I think it’s time for me to come clean about this. I kinda became addicted to Reddit, but most importantly, reddit stories. It became part of my routine to listen to podcasts that read reddit stories. NGL it’s really enjoyable, but there is always some people that debates if the stories are true.
Then I tried it once. I created a throwaway account and posted a made up story. It gained a lot of traction and nobody even commented about it being fake.
It was supposed to be a one time thing, but then another idea for a story pops up in my head, I create another throwaway with a temp mail and write that another story.
Overtime it became a habit. I’ve posted tens of fake stories, maybe over a hundred. With updates even. I also learned to develop different styles of writing and formatting so people wouldn’t notice they were written by the same person, me.
Some of my stories got into the podcasts I listen to daily. Its always exciting to hear my own stories being read by someone else.
But I realize that this is not healthy anymore. I could develop so many of these stories into short stories or novels. I’ve learned a lot and improved my writing, these are compelling, engaging, even gut-wrenching stories that I think people would like to read if they were books.
It’s time for me to stop this and start writing fiction for real.
Another reason why I should quit it, it’s because I fucking hate the mods, some of my best stories has been deleted for bullshit reasons, or I just can’t find the right sub to post them. But I gotta say, engaging with people in real time is part of the fun of it.
I don’t want you to think everything on reddit is fake, and I don’t care if some posts are fake or not, I have so many fucked up real stories in my family that no reddit story ever even came close to be as fucked up as real life and would be tossed aside as fake instantly. Reality is weirder than fiction.
Thanks for reading my confession. I’ll go out, touch grass, and start writing fiction.
BTW, I only post fake shit on Throwaway accounts, I’ve never done that on my real main account, and I never lie IRL. Maybe that’s why it felt so exciting early on.
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Nice story bro, but I know this is fake as shit. You only wrote fake stories once here. This one. Can’t fool me.
I start under the assumption that every reddit post is 100% fiction and work from there. Especially on subs like TIFU or Amitheasshole.
Would be fucking great if we could not do that, though.
That’s why I blocked those subs, they’re all fake or just people looking for validation
There’s a lot of people that are desperate for attention and validation and the karma system becomes really addictive to them.
I had a lot of contentious exchanges with one person, supposedly a lady, that had to insert herself in every conversation in the sub, screech wildly about anything that went against her progressive ideas, even if it was inoffensive, instigate dumb debates and then accuse people of creating strawmen or sealioning, and somehow found a way to pretend to be a victim every single time. If a post mentioned the holocaust - her husband’s father is a holocaust survivor. If someone mentioned sexual abuse, she was a victim of rape. If there was a mention of a kidnapping, she was kidnapped at 16. If someone discussed a murder, her best friend was brutally murdered before her eyes, etc. It got ridiculous when some medical subject came up and then apparently she’s a doctor with 20 years of experience in exactly that subject and who teaches on that subject at a prestigious medical school. I have no idea how such a doctor can spend 20 hours a day on reddit and get 120k posts in a few years, but maybe that’s just me. And I’m pretty sure she had several alts because her comments would be immediately upvoted and any dissenting viewpoint downvoted to oblivion. A few of the posters also had the exact same writing style and used the same arguments, which of course they justified as “great minds think alike” and “that’s because you’re wrong, bigot”. If she was ever genuinely downvoted, she’d immediately complain.
It really sucked the life out of the sub. And there are tons of people just like her on many subs.
Honestly good on ya mate. Creative writing can be a fantastic outlet and you should absolutely start trying to write short stories.
I always felt the rise of fake stories came with the change to karma for text posts. It used to be that a text post gave no karma and so there was no incentive to karma farm that way. Once the change happened, many text-based subreddits had their quality drop dramatically.
Did you post to r/amitheasshole? I used to love that one
We’ve found them. The AmITheAsshole submitter.
Don’t worry about it. I always assume reddit stories are fake anyway.
I’ve always wondered about that. I wonder what portion of Reddit stories are creative writing exercises. Could we make a community here for fictional stories set irl?
No one’s gonna mention the fact that you made a new temp email for each account when you can just sign up without an email?
But it needs email verification.
you can just click next and skip it
What kind of stories did you submit? I spent way too much time on BestofRedditorUpdates and at least half of the time you spend realizing stories are fake. I’m wondering if I read any of yours
Only 2 of my stories got into BORU and both are kinda recent.
IF you ever wanna totally come clean, you should share which stories specifically you shared. I’m curious to see if people caught on they were fake or not and how
wow, holy shit that’s kind of a lot
good job on realizing that you had an issue and endeavoring to touch grass more often
good luck on your writing endeavors OP
Must have felt great to open up man, I’m proudda ya :3
Another proof that we live in a simulation.
I rarely engage with Reddit stories but when I do, I treat stories in popular-ish subs as discussions about hypothetical scenarios: “if this were to happen then what would you think of it?”
I completely stay away from threads that are clear rage baits, and they are easy to spot.
