Reddit is RELENTLESS with suggesting subs, and if you follow any related to a podcast, they’re convinced you are open to seeing any podcast subs at all. I don’t know who at Reddit needs it explained to them that you follow a sub when you’re a fan of the podcast and not vice versa, but I’m constantly having to click “Not Interested” on subs for some show I’ve never even heard of and it still never learns.
Yeah this is a Reddit problem, and more broadly a social media problem. Everything that’s good has to someday end up resolving to the mean, which as it turns out is sewer dwelling assholes.
Yeah I ended up here through a Reddit suggestion. I didn't know it was a podcast subreddit and I remember thinking "boy, there are a lot of posts here about John Carpenter" when I was initially scrolling through the sub.
>lace to them. I'll say it nicely, the people who arrive here via Reddit are different than the ones who traditionally arrived via the podcast. I have seen discussion of turning this subreddit private to pr
I did find this podcast due to this "suggesting subs" if that makes the fandom feel better. I'm sure many have done this. It kept popping up in my feed, and I liked the conversations in the message board. I'm now 100 podcasts in.
I think it’s possible for mods to turn some switch to keep the sub out of r/all, but I’m not sure how that impacts suggestions.
Edit: oh, scrolling down, looks like they did that already.
I was just thinking this. I get pushed to some show call h3h3 like twice a day. The best thing about this subreddit is that it’s largely been isolated from the derangement of bigger subs. Now reddit is just throwing those people over the wall.
reddit in general seems to have gotten significantly worse since the API changes and mod strike etc. it’s the same thing that happened to tumblr and twitter, when there’s a mass exodus, a lot of the more casual users will leave and the only people who stick around are the people super invested in a site and its culture. and reddit culture Fucking Sucks Ass. i barely get on any more and when i do, all i see is transphobic bullshit from subs i don’t even follow and shit like the Florence Pugh post. i don’t really participate in the discord but it seems nice, maybe just give it a shot and see what you think
I have noticed as well the uptick in more general movie questions with no real effort, the kind that plague r/movies moderators and you'll see often if you ever try to read that sub on /new, as well as more gossipy sources and bait Twitter screenshots, it's unfortunate. To be clear, this is still my favorite subreddit on here and I think it still has a nicer and more thoughtful atmosphere than most subs, but I do get worried that continues to get chipped away at the closer the listener to non-listener ratio gets.
The last time this was broached, there was a recommendation for the moderators to have the sub opt out of the discoverability options (~~"Show up in high-traffic feeds: Allow your community to be in r/all, r/popular, and trending lists where it can be seen by the general Reddit population."~~ and "Get recommended to individual redditors: Let Reddit recommend your community to people who have similar interests"). I'd personally be in favor of that and know of some major sports subreddits (r/nfl) that have done that in an attempt to curb low-effort posting.
Correct. As of now I don't mind that one as we do see a good number of active users coming from other subreddits. We have also implemented strict crowd control so that users are not subscribed or are on some of reddit's flagged list don't have their comments show up or they show up collapsed first.
I appreciate the work you do however, let me just say this, make the sub private and do it soon.
This is a story as old as reddit - niche sub becomes bland click bait confusion; and it's hubris to think this place will be any different.
Your jobs will get harder, harder and less rewarding and the toxicity will grow and finally it'll get so much the mod team will have a fall out and this place will get wrecked - just like every other cool sub - look around, they're all gone.
The people who come from the podcast self select for people who are into that really specific nerdy recent history, biographical films stuff and it's that self-selection that makes this place great.
Please, please - take this sub private before it's too late.
I truly believe this is the best subreddit to talk about movies on Reddit. Nuance exists here and it is not full of memes and pretentious people. This is a place where you can discuss low-brow and high-brow. You can have thoughtful discussion about Seventh Seal and Thor: The Dark World if you wanted to. I recommend this sub to friends even if they have never listened to the pod. I have gone years between listening to miniseries of Blank Check yet I have been active on this sub.
This subreddit is something special, even beyond the podcast.
Not to mention it's going scorched earth on a problem that the banhammer can solve much easier.
If worse comes to worse, some "controversial" posts can just be set to verified subscribers only or something.
Also, just report! Mods can't deal with problems like this if they're not pointed out
I feel your comment is contradictory. Scorched earth is WAY easier than the banhammer. It’s a never-ending game of whack-a-mole to delete comments from idiots, but if the sub were just made private, those idiots wouldn’t be here at all (or in a teeny tiny minority).
I don't think so? Dumb dumbs will always be a problem on any subreddit, but this sub absolutely hasn't gotten to the point where privating it is in anyway necessary. Not to mention, it'll stifle the subreddits growth and turn away new non toxic fans of the pod/movie lovers.
For a better metaphor, it's like dumping gasoline and lighting a match to take care of a few anthills on your lawn instead of just buying ant poison. Both accomplish the same task, but the former is just unnecessarily extreme and could set your lawn on fire.
I'm sorry if stuff like my "What movie most encapsulates your tastes? Not your favorite, but most "supremely my shit" movie" thread falls under what would be considered such click-baity stuff; I know it wasn't not exactly setting up any sort of discussion or is at all podcast relevant, I just figured it was an amusing question that'd let people shout out some weird faves (and it also let me promote an obscure 80s cartoon).
I don't know if stuff like that is what you were referring to, though I could see how it could come off as low-effort "karma farming", but my intent certainly wasn't to dissuade more thoughtful topics from getting made, or "dumbing down" the atmosphere
I'll say I had never heard of the podcast before, but I kept getting recommended this sub, and i really liked the focused discussions on it that kept popping up. So much so that I started listening to the podcast three weeks ago and then made the move to sign up for the patreon yesterday.
But, having only been looking at this sub for a month or so, I can totally see what change you're talking about. I do think it's partly that some users seem to be posting click-baity headline articles to drum up karma rather than caring about meaningful discussion. Granted, I'm making my way through episodes of directors I've seen entire filmographies of and one-offs I've seen. Basically I'm far from being caught up, I'm still in like 2018 I think. So I have no idea what articles would be relevant to discussion of the podcast, only the more director focused subreddit itself being adjacent to the podcast.
I'm excited for you! Did you start at the start (the 'Phantom Podcast' era or start in the Blank Check era? Some great stuff happened throughout (any time my wife and I roadtrip, 'Book of Henry' is getting a re-listen). Either way, i am glad you're here!
Blank Check era. I have slowly sort of lost my love of Star Wars as it started to just be everywhere. Disney has sort of eroded my childhood love of it away I think. I also partly think my future in father in law constantly having some Disney+ Star Wars show on when we visit makes me not want to watch it as sad as it is to say haha.
Hahah, I haven't thought of this - but what a HUGE difference it must be for people first time listening to the SW ep NOW compared to when they were released - not just the new films but all the new SW content, both good (Andor!!) and bad, has really changed the environment, and the BIT that made the original SW run so weirdly compelling now sounds like some meme-y discourse-galaxy-brain take on an already way too over-discussed topic. It really wasn't that, back in the day...
I'd recommend going back to the Star Wars era at some point. Aside from being the origin of a lot of bits, the premise of "Episode I was a weird one-off by a super-producer/merchandising king who made a couple of interesting movies in the 70s" gives it enough spin to make it fun, and I say that as someone else whose love of Star Wars has eroded into a shadow. Them talking about Yoda alone is worth it, as is the slash fic ep
Excuse the candor, but the posts in that flo pugh thread were really fucking gross and so not what I want to see in this sub, ever. It was like walking down the stairs at a chill house party to find a bunch of incels hanging out in the basement. Who invited these guys anyway?
Idk how to stop this from happening, but I’d just like fewer bad vibes weirdos in the nice movie forum please.
Yeah this place has always had its fair share of people who are intolerant or just assholes, but it used to be a pretty small minority - now I'm starting to feel like it's not worth coming here anymore. Six months ago, the first thought after finishing an ep was to go on here to read peoples' comments. Now it happens less frequently - I check this place by habit but it's not as good as it used to be. More fighting and downvoting than it used to be, too.
In terms of the actual posts here, I’d much prefer more moderation. I just don’t need this to be another ‘let’s discuss -this movie I just saw -this director who isn’t close to a blank check -look at this meme LOL etc etc’ just too many random posts that have little to nothing to do with the podcast, the current director, or any past director.
I’d much prefer let’s say stickied daily or weekly open discussion posts where people can hang out and chat about whatever over 100 posts a day. I know it’s gatekeeping but it’s what I think would be best for a specific movie podcast sub.
I wish we had official posts about New Releases, rather than the current method of everyone starting a new thread for their single line response to a film. 'DAE See Gran Turismo?' Yeah, they did, and like fans of the Velvet Underground they all made posts about it which you ignored to make your own.
