or maybe even any of it), but I’m really interested in how the use of social media of Westerners differs from that of Chinese nationals.

After inhaling several tons of polluted air, and consuming hundreds of carcinogenic meals (Google “gutter oil”), I’m now back in the West as a student (just when I thought I was out…).  After I finish this degree I’m hoping to return to work in the animal soup known as China.