Editing Blog/2026-01-06/Is The Internet Dead? (section)

== Does This Happen? ==

Reddit is a pretty big social network and it's pretty public so you can pick out a top post on the front page and try to find its origin. All the ones that are temporally relevant (Tim Walz and the Autism Scams, Trump and Venezuela, Trump and Greenland) are unlikely to be duplicates, but if I pick out one that's content-based, it shows up pretty fast.

Take a look at [https://www.reddit.com/r/TopCharacterTropes/comments/1q57xb5/when_special_forces_are_treated_like_an_actual/ these] [https://www.reddit.com/r/TopCharacterTropes/comments/1kj98l9/when_special_forces_are_treated_like_an_actual/ two] Reddit posts. I'll post them below for you to look at next to each other:

[[File:Screenshot - -r-TopCharacterTropes Reposts.png|center]]

Okay, so the post is real but that's not a big "Dead Internet" thing. You'll see, however, that the comments are [https://www.reddit.com/r/TopCharacterTropes/comments/1q57xb5/comment/nxy4fei/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button pretty] [https://www.reddit.com/r/TopCharacterTropes/