u/var_usernameinput

Hi, I have social anxiety and to keep myself sane I end up being hyper observant about the people in my vicinity, trying to make notes about their behaviour and mannerisms, things that make them uniquely them.

I call this series Schrödinger’s Strangers - people are both known and unknown until truly observed.

Today’s subject probably goes against my very definition of this series and was quite interesting to think about after interacting with them.

I met this person randomly in a social event hosted by one of my acquaintances a while ago. Most people who know me IRL don’t know that I’m pretty active on Reddit. There was a miscommunication with that a while ago where people assumed I’m on some sort of religious social media ban and I didn’t correct them either way.

I’ve met quite a fair share of Redditors IRL. But nothing prepared me for the this person. He had an air of moral superiority in every sentence he spoke. Demeaning people using “regular” social media like Instagram and Twitter/X and classifying them as “low class individuals from XYZ areas” was his way of starting a conversation on how good Reddit is. I wanted to see where he’d go with this so I prompted him to figure out his thinking process.

“So there’s only a select set of intellectual Telugu people posting on this…Reddit thing is it?” I asked
To which he felt acknowledged but vaguely triggered and replied, “Yes but lately it’s been full of shit from these <low class slur> recycling content from other platforms”
When asked what he meant by lately, he replied “Since the past year”.

Somehow every conversation steered in the direction of his niche life. How he has interests that the common crowd wouldn’t even be able to understand. How he is applying to be a moderator for a “popular” sub reddit, but he’s probably too smart for them anyways. How Indians and Telugu people are ruining his chances for anything good on Reddit. How he can easily “charm” international women and pick up a date on Reddit (I almost lost it here). How he even found “success” in dating on Reddit (which after some prompting he revealed almost involuntarily that he just got catfished but that’s the way of the land haha)

I feigned ignorance of this wonderful amazing social media for him to educate me and boast of his karma and posting history.

I was left wondering why people think they are better just because they have some sort of niche interest. I realized it gives some sort of secret happiness and you want to preserve it longer? It’s like that saying “Close the gate but only after I get inside”.

I eventually ended up permabanning from one of the larger generic subs I moderate after he was spamming and begging for DMs, and breaking possibly every rule there was.

I understand the reasoning of wanting to be different and unique. Heck I myself used to boast of my unique interests as well a decade ago, but I was only a teen back then. How does a grown individual think of themselves to be superior because of their so called “niche habits”?

I sometimes watch his activity in the Telugu subs we have, often hate comments and slurs. Not really as active he claims but I find it almost amusing about how this was his entire personality. I wonder how he’d flip out once he realises he’s not as unique and niche as he thinks he is.

Until next time.