by Anthony DeRouen
Published January 23rd 2025
Not all horror fans are alike. Many are content with watching a film and moving on with their life. Maybe they'll watch the sequel, who knows? Other fans will watch the film, check out its Wiki page or an article online, then move on. Good chance they'll return for a sequel if they enjoyed the first enough. A good number of fans will watch the film, read articles about it, and follow its news feed. These types of fans are likely to attend horror conventions, film festivals and community events (like Halloween).
And then, there's the fans who engage in online discourse. You know the ones! The keyboard critics, the theorists, the uber fans, the ones who have an opinion and gladly share it. Everyday a new conversation springs up on social media or a forum and everyday opinions clash.
I frequent Facebook. Their groups make it easy to join and jump in the conversation. But I found - more often than not - most people want to disagree simply to disagree. By refuting someone's statement they wish to come off as someone more in the know. They want to feel validated in their conquest for geek knowledge. Facebook has some pretty decent moderating tools, but this relies on the moderators to...well moderate. Groups can go off the rails. Member spam AI generated imagery, posts are flagged and sit in the feed for days or week until the moderator come remove them, if they so choose. Sadly most chatter related to specific films or franchises lack coherence. While memes are funny, sometimes you want to have conversations with adults.
Ladies and gentleman, allow me to introduce Reddit. Yes, Reddit has been around since 2005 and is now the 8th most visited site in the world. Reddit has crafted a massive, yet inclusive community of virtually anything you can think of. Their upvote system, while not perfect, raises popular responses which search engines pick up and display as results for queries. I frequent Silent Hill ,The Thing, Alien Isolation, and a bit of Horizon Dawn for good measure. While responding to posters I get the same feeling as if I was talking with another fan at a convention: polite, courtesy, energized someone else shares the same passion that I do.
The tool that allows anonymity is helpful, if not fully needed. You can act out as an alter ego, but the system rewards thoughtfulness, integrity, and civility. If you act like an adult, and respond to others in that fashion you'll find conversations much more enjoyable.
On Reddit moderators are active, however users, from my experience, moderate themselves. Conversations are civil, sometimes thought provoking and help create a fun yet mature atmosphere where fans can talk about their favorite films, games, hobbies and not feel intimidated. I also appreciate the use of spoiler covers. Maybe I haven't seen the new movie yet, but I enjoy talking about its previous iterations. Maybe I'm on the fence about reading Stephen's King's new book but I'd rather not read about the ending.
The fact that more entertaining, topical, "better" content floats to the top is a bonus. Millions of people scan the furthest reaches of the internet and post things they find interesting, ridiculous, or noteworthy, and the community votes to banish things to oblivion or exalt them to the forefront (upvotes). Depending on the day, the front page can make it look like a news site, a humor site, a gamer site, or music site.
What I think makes Reddit unique is how they are employed, enforced and above all else respected by the community. Reddit is turning out to be a place where civil discourse lives on, and we can all go back to treating each other how we wish to be treated.
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