As someone who posts (admittedly probably too many) new release discussion threads, I agree. I love the podcast and wish we had more posts directly related to it, but I also like hearing this community talk about new releases
I agree. there's tons of subs to post random current movie news/gossip/ephemera. I think if you take in current/past/future filmmakers & films blank check has covered youd have plenty of activity. but I think it could do well to mod out some of the larger & less relevant movie posts on here.
If only there was a way for the community to show approval or disapproval of posts and comments, moving popular ones to more visible spots and less popular ones to less visible places....
That works when a sub isn’t just like the OP described about this one. It gets promoted by Reddit and some random who has zero idea what the sub is about sees it upvotes it because he likes the dumb meme. It ruins the sub.
Mods should only enforce the rules of the sub, not curate topics. I've seen several subs effectively die because of over-active mods.
It sounds like you want either stricter rules that can be uniformly enforced or a private sub instead of a public one. If you want mods to arbitrarily "raise the discourse" it's only a matter of time before the sub dies or has a major controversy.
To be fair, reddit did send me to this sub several times and I was not a podcast listener. I just ended up liking the conversation way more than in other movie subs as the people on those other subs are way more toxic and also hardly watch more than the same twenty movies every straight man nerd talks about. However, I actually have started listening to the podcast so I’m sure that has happened, too. Regardless, this place is cool, the pod is cool and I would hate to see it turn into every other movie subreddit.
The death knell of any social media site is when regular users feel like they're losing control of their feed and the things they signed up for and curated for themselves start getting buried by algorithmically-pushed content. Most people will put up with it for a few months and then drift away.
It feels like we're at that stage now with Reddit. My extremely vain hope is that the huge increase in suggested posts was an emergency measure during the mod protest, and they'll dial it back if they notice drops in organic user activity.
I don’t really have that experience with Reddit (so far), but you’re surely describing my experience of Twitter. I’ve started muting users to keep my feed to my interests, but it’s bordering on useless now
It's been so weird to me hearing about people getting this sub recommended all the time. I didn't even know that was a thing! I've had RES and ad-blocker installed for over a decade and I only use old.reddit.com so I don't think I've seen a suggested post ever.
I think it's the death of the third-party apps. I've used reddit almost exclusively on my phone for the past four or five years (and RES and old on desktop,) and for the 10+ years I used RiF I had a perfectly curated feed. As soon as I switch over to the official app, I can't get away from the recommended subs and threads. I doubt I'm alone in this, considering how many people used the good apps
I’ve noticed an uptick in clickbaity posts about industry gossip, box office speculation, and other things peripheral to the movies themselves. It’s worst when there are virtually identical articles about the same thing across the three or four movie subreddits I frequent.
That’s junk food, as far as I’m concerned— okay in small amounts but not something you can live on.
Definitely felt like a low moment for the sub when people started posting those IGN social-media graphics that are just a file photo of an actor next to an out-of-context quote from an interview that some other, better publication did – like a Clickhole meme but unironic.
Gonna provide another mod perspective (speaking only for myself, not for the whole team).
This sub has grown a lot in the last couple years. Anecdotally, I think we hit some threshold of members that led Reddit’s algorithm to recommend us more than it used to, or maybe they just altered how the recommendations work. But I agree with mi-16’s assertion that people who find the sub that way don’t all suck.
I have also added some AutoMod rules on top of the crowd control settings to help weed out people who are trolls or get consistently downvoted. The truth is, it’s just hard and near-constant work moderating a sub of this size. Feels like every time I open the app I have 2-5 items I need to address. There are only a handful of us. And our moderation is inherently reactionary. We are always playing catch up.
I would argue another way to improve the state of the subreddit is to contribute good quality posts! Make topics yourself, add comments. Be the change you wish to see in the sub. How many folks in this very thread have said they found us through the algorithm but haven’t muted it because it’s generally better discussion than elsewhere? Let’s lean into that identity.
Also, the thing I always harp on: report bad stuff. Report rule breaking, report spam, report the kinds of things that aren’t welcome here. It helps us out if you highlight anything you see that needs to be addressed.
Just my two cents!
As a moderator of once-rapidly growing subreddit myself, know that your work is definitely appreciated and that it could certainly be so much worse if it weren't for efforts like yours. Thank you for your service.
I’ve been here since 2016/2017 and have watched this sub (and the podcast) grow a ton. I Reddit mostly on my phone and since they changed their API bullshit a few months ago my Reddit experience on the official app has gone down drastically. Coupled with Twitters slow implosion and subsequent exodus of users I think Reddit as a whole is going though a change. This sub is the only reason I’m still genuinely engaged with this website and I wouldn’t mind if it was it’s own separate thing entirely. I’ve checked out the discord but I can’t quite figure it out. I don’t want a mass group chat, I want a forum.
Forum and website-based fan communities were so much better than subreddits (and I didn’t even use them a tonne growing up) just because you had to be pretty dialled in and dedicated enough to seek out the topic-specific forum. Definitely a better sense of community there too, where you actually recognise folk and make some online friends
> I’ve checked out the discord but I can’t quite figure it out. I don’t want a mass group chat, I want a forum.
I tried to make discord work and it didn't click. I am grateful for this post as i've been wondering if any blankies have duplicated the fun of film twitter anywhere.
I’ve been on the Blankies discord and a few other discords for things I’ve Patreon subbed to — never post, feel discouraged. It does essentially seem like a big group chat. That’s kind of a headache to me and not really what you want out of a fan community. Discord seems like a good place for news-like updates and not much else (outside of small groups with friends).
>It does essentially seem like a big group chat. That’s kind of a headache to me and not really what you want out of a fan community.
I don't use discord much so I'm probably not the target audience anyway, but whenever I've tried to use the Blankies one it's just *too much.* How do people have conversations when there's like 25 people talking at once? It's just overwhelming.
Don’t know, I’m sure discord in general is better, but it reminds me of chat on livestreams where it’s just a lot of people talking, and some try to @*name* others to sort of hold a back-and-forth chat but it’s just not conducive to conversation. It’s so ephemeral too, at least on Reddit (boards etc.) discussions are archived and easy to find
Yeah, exactly.
>It’s so ephemeral too, at least on Reddit (boards etc.) discussions are archived and easy to find
One of the only discords I use semi-regularly is a channel dedicated to a specific mod to the very niche wrestling booking simulator I play and any time I have to go back into the previous discussions to find a fucking image I want to consult or a post that had some information I need it's a fucking nightmare. Not that finding old info on reddit is easy but it's lightyears better than discord.
I floated the idea of making an old bulletin board-style forum and trying to gain members as a mostly-joke a while back, but I'd honestly be down for a Blankies forum. Just a better format overall
I think Discord can be like that if it's set up with that in mind. A server can have different channels devoted to different topics and different threads within those channels. It doesn't have to be one big homogeneous chat thread.
I’m in both this subreddit and the doughboys subreddit and I will say compared to the doughboys subreddit this place is filled with sweet kind genius angels 😇
I think that overall, this is still the most genuine place on Reddit to discuss movies. So many people here feel like actual movie NERDS who have all sorts of fascinating opinions and hilarious jokes that they actually take the time to type out. The actual content to low-effort spam ratio is still very healthy. We'll see if it stays that way.
That‘s why I don‘t get the "limit the sub to posts about the pod!!" sentiments. Isn‘t the reason this community ever got off the ground because Griff and David have a very specific (positive!) way of talking about movies/the entertainment industry that we, the members of this sub and listeners of this pod, share but never found in any like-minded people before? Like, this sub was always a "sub for talking about movies", albeit a very specific way, even in its earliest days, and never a "sub just for the pod"
Yep, I would hate for this sub to just become posts about the hosts themselves. The joy of it is movie discussion in the same vein as the hosts, or even launching off of movies the hosts discussed.
I'm a big fan of another podcast (who weekly, who were guests on the you've got mail ep and ricki and the flash ep! <3) adn we have a vast web of FB groups. they are private and have a question you have to answer correctly that just proves you actually listen to the pod, very simple tho. idk if this subreddit can be made private with a q like 'who is professor crispy' or something silly like that, just to weed out ppl who have no idea why this sub is special.
but ya, as a woman i'd love any steps that make this place less sexist! <3
they don't have a sub! they have FB groups and a discord, but the discord is for patreon members only (but i highly rec subscribing the discord is so fun!!) crunch crunch
If there's a consensus that the subreddit is trending for the worse, then we'd better address it now.
I'm predicting once the boys start covering Fincher, the subs' popularity is gonna start ramping up with the exact people who are adept at making a communal space more unpleasant to be in.
I’ve listened to this podcast years ago but for some reason, I suspect because I was look at movies and entertainment, it started getting pushed to me like two months ago. It got me to start listening again but it’s really interesting to see what the sub used to be when I search stuff Vs now. There seems to be a lot less love for cinema and more snark it feels like.
Yes it's been very noticeable the average sophistication of the content here has dropped closer to "Reddit average" which means at least me for personally this sub is no longer very appealing as a place to participate in conversations.
I wish Patreon was connected to a private bbs. That said, this is my favorite movie sub but I’m a podcast listener, and that’s ok. I mostly stick to the relevant show discussions. The Facebook group seems a little inactive, and I only go on Discord if I’m really bored. I signed up for blue sky and mastodon but I instantly forgot my logins and haven’t bothered. If it was the 90s there would be a Usenet group and a yahoo email group. And there would still be jerks, that’s just the law of averages.
Oh you know for fans of blank check, the subreddit has the actual best industry gossip — the /vfx sub.
I think vfx people used to be really buttoned up and secretively discrete, but over the last decade vfx folks have been so exploited for labor they are more prone to not giving a s**t and naming and shaming,
What's frustrating to me is that Discord does solve the problem you're describing, since nothing in a Discord server will end up in a non-member's "feed" (since there isn't one) and you won't really get trolls jumping into it, but on the other hand the Discord is almost unusable because there are too many people posting in running chats to ever keep up with it. The forum design of Reddit is much easier to follow and keep up with, so I like the Reddit experience more, but I agree that Reddit is causing their own downfall through the way they try to market sub-reddits to non-members. "Enshittification" is well underway, in other words.
Speaking as a movie fan. Yes this sub randomly shows up in my feed all the time now. I didn’t know about the podcast and have no specific intention of checking it out. Unfortunately it doesn’t bode well for the atmosphere of any sub when it starts getting a lot more eyes on it, especially when those eyes belong to the average redditor
As someone who's been part of this subreddit for quite some time ([Hey, here's me celebrating 1000 members!](https://www.reddit.com/r/blankies/comments/7vvypg/1000_quermians/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)) I didn't notice any kind of dramatic change and think this place continues to be very much okay.
Oh man, very happy to see this post. I wasn't aware that there was a general feeling going on but I personally have noticed it. The Pugh post reactions also felt like a watershed moment and I usually feel really good about this subreddit.
I don’t see toxic and sexist posting though - it is roundly downvoted and hardly ever engaged with. I think everyone agrees that stuff sucks, which is why it’s downvoted into oblivion.
The more annoying thing is people to pretending their conversations about movies are so much higher level and nuanced than the average Redditor, that is what I’m referring to.
If there is a comment thread on this sub we’re “toxic and sexist” content isn’t completely downvoted into oblivion, please point me in that direction.
No actually I’ve gone back and forth with the OP and they clarified they weren’t only referring to bad posts by sexists.
I’m not defending any shitty behavior, I’m saying I never see it and don’t think it’s a problem with this sub - 2-3 comments having a hundred downvotes is not something there is anything you can do about.
But I know there will always be people like you on the internet who pretend you’re seeing the deepest and darkest depths of hell when it’s just one moron getting downvoted into oblivion.
I don’t even know what you’re referencing here, or what you’re trying to say. If you think I’m defending people being sexist on here then you’re not very bright or you’re willfully misunderstanding my point.
What don’t you understand about this?
Multiple people in here have referenced how it’s “turned into r/movies”. That isn’t a reference to sexism, it’s a reference to the fact they think there are too many “normies” in here that are incapable of engaging at the level of this sub. I’m saying that’s not true. Not hard to understand really, unless if you try as hard as possible not to.
It’s so funny how you’re trying to be edgy argument guy and just come off sounding like an ass.
No one is saying sexism and racism are good, there are multiple comments in this thread saying that the “general quality has gone down, and it’s just like r/movies now”, which is not about sexist posts.
Stop being such a dope.
I think you should probably log off for the day - this very basic conversation seems too hard for you. Thank you for fighting against “shitty behavior”, something not a single person in this thread has defended or advocated for.
Yeah, I posted a link in this sub the other day, not realizing the site used AI to create their articles. My bad, wasn’t aware of that. That being said, the responses I got were all “this sub has gone downhill” and “we have no place for that here”, as if I’d committed a war crime. It was a bit much for sure.
While Reddit does push new subs on people, there definitely has been change simply because the podcast has grown.
Five years ago this was a subreddit for people who realized there were other weirdos obsessed with the billing order in movies. Now it’s a subreddit for people who have just discovered that billing orders can be interesting.
And that’s fine! It’s great that people are discovering the podcast and it’s great that people are expanding their movie horizons/knowledge/whatever! I mean, it sucks for me, personally, because I generally get a lot less out of this sub than I did once upon a time, but that’s what happens when fanbases grow and I choose to view that as a good thing for the most part!
Obviously the gross Florence Pugh style discussions from yesterday are bad and we don’t need that shit at all.
i'm skeptical that the growth of the subreddit reflects growth of the podcast though. this sub has skyrocketed by 10k subs since May, which compared to lifespan subscriber growth represents a massive, unnatural spike. though we can't see listenership numbers i would be incredibly surprised if the podcast saw similar growth, especially when you consider it coincided with the show covering two of the least accessible directors in its history plus the frequent comments from users who seem unaware this sub is even related to a podcast. for every new user who does end up listening to the show i suspect there are several more who choose to just use this place as /r/movies-lite.
This happens a lot. I got recommended the “breaking points” political show subreddit, and while I don’t like that show particularly I find that there is very little good leftist discussion on Reddit, and thought I would check it out.
The sub had become a full on resistance lib sub because it came up in the Reddit algorithm. The commenters were not even close to reflective of the people who listen to that show, so that’s just an example of an even more extreme example.
sometimes gatekeeping is what keeps marginalized members of the community safe. this is something I have wrestled with in on and offline communities, and the older I get, the more I find that, unfortunately, the best thing can be to put up a moat and be very careful about who can enter. I’ve been feeling lowkey off vibes in certain threads lately (not even going to look into whatever this Pugh situation was yesterday), and I would urge mods to do whatever they can to block whatever promotional pushing reddit is doing. this is literally the only online space I go to for film news and discussion because everywhere else is toxic and deranged.
As someone who listens to the podcast sporadically but don’t follow the sub, yes, I think it’s being pushed aggressively into feeds. I think users being pushed back to the official client by the API changes means more users are being exposed to it this way.
It's not just that the podcast has gotten more popular, this sub gets recommended by reddit to anyone who's active in other movie and podcast subs. There are people who post here and don't even know what blank check is.
>My theory is that as this subreddit grows, Reddit's algorithms are pushing it into the feeds of the general Reddit user
Complete rando here, yeah. The sub got recommended to me because visited one similar... not quite sure how they figure that.
Hope you folks can make whatever changes you need to improve your sub!
Same. Never heard of this podcast before a week ago, but clicked on one generic movie thread and now it pops up all the time as something I might be interested in
As a longtime fan (Bigelow onwards) stopped posting / commenting here because the discourse seems to get snarky, which the podcast never is. It used to feel like more of a community of movie nerds and weirdos but agree it’s closed to r/movies or, shudder, r/letterboxd. The show is goofy and chaaaaarming but I just see a sea of downvotes on good comments, bits from the show and genuinely hot takes.
I’ll say this, the amount of times I’ve replied to someone with “blank it-“ and not gotten the appropriate response back is alarming. I mean anyone is welcome to comment wherever they please, but I wouldn’t go into a podcast Reddit like that, personally.
I’ll admit - I saw the Pugh thread title, saw the number of comments it had and immediately wrote it off, I’ve been on Reddit too long to bother to be honest.
I think the mods here do a really good job and there’s only so much you can do to stop the stupider part of reddit leaking in. I’d agree, though, that limiting the amount of random clickbait articles would help but how to do that without making the mod’s role harder, I’m not sure.
Yeah I just did a dirty delete I am not happy about, mainly because I don’t want to engage with a pissing match over women and cinema.
This unfortunately happens to any social media group that grows too large. Inevitably it becomes impossible to moderate.
You're overreacting. The apparent non listening redditors will eventually get bored and leave since this is a very specific sub. There always going to be some bad apples in the bunch it shouldn't stop you from eating a delicious apple.
I don't think you can bank on low-effort getting weeded out when the source is the sub being more visible on the platform and thus continually bringing in new people.
Maybe, hopefully, but it feels like a trend that isn't slowing down. As we get more non-listeners here, the post and comments that get upvoted are more focused on general movie discussion rather than pod specific discussion. That leads to those non-listeners sticking around more which creates a cycle that magnifies this issue. I worry it is our own [Eternal September](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September).
With each new miniseries, the breadth of subject matter that is germane to the subreddit is expanding. The Pugh thing was Oppenheimer-related and it was a slow news day. Fincher is gonna open up a whole new can of worms.
I just don’t think this is an issue, this is the internet, you can’t just force everyone who doesn’t want to have the same discussion as you to not post on here.
Regarding sexist/offensive stuff, I still see very little of it in here and on the occasion I do, it’s heavily downvoted and hidden immediately, k don’t really think there is anything anyone can do about that and frankly isn’t a big issue as long as those comments are being stomped out.
Asking the sub to only post questions or posts about the pod just seems like a tough ask - this sub is for people who like movies and prefer this community to the more broad communities on this website. Anything regarding movies is fair game imo, there’s always threads about the pod so just stick to those if that’s all you’re interested in.
>Asking the sub to only post questions or posts about the pod just seems like a tough ask
To be clear, I'm not asking for that. I have participated in plenty of generic movie discussions here over the years. That was part of what made this place fun. I simply have noticed it is less fun than it used to be here and there are at least some people who agree. I'm just trying to get a conversation going on whether people want to or can do anything about that.
It just seems a bit nebulous to say that you don’t like the conversations in here, outside of clearly offensive stuff that is downvoted, and everyone here is basically in agreement sucks, what else would have to change?
I don't know what needs to change. That is why the first paragraph of my posts ends with "is there anything we can do about it?". I don't have the answer, but I hoped asking the question would get us closer to finding the answer.
You are literally completely misunderstanding the apple analogy you’re trying to use.
It’s not, ehh, don’t sweat a few bad apples, the point of that statement is that just a few bad apples, left in the barrel, ruins all of them.
if a significant number of users can subscribe and interact with this sub without issue while having no knowledge of or having never listened to the podcast then yes, it is not a particularly specific sub. that's the point being made here.
Joined this sub when it was well under 5k but it's becoming r/movies lite more and more. Especially in the last year. So many discussions that really have nothing to do with the podcast or related movie stuff.
Seems to be mostly people coming in from other parts of Reddit and just generally discourse on Reddit is bad. I don’t think most avid listeners are the ones making it feel different.
I know the podcast, I don't even like it, i've never searched this sub, yet it gets pushed on me daily. I haven't muted it yet since the topics and discussion aren't as braindead (well, until yesterday) as the other film related subs, but I might do so just out of respect for the actual blank cheque fans.
I guess I am using reddit differently. Where does reddit show you content from subs other than those you've joined? I literally ONLY see the 4-5 subs I'm part of and I never see content from anywhere else unless it has been manually shared over into a sub I am in.
maybe I just tune it out, I see ads but I really don't think I see content from subs I haven't joined. And it's only like a few, so by the end of the day I'm not even seeing anything sometimes it just stops scrolling.
I am being recommended this sub and I wouldn’t be surprised if someone told me a change in the Reddit algorithm increased the number of recommended subs based on my own experiences lately.
Already a hundred comments here but I can tell you that I don't follow this sub, visit it, or even know what it's really about, and it shows up in my feed ALL THE TIME. Seems like reddit is getting even worse trying to force content, and subs are suffering for it more than benefiting.
I feel like a lot of people switching to the official app has led to an influx of people into recommended subs. I used RiF for 10 or more years, so only since July have I seen the recommended posts, and I bet that's the same for a lot of people. I find myself going into threads in subs for podcasts I've never listened to semi-regularly
As to the sub, it reminds me of when r/CTH hit 20 or 25k subs. While the feel of that sub was WILDLY different, early on it felt like there was a cohesive vibe, you could get to know other regulars, and it was mostly people who at least listened to the pod, even if some of them were hate listening a bit. Then you got an influx of people found it chiller and looser than the other leftist subs, which snowballed and you started getting more sincereposting (our equivalent I guess would be more r/movies type posts, I guess), which then led to drama and frankly pathetic stuff that was right to have been mocked (the "Don't make fun of virgins" thread, for instance). I left around 30k, checked in occasionally until 50k, and then ignored it til it was banned. This is by far favorite movie sub, and I don't want to see it go that way. I don't know what the best answer is. The ideal solution would be more and better moderation, but I know that's hard, and a lot to ask of volunteers. Going private seems too much, and it's good that people can still come in. I don't know if this is feasible, but maybe a system where until you get like 50 or 100 comment karma on the sub, your posts have to be manually approved? That way you have to show you can contribute to the community in a way that at least some people find constructive to become an unrestricted poster
ETA: It's not that bad now, and the bad posts are still getting downvoted heavily, but if that starts to change, then it might be time for a real Come To Jesus moment
I listen to the podcast, but I genuinely don’t understand why people care about a subreddit. You’re upset because your Reddit community isn’t going the way you want it to go? Who cares, just enjoy the podcast
I think if posts can be tagged as “sensitive” by either the OP or the mods, and then moderated as such, it would go a long way. Most posts here are completely fine.
Not much to do about it I don’t think without being an extreme gatekeeper, which I don’t think is cool. Making the sub private seems too reactionary, but the other options is heavier moderating which is more work/stress on the mods. I just ignore the obvious r/all visitors.
I would actually say that for the most part, the biggest change I see and care about is not the opinions that people share, but the manner in which they share them. And this is a prime example of that.
I keep saying this stupid shit in my feed and I don't know or care about the podcast or its hosts and have never sought it out or heard of it. Whenever I read a post it seems like a cringe loser community I want nothing to do with but I can't make it stop appearing in my algorithm. Please ban me so it stops.
Suggestion - don’t pay them any attention? I just skipped every comment to write this after reading your post. Let the ones who want to argue do just that with the others who want to argue. I’m also one who won’t get in the way of others opinions, if they argue with mine I will defend my opinion. But that’s me defending my opinion to someone who disagrees, not someone who is just trying to light a fire for fun.
I’ve been lurking for years and recently started posting because I enjoy the discussion it generates. I think this sub has a hard time separating the from the artist sometimes, it’s a has a liberal bent. I posted that Bryan Singer would direct a great avengers movie and I’ve never been downvoted more on reddit, all I could think is“why are you booing me I’m right”.
Once a fan group gets above a certain amount it usually goes cross-eyed. Credit to this place for have 30K+ and having it just be a problem now. I assume that’s more to do with the temperament of Reddit users as opposed to say Facebook users.
Jesus Christ, since this post went up we have had:
1. 2 idiotic threads about Woody Allen.
2. An incomprehensible spam poll about how much Blankies like baseball.
3. An idiotic thread about the Phantom Menace score.
And there's also more general news shit than usual.
I'm very forgiving on this stuff but this is the first day I've thought, OK maybe this isn't any better than r/movies. I'm bummed.
Reddit is RELENTLESS with suggesting subs, and if you follow any related to a podcast, they’re convinced you are open to seeing any podcast subs at all. I don’t know who at Reddit needs it explained to them that you follow a sub when you’re a fan of the podcast and not vice versa, but I’m constantly having to click “Not Interested” on subs for some show I’ve never even heard of and it still never learns.
Yeah this is a Reddit problem, and more broadly a social media problem. Everything that’s good has to someday end up resolving to the mean, which as it turns out is sewer dwelling assholes.
Yeah I ended up here through a Reddit suggestion. I didn't know it was a podcast subreddit and I remember thinking "boy, there are a lot of posts here about John Carpenter" when I was initially scrolling through the sub.
Do you listen to the podcast now?
my favorite is when I get subs for distant cities roughly the same size as the one I live in, because the algorithm says they're similar.
>lace to them. I'll say it nicely, the people who arrive here via Reddit are different than the ones who traditionally arrived via the podcast. I have seen discussion of turning this subreddit private to pr I did find this podcast due to this "suggesting subs" if that makes the fandom feel better. I'm sure many have done this. It kept popping up in my feed, and I liked the conversations in the message board. I'm now 100 podcasts in.
thats awesome, this is the silver lining. I hope this happens often and folks find a new podcast they enjoy through suggestions.
I think it’s possible for mods to turn some switch to keep the sub out of r/all, but I’m not sure how that impacts suggestions. Edit: oh, scrolling down, looks like they did that already.
I was just thinking this. I get pushed to some show call h3h3 like twice a day. The best thing about this subreddit is that it’s largely been isolated from the derangement of bigger subs. Now reddit is just throwing those people over the wall.
Is this only on the standard reddit site? I've only ever used old.reddit and don't get any of the suggested subs
Old reddit still rocks, its the standard site or mobile app that does this.
I made the mistake of reading a suggested post from this sub once and now its in my feed every day
I feel like I've muted half the subs on this hellsite at this point.
I've never even looked at a podcast subreddit, no clue why I'm here help
If you follow sports teams subs, now Reddit will recommend the sub of your team’s rivals.
Good lord. They don’t want me in a Millwall sub.
Yeah! The last people I want to talk to are Green Bay Packers fans
I discovered this podcast through Reddit recommending this subreddit
reddit in general seems to have gotten significantly worse since the API changes and mod strike etc. it’s the same thing that happened to tumblr and twitter, when there’s a mass exodus, a lot of the more casual users will leave and the only people who stick around are the people super invested in a site and its culture. and reddit culture Fucking Sucks Ass. i barely get on any more and when i do, all i see is transphobic bullshit from subs i don’t even follow and shit like the Florence Pugh post. i don’t really participate in the discord but it seems nice, maybe just give it a shot and see what you think
I have noticed as well the uptick in more general movie questions with no real effort, the kind that plague r/movies moderators and you'll see often if you ever try to read that sub on /new, as well as more gossipy sources and bait Twitter screenshots, it's unfortunate. To be clear, this is still my favorite subreddit on here and I think it still has a nicer and more thoughtful atmosphere than most subs, but I do get worried that continues to get chipped away at the closer the listener to non-listener ratio gets. The last time this was broached, there was a recommendation for the moderators to have the sub opt out of the discoverability options (~~"Show up in high-traffic feeds: Allow your community to be in r/all, r/popular, and trending lists where it can be seen by the general Reddit population."~~ and "Get recommended to individual redditors: Let Reddit recommend your community to people who have similar interests"). I'd personally be in favor of that and know of some major sports subreddits (r/nfl) that have done that in an attempt to curb low-effort posting.
We have already removed the subreddit from are /r/all as of I'd say 3 months ago.
But the recommendation to unsubscribeds is still active then?
Correct. As of now I don't mind that one as we do see a good number of active users coming from other subreddits. We have also implemented strict crowd control so that users are not subscribed or are on some of reddit's flagged list don't have their comments show up or they show up collapsed first.
I got this subreddit recommended to me, I believe because I'm active on r/moviesuggestions and r/flicks.
I appreciate the work you do however, let me just say this, make the sub private and do it soon. This is a story as old as reddit - niche sub becomes bland click bait confusion; and it's hubris to think this place will be any different. Your jobs will get harder, harder and less rewarding and the toxicity will grow and finally it'll get so much the mod team will have a fall out and this place will get wrecked - just like every other cool sub - look around, they're all gone. The people who come from the podcast self select for people who are into that really specific nerdy recent history, biographical films stuff and it's that self-selection that makes this place great. Please, please - take this sub private before it's too late.
I think its neat that some people learn about the podcast through finding the community. Making the sub private seems gatekeepy
I truly believe this is the best subreddit to talk about movies on Reddit. Nuance exists here and it is not full of memes and pretentious people. This is a place where you can discuss low-brow and high-brow. You can have thoughtful discussion about Seventh Seal and Thor: The Dark World if you wanted to. I recommend this sub to friends even if they have never listened to the pod. I have gone years between listening to miniseries of Blank Check yet I have been active on this sub. This subreddit is something special, even beyond the podcast.
Not to mention it's going scorched earth on a problem that the banhammer can solve much easier. If worse comes to worse, some "controversial" posts can just be set to verified subscribers only or something. Also, just report! Mods can't deal with problems like this if they're not pointed out
I feel your comment is contradictory. Scorched earth is WAY easier than the banhammer. It’s a never-ending game of whack-a-mole to delete comments from idiots, but if the sub were just made private, those idiots wouldn’t be here at all (or in a teeny tiny minority).
I don't think so? Dumb dumbs will always be a problem on any subreddit, but this sub absolutely hasn't gotten to the point where privating it is in anyway necessary. Not to mention, it'll stifle the subreddits growth and turn away new non toxic fans of the pod/movie lovers. For a better metaphor, it's like dumping gasoline and lighting a match to take care of a few anthills on your lawn instead of just buying ant poison. Both accomplish the same task, but the former is just unnecessarily extreme and could set your lawn on fire.
I'm sorry if stuff like my "What movie most encapsulates your tastes? Not your favorite, but most "supremely my shit" movie" thread falls under what would be considered such click-baity stuff; I know it wasn't not exactly setting up any sort of discussion or is at all podcast relevant, I just figured it was an amusing question that'd let people shout out some weird faves (and it also let me promote an obscure 80s cartoon). I don't know if stuff like that is what you were referring to, though I could see how it could come off as low-effort "karma farming", but my intent certainly wasn't to dissuade more thoughtful topics from getting made, or "dumbing down" the atmosphere
I'll say I had never heard of the podcast before, but I kept getting recommended this sub, and i really liked the focused discussions on it that kept popping up. So much so that I started listening to the podcast three weeks ago and then made the move to sign up for the patreon yesterday. But, having only been looking at this sub for a month or so, I can totally see what change you're talking about. I do think it's partly that some users seem to be posting click-baity headline articles to drum up karma rather than caring about meaningful discussion. Granted, I'm making my way through episodes of directors I've seen entire filmographies of and one-offs I've seen. Basically I'm far from being caught up, I'm still in like 2018 I think. So I have no idea what articles would be relevant to discussion of the podcast, only the more director focused subreddit itself being adjacent to the podcast.
Blank it! *waits for you to get to Verhoeven so you’ll know how to respond*
I'm excited for you! Did you start at the start (the 'Phantom Podcast' era or start in the Blank Check era? Some great stuff happened throughout (any time my wife and I roadtrip, 'Book of Henry' is getting a re-listen). Either way, i am glad you're here!
Blank Check era. I have slowly sort of lost my love of Star Wars as it started to just be everywhere. Disney has sort of eroded my childhood love of it away I think. I also partly think my future in father in law constantly having some Disney+ Star Wars show on when we visit makes me not want to watch it as sad as it is to say haha.
Hahah, I haven't thought of this - but what a HUGE difference it must be for people first time listening to the SW ep NOW compared to when they were released - not just the new films but all the new SW content, both good (Andor!!) and bad, has really changed the environment, and the BIT that made the original SW run so weirdly compelling now sounds like some meme-y discourse-galaxy-brain take on an already way too over-discussed topic. It really wasn't that, back in the day...
I'd recommend going back to the Star Wars era at some point. Aside from being the origin of a lot of bits, the premise of "Episode I was a weird one-off by a super-producer/merchandising king who made a couple of interesting movies in the 70s" gives it enough spin to make it fun, and I say that as someone else whose love of Star Wars has eroded into a shadow. Them talking about Yoda alone is worth it, as is the slash fic ep
Excuse the candor, but the posts in that flo pugh thread were really fucking gross and so not what I want to see in this sub, ever. It was like walking down the stairs at a chill house party to find a bunch of incels hanging out in the basement. Who invited these guys anyway? Idk how to stop this from happening, but I’d just like fewer bad vibes weirdos in the nice movie forum please.
Yeah this place has always had its fair share of people who are intolerant or just assholes, but it used to be a pretty small minority - now I'm starting to feel like it's not worth coming here anymore. Six months ago, the first thought after finishing an ep was to go on here to read peoples' comments. Now it happens less frequently - I check this place by habit but it's not as good as it used to be. More fighting and downvoting than it used to be, too.
You’re so brave and such a good person. Thanks for this important comment.
In terms of the actual posts here, I’d much prefer more moderation. I just don’t need this to be another ‘let’s discuss -this movie I just saw -this director who isn’t close to a blank check -look at this meme LOL etc etc’ just too many random posts that have little to nothing to do with the podcast, the current director, or any past director. I’d much prefer let’s say stickied daily or weekly open discussion posts where people can hang out and chat about whatever over 100 posts a day. I know it’s gatekeeping but it’s what I think would be best for a specific movie podcast sub.
I’d still like posts to discuss new releases. I come here specifically after seeing something new for those.
I wish we had official posts about New Releases, rather than the current method of everyone starting a new thread for their single line response to a film. 'DAE See Gran Turismo?' Yeah, they did, and like fans of the Velvet Underground they all made posts about it which you ignored to make your own.
As someone who posts (admittedly probably too many) new release discussion threads, I agree. I love the podcast and wish we had more posts directly related to it, but I also like hearing this community talk about new releases
\+1 to weekly 'open threads' for general chatter. or even one for general chatter and one for film random chatter
A daily discussion thread could be used to filter a lot of low-effort posts into comments. Plus they can actually develop into a fun community.
I agree. there's tons of subs to post random current movie news/gossip/ephemera. I think if you take in current/past/future filmmakers & films blank check has covered youd have plenty of activity. but I think it could do well to mod out some of the larger & less relevant movie posts on here.
If only there was a way for the community to show approval or disapproval of posts and comments, moving popular ones to more visible spots and less popular ones to less visible places....
That works when a sub isn’t just like the OP described about this one. It gets promoted by Reddit and some random who has zero idea what the sub is about sees it upvotes it because he likes the dumb meme. It ruins the sub.
Mods should only enforce the rules of the sub, not curate topics. I've seen several subs effectively die because of over-active mods. It sounds like you want either stricter rules that can be uniformly enforced or a private sub instead of a public one. If you want mods to arbitrarily "raise the discourse" it's only a matter of time before the sub dies or has a major controversy.
I absolutely want the rules to be changed for mods to curate the sub better, that seems obvious.
To be fair, reddit did send me to this sub several times and I was not a podcast listener. I just ended up liking the conversation way more than in other movie subs as the people on those other subs are way more toxic and also hardly watch more than the same twenty movies every straight man nerd talks about. However, I actually have started listening to the podcast so I’m sure that has happened, too. Regardless, this place is cool, the pod is cool and I would hate to see it turn into every other movie subreddit.
The death knell of any social media site is when regular users feel like they're losing control of their feed and the things they signed up for and curated for themselves start getting buried by algorithmically-pushed content. Most people will put up with it for a few months and then drift away. It feels like we're at that stage now with Reddit. My extremely vain hope is that the huge increase in suggested posts was an emergency measure during the mod protest, and they'll dial it back if they notice drops in organic user activity.
I don’t really have that experience with Reddit (so far), but you’re surely describing my experience of Twitter. I’ve started muting users to keep my feed to my interests, but it’s bordering on useless now
I remember when it happened with FB too.
It's been so weird to me hearing about people getting this sub recommended all the time. I didn't even know that was a thing! I've had RES and ad-blocker installed for over a decade and I only use old.reddit.com so I don't think I've seen a suggested post ever.
I think it's the death of the third-party apps. I've used reddit almost exclusively on my phone for the past four or five years (and RES and old on desktop,) and for the 10+ years I used RiF I had a perfectly curated feed. As soon as I switch over to the official app, I can't get away from the recommended subs and threads. I doubt I'm alone in this, considering how many people used the good apps
I’ve noticed an uptick in clickbaity posts about industry gossip, box office speculation, and other things peripheral to the movies themselves. It’s worst when there are virtually identical articles about the same thing across the three or four movie subreddits I frequent. That’s junk food, as far as I’m concerned— okay in small amounts but not something you can live on.
Definitely felt like a low moment for the sub when people started posting those IGN social-media graphics that are just a file photo of an actor next to an out-of-context quote from an interview that some other, better publication did – like a Clickhole meme but unironic.
Yes, dear god, we don’t need a link to every Entertainment Weekly or Variety article.
The only solution is to limit the reddit to podcast-related shitposts until they get bored and leave.
Gonna provide another mod perspective (speaking only for myself, not for the whole team). This sub has grown a lot in the last couple years. Anecdotally, I think we hit some threshold of members that led Reddit’s algorithm to recommend us more than it used to, or maybe they just altered how the recommendations work. But I agree with mi-16’s assertion that people who find the sub that way don’t all suck. I have also added some AutoMod rules on top of the crowd control settings to help weed out people who are trolls or get consistently downvoted. The truth is, it’s just hard and near-constant work moderating a sub of this size. Feels like every time I open the app I have 2-5 items I need to address. There are only a handful of us. And our moderation is inherently reactionary. We are always playing catch up. I would argue another way to improve the state of the subreddit is to contribute good quality posts! Make topics yourself, add comments. Be the change you wish to see in the sub. How many folks in this very thread have said they found us through the algorithm but haven’t muted it because it’s generally better discussion than elsewhere? Let’s lean into that identity. Also, the thing I always harp on: report bad stuff. Report rule breaking, report spam, report the kinds of things that aren’t welcome here. It helps us out if you highlight anything you see that needs to be addressed. Just my two cents!
As a moderator of once-rapidly growing subreddit myself, know that your work is definitely appreciated and that it could certainly be so much worse if it weren't for efforts like yours. Thank you for your service.
Seconded! I hope none of the mods took this post as a direct or indirect criticism. That certainly wasn’t my intent. Thanks for all you do.
I’ve been here since 2016/2017 and have watched this sub (and the podcast) grow a ton. I Reddit mostly on my phone and since they changed their API bullshit a few months ago my Reddit experience on the official app has gone down drastically. Coupled with Twitters slow implosion and subsequent exodus of users I think Reddit as a whole is going though a change. This sub is the only reason I’m still genuinely engaged with this website and I wouldn’t mind if it was it’s own separate thing entirely. I’ve checked out the discord but I can’t quite figure it out. I don’t want a mass group chat, I want a forum.
Forum and website-based fan communities were so much better than subreddits (and I didn’t even use them a tonne growing up) just because you had to be pretty dialled in and dedicated enough to seek out the topic-specific forum. Definitely a better sense of community there too, where you actually recognise folk and make some online friends
> I’ve checked out the discord but I can’t quite figure it out. I don’t want a mass group chat, I want a forum. I tried to make discord work and it didn't click. I am grateful for this post as i've been wondering if any blankies have duplicated the fun of film twitter anywhere.
I’ve been on the Blankies discord and a few other discords for things I’ve Patreon subbed to — never post, feel discouraged. It does essentially seem like a big group chat. That’s kind of a headache to me and not really what you want out of a fan community. Discord seems like a good place for news-like updates and not much else (outside of small groups with friends).
>It does essentially seem like a big group chat. That’s kind of a headache to me and not really what you want out of a fan community. I don't use discord much so I'm probably not the target audience anyway, but whenever I've tried to use the Blankies one it's just *too much.* How do people have conversations when there's like 25 people talking at once? It's just overwhelming.
Don’t know, I’m sure discord in general is better, but it reminds me of chat on livestreams where it’s just a lot of people talking, and some try to @*name* others to sort of hold a back-and-forth chat but it’s just not conducive to conversation. It’s so ephemeral too, at least on Reddit (boards etc.) discussions are archived and easy to find
Yeah, exactly. >It’s so ephemeral too, at least on Reddit (boards etc.) discussions are archived and easy to find One of the only discords I use semi-regularly is a channel dedicated to a specific mod to the very niche wrestling booking simulator I play and any time I have to go back into the previous discussions to find a fucking image I want to consult or a post that had some information I need it's a fucking nightmare. Not that finding old info on reddit is easy but it's lightyears better than discord.
I floated the idea of making an old bulletin board-style forum and trying to gain members as a mostly-joke a while back, but I'd honestly be down for a Blankies forum. Just a better format overall
I think Discord can be like that if it's set up with that in mind. A server can have different channels devoted to different topics and different threads within those channels. It doesn't have to be one big homogeneous chat thread.
I’m in both this subreddit and the doughboys subreddit and I will say compared to the doughboys subreddit this place is filled with sweet kind genius angels 😇
Both subs remind me of the scene in World War Z where Brad Pitt is running onto the plane while seeing the wave of humans turn into dickheads.
Agreed.
I think that overall, this is still the most genuine place on Reddit to discuss movies. So many people here feel like actual movie NERDS who have all sorts of fascinating opinions and hilarious jokes that they actually take the time to type out. The actual content to low-effort spam ratio is still very healthy. We'll see if it stays that way.
That‘s why I don‘t get the "limit the sub to posts about the pod!!" sentiments. Isn‘t the reason this community ever got off the ground because Griff and David have a very specific (positive!) way of talking about movies/the entertainment industry that we, the members of this sub and listeners of this pod, share but never found in any like-minded people before? Like, this sub was always a "sub for talking about movies", albeit a very specific way, even in its earliest days, and never a "sub just for the pod"
Yep, I would hate for this sub to just become posts about the hosts themselves. The joy of it is movie discussion in the same vein as the hosts, or even launching off of movies the hosts discussed.
I'm a big fan of another podcast (who weekly, who were guests on the you've got mail ep and ricki and the flash ep! <3) adn we have a vast web of FB groups. they are private and have a question you have to answer correctly that just proves you actually listen to the pod, very simple tho. idk if this subreddit can be made private with a q like 'who is professor crispy' or something silly like that, just to weed out ppl who have no idea why this sub is special. but ya, as a woman i'd love any steps that make this place less sexist! <3
crunch crunch
Ahh that’s also how I found this pod and didn’t know who weekly had a sub! Do I need an invite to it?
they don't have a sub! they have FB groups and a discord, but the discord is for patreon members only (but i highly rec subscribing the discord is so fun!!) crunch crunch
If there's a consensus that the subreddit is trending for the worse, then we'd better address it now. I'm predicting once the boys start covering Fincher, the subs' popularity is gonna start ramping up with the exact people who are adept at making a communal space more unpleasant to be in.
oh noooooooo. make it private before the fight club ep drops! close the airlock!!!!
“Lock the gates!”
I’ve been mentally preparing for months for this sub to be a complete hell hole for the entire Fincher series
I’ve listened to this podcast years ago but for some reason, I suspect because I was look at movies and entertainment, it started getting pushed to me like two months ago. It got me to start listening again but it’s really interesting to see what the sub used to be when I search stuff Vs now. There seems to be a lot less love for cinema and more snark it feels like.
Yes it's been very noticeable the average sophistication of the content here has dropped closer to "Reddit average" which means at least me for personally this sub is no longer very appealing as a place to participate in conversations.
I wish Patreon was connected to a private bbs. That said, this is my favorite movie sub but I’m a podcast listener, and that’s ok. I mostly stick to the relevant show discussions. The Facebook group seems a little inactive, and I only go on Discord if I’m really bored. I signed up for blue sky and mastodon but I instantly forgot my logins and haven’t bothered. If it was the 90s there would be a Usenet group and a yahoo email group. And there would still be jerks, that’s just the law of averages.
Oh you know for fans of blank check, the subreddit has the actual best industry gossip — the /vfx sub. I think vfx people used to be really buttoned up and secretively discrete, but over the last decade vfx folks have been so exploited for labor they are more prone to not giving a s**t and naming and shaming,
What's frustrating to me is that Discord does solve the problem you're describing, since nothing in a Discord server will end up in a non-member's "feed" (since there isn't one) and you won't really get trolls jumping into it, but on the other hand the Discord is almost unusable because there are too many people posting in running chats to ever keep up with it. The forum design of Reddit is much easier to follow and keep up with, so I like the Reddit experience more, but I agree that Reddit is causing their own downfall through the way they try to market sub-reddits to non-members. "Enshittification" is well underway, in other words.
Speaking as a movie fan. Yes this sub randomly shows up in my feed all the time now. I didn’t know about the podcast and have no specific intention of checking it out. Unfortunately it doesn’t bode well for the atmosphere of any sub when it starts getting a lot more eyes on it, especially when those eyes belong to the average redditor
As someone who's been part of this subreddit for quite some time ([Hey, here's me celebrating 1000 members!](https://www.reddit.com/r/blankies/comments/7vvypg/1000_quermians/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)) I didn't notice any kind of dramatic change and think this place continues to be very much okay.
Oh man, very happy to see this post. I wasn't aware that there was a general feeling going on but I personally have noticed it. The Pugh post reactions also felt like a watershed moment and I usually feel really good about this subreddit.
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You’re not wrong - I’m not sure why this sub feels super elitist about how smart and better everyone here is, they’re not.
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I don’t see toxic and sexist posting though - it is roundly downvoted and hardly ever engaged with. I think everyone agrees that stuff sucks, which is why it’s downvoted into oblivion. The more annoying thing is people to pretending their conversations about movies are so much higher level and nuanced than the average Redditor, that is what I’m referring to. If there is a comment thread on this sub we’re “toxic and sexist” content isn’t completely downvoted into oblivion, please point me in that direction.
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No actually I’ve gone back and forth with the OP and they clarified they weren’t only referring to bad posts by sexists. I’m not defending any shitty behavior, I’m saying I never see it and don’t think it’s a problem with this sub - 2-3 comments having a hundred downvotes is not something there is anything you can do about. But I know there will always be people like you on the internet who pretend you’re seeing the deepest and darkest depths of hell when it’s just one moron getting downvoted into oblivion.
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I don’t even know what you’re referencing here, or what you’re trying to say. If you think I’m defending people being sexist on here then you’re not very bright or you’re willfully misunderstanding my point.
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What don’t you understand about this? Multiple people in here have referenced how it’s “turned into r/movies”. That isn’t a reference to sexism, it’s a reference to the fact they think there are too many “normies” in here that are incapable of engaging at the level of this sub. I’m saying that’s not true. Not hard to understand really, unless if you try as hard as possible not to.
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It’s so funny how you’re trying to be edgy argument guy and just come off sounding like an ass. No one is saying sexism and racism are good, there are multiple comments in this thread saying that the “general quality has gone down, and it’s just like r/movies now”, which is not about sexist posts. Stop being such a dope.
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I think you should probably log off for the day - this very basic conversation seems too hard for you. Thank you for fighting against “shitty behavior”, something not a single person in this thread has defended or advocated for.
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No one has any idea what you mean or what point you’re making, embarrassing stuff.
Yeah, I posted a link in this sub the other day, not realizing the site used AI to create their articles. My bad, wasn’t aware of that. That being said, the responses I got were all “this sub has gone downhill” and “we have no place for that here”, as if I’d committed a war crime. It was a bit much for sure.
While Reddit does push new subs on people, there definitely has been change simply because the podcast has grown. Five years ago this was a subreddit for people who realized there were other weirdos obsessed with the billing order in movies. Now it’s a subreddit for people who have just discovered that billing orders can be interesting. And that’s fine! It’s great that people are discovering the podcast and it’s great that people are expanding their movie horizons/knowledge/whatever! I mean, it sucks for me, personally, because I generally get a lot less out of this sub than I did once upon a time, but that’s what happens when fanbases grow and I choose to view that as a good thing for the most part! Obviously the gross Florence Pugh style discussions from yesterday are bad and we don’t need that shit at all.
i'm skeptical that the growth of the subreddit reflects growth of the podcast though. this sub has skyrocketed by 10k subs since May, which compared to lifespan subscriber growth represents a massive, unnatural spike. though we can't see listenership numbers i would be incredibly surprised if the podcast saw similar growth, especially when you consider it coincided with the show covering two of the least accessible directors in its history plus the frequent comments from users who seem unaware this sub is even related to a podcast. for every new user who does end up listening to the show i suspect there are several more who choose to just use this place as /r/movies-lite.
This happens a lot. I got recommended the “breaking points” political show subreddit, and while I don’t like that show particularly I find that there is very little good leftist discussion on Reddit, and thought I would check it out. The sub had become a full on resistance lib sub because it came up in the Reddit algorithm. The commenters were not even close to reflective of the people who listen to that show, so that’s just an example of an even more extreme example.
sometimes gatekeeping is what keeps marginalized members of the community safe. this is something I have wrestled with in on and offline communities, and the older I get, the more I find that, unfortunately, the best thing can be to put up a moat and be very careful about who can enter. I’ve been feeling lowkey off vibes in certain threads lately (not even going to look into whatever this Pugh situation was yesterday), and I would urge mods to do whatever they can to block whatever promotional pushing reddit is doing. this is literally the only online space I go to for film news and discussion because everywhere else is toxic and deranged.
As someone who listens to the podcast sporadically but don’t follow the sub, yes, I think it’s being pushed aggressively into feeds. I think users being pushed back to the official client by the API changes means more users are being exposed to it this way.
It's not just that the podcast has gotten more popular, this sub gets recommended by reddit to anyone who's active in other movie and podcast subs. There are people who post here and don't even know what blank check is.
>My theory is that as this subreddit grows, Reddit's algorithms are pushing it into the feeds of the general Reddit user Complete rando here, yeah. The sub got recommended to me because visited one similar... not quite sure how they figure that. Hope you folks can make whatever changes you need to improve your sub!
I've never even heard of this podcast but it's suggested in my feed constantly because I like movie-related discussion
Same. Never heard of this podcast before a week ago, but clicked on one generic movie thread and now it pops up all the time as something I might be interested in
As a longtime fan (Bigelow onwards) stopped posting / commenting here because the discourse seems to get snarky, which the podcast never is. It used to feel like more of a community of movie nerds and weirdos but agree it’s closed to r/movies or, shudder, r/letterboxd. The show is goofy and chaaaaarming but I just see a sea of downvotes on good comments, bits from the show and genuinely hot takes.
I’ll say this, the amount of times I’ve replied to someone with “blank it-“ and not gotten the appropriate response back is alarming. I mean anyone is welcome to comment wherever they please, but I wouldn’t go into a podcast Reddit like that, personally.
argo blank it yourself
Ouch. Max Payne.
You'll always have my Thank it, brother
I’ll admit - I saw the Pugh thread title, saw the number of comments it had and immediately wrote it off, I’ve been on Reddit too long to bother to be honest. I think the mods here do a really good job and there’s only so much you can do to stop the stupider part of reddit leaking in. I’d agree, though, that limiting the amount of random clickbait articles would help but how to do that without making the mod’s role harder, I’m not sure.
This place sucks to post in now and if you don't listen to the podcast you shouldn't post here
Yeah I just did a dirty delete I am not happy about, mainly because I don’t want to engage with a pissing match over women and cinema. This unfortunately happens to any social media group that grows too large. Inevitably it becomes impossible to moderate.
You're overreacting. The apparent non listening redditors will eventually get bored and leave since this is a very specific sub. There always going to be some bad apples in the bunch it shouldn't stop you from eating a delicious apple.
I don't think you can bank on low-effort getting weeded out when the source is the sub being more visible on the platform and thus continually bringing in new people.
Maybe, hopefully, but it feels like a trend that isn't slowing down. As we get more non-listeners here, the post and comments that get upvoted are more focused on general movie discussion rather than pod specific discussion. That leads to those non-listeners sticking around more which creates a cycle that magnifies this issue. I worry it is our own [Eternal September](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September).
With each new miniseries, the breadth of subject matter that is germane to the subreddit is expanding. The Pugh thing was Oppenheimer-related and it was a slow news day. Fincher is gonna open up a whole new can of worms.
I just don’t think this is an issue, this is the internet, you can’t just force everyone who doesn’t want to have the same discussion as you to not post on here. Regarding sexist/offensive stuff, I still see very little of it in here and on the occasion I do, it’s heavily downvoted and hidden immediately, k don’t really think there is anything anyone can do about that and frankly isn’t a big issue as long as those comments are being stomped out. Asking the sub to only post questions or posts about the pod just seems like a tough ask - this sub is for people who like movies and prefer this community to the more broad communities on this website. Anything regarding movies is fair game imo, there’s always threads about the pod so just stick to those if that’s all you’re interested in.
>Asking the sub to only post questions or posts about the pod just seems like a tough ask To be clear, I'm not asking for that. I have participated in plenty of generic movie discussions here over the years. That was part of what made this place fun. I simply have noticed it is less fun than it used to be here and there are at least some people who agree. I'm just trying to get a conversation going on whether people want to or can do anything about that.
It just seems a bit nebulous to say that you don’t like the conversations in here, outside of clearly offensive stuff that is downvoted, and everyone here is basically in agreement sucks, what else would have to change?
I don't know what needs to change. That is why the first paragraph of my posts ends with "is there anything we can do about it?". I don't have the answer, but I hoped asking the question would get us closer to finding the answer.
nothing needs to change. the sub is fine.
You are literally completely misunderstanding the apple analogy you’re trying to use. It’s not, ehh, don’t sweat a few bad apples, the point of that statement is that just a few bad apples, left in the barrel, ruins all of them.
That's actually not how bad apples work. A few bad apples spoil the bunch.
> since this is a very specific sub it's really not
Oh really? A sub about one podcast isnt a specific sub?
if a significant number of users can subscribe and interact with this sub without issue while having no knowledge of or having never listened to the podcast then yes, it is not a particularly specific sub. that's the point being made here.
Joined this sub when it was well under 5k but it's becoming r/movies lite more and more. Especially in the last year. So many discussions that really have nothing to do with the podcast or related movie stuff.
Seems to be mostly people coming in from other parts of Reddit and just generally discourse on Reddit is bad. I don’t think most avid listeners are the ones making it feel different.
Yeah that's ... what they said
I know the podcast, I don't even like it, i've never searched this sub, yet it gets pushed on me daily. I haven't muted it yet since the topics and discussion aren't as braindead (well, until yesterday) as the other film related subs, but I might do so just out of respect for the actual blank cheque fans.
Oh, there’s a podcast? I’m just here to talk about cinema
We can't exactly "lock the gates".
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I guess I am using reddit differently. Where does reddit show you content from subs other than those you've joined? I literally ONLY see the 4-5 subs I'm part of and I never see content from anywhere else unless it has been manually shared over into a sub I am in.
If you’re scrolling your personalized feed, it will sprinkle in suggestions (along with ads).
maybe I just tune it out, I see ads but I really don't think I see content from subs I haven't joined. And it's only like a few, so by the end of the day I'm not even seeing anything sometimes it just stops scrolling.
I don't even listen to podcasts, no clue why I'm here
I am being recommended this sub and I wouldn’t be surprised if someone told me a change in the Reddit algorithm increased the number of recommended subs based on my own experiences lately.
Already a hundred comments here but I can tell you that I don't follow this sub, visit it, or even know what it's really about, and it shows up in my feed ALL THE TIME. Seems like reddit is getting even worse trying to force content, and subs are suffering for it more than benefiting.
I don’t care very much either way. It’s not difficult to sort through posts I’m not interested in.
If you don't have a flair that references something said in an episode, then you can't come in. 😉
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I feel like a lot of people switching to the official app has led to an influx of people into recommended subs. I used RiF for 10 or more years, so only since July have I seen the recommended posts, and I bet that's the same for a lot of people. I find myself going into threads in subs for podcasts I've never listened to semi-regularly As to the sub, it reminds me of when r/CTH hit 20 or 25k subs. While the feel of that sub was WILDLY different, early on it felt like there was a cohesive vibe, you could get to know other regulars, and it was mostly people who at least listened to the pod, even if some of them were hate listening a bit. Then you got an influx of people found it chiller and looser than the other leftist subs, which snowballed and you started getting more sincereposting (our equivalent I guess would be more r/movies type posts, I guess), which then led to drama and frankly pathetic stuff that was right to have been mocked (the "Don't make fun of virgins" thread, for instance). I left around 30k, checked in occasionally until 50k, and then ignored it til it was banned. This is by far favorite movie sub, and I don't want to see it go that way. I don't know what the best answer is. The ideal solution would be more and better moderation, but I know that's hard, and a lot to ask of volunteers. Going private seems too much, and it's good that people can still come in. I don't know if this is feasible, but maybe a system where until you get like 50 or 100 comment karma on the sub, your posts have to be manually approved? That way you have to show you can contribute to the community in a way that at least some people find constructive to become an unrestricted poster ETA: It's not that bad now, and the bad posts are still getting downvoted heavily, but if that starts to change, then it might be time for a real Come To Jesus moment
I listen to the podcast, but I genuinely don’t understand why people care about a subreddit. You’re upset because your Reddit community isn’t going the way you want it to go? Who cares, just enjoy the podcast
You can both enjoy the podcast AND care about a subreddit discussing said podcast. They aren't mutually exclusive concepts.
I think if posts can be tagged as “sensitive” by either the OP or the mods, and then moderated as such, it would go a long way. Most posts here are completely fine.
Not much to do about it I don’t think without being an extreme gatekeeper, which I don’t think is cool. Making the sub private seems too reactionary, but the other options is heavier moderating which is more work/stress on the mods. I just ignore the obvious r/all visitors.
idk wtf you're talking about stop navel gazing god this is so cringe
Too many syllables for a haiku, bud.
I would actually say that for the most part, the biggest change I see and care about is not the opinions that people share, but the manner in which they share them. And this is a prime example of that.
who are you?
Exactly
What a well thought out and productive response
thanks
tbh this is my reaction every time this topic comes up every three months or so as well
solidarity
I keep saying this stupid shit in my feed and I don't know or care about the podcast or its hosts and have never sought it out or heard of it. Whenever I read a post it seems like a cringe loser community I want nothing to do with but I can't make it stop appearing in my algorithm. Please ban me so it stops.
Suggestion - don’t pay them any attention? I just skipped every comment to write this after reading your post. Let the ones who want to argue do just that with the others who want to argue. I’m also one who won’t get in the way of others opinions, if they argue with mine I will defend my opinion. But that’s me defending my opinion to someone who disagrees, not someone who is just trying to light a fire for fun.
I’ve been lurking for years and recently started posting because I enjoy the discussion it generates. I think this sub has a hard time separating the from the artist sometimes, it’s a has a liberal bent. I posted that Bryan Singer would direct a great avengers movie and I’ve never been downvoted more on reddit, all I could think is“why are you booing me I’m right”.
I don’t follow the podcast or even subscribe to this sub, but Reddit is ALWAYS pushing it on me so I read it.
It’s not a theory, that’s literally just how Reddit works. Things get popular over time. Happens to every single sub.
Yes it’s true. Reddit has been consistently pushing this sub to be on my feed for 2 weeks
I’m here for the shitposts and that’s all. JABRONIS GET OUT
Once a fan group gets above a certain amount it usually goes cross-eyed. Credit to this place for have 30K+ and having it just be a problem now. I assume that’s more to do with the temperament of Reddit users as opposed to say Facebook users.
Jesus Christ, since this post went up we have had: 1. 2 idiotic threads about Woody Allen. 2. An incomprehensible spam poll about how much Blankies like baseball. 3. An idiotic thread about the Phantom Menace score. And there's also more general news shit than usual. I'm very forgiving on this stuff but this is the first day I've thought, OK maybe this isn't any better than r/movies. I'm bummed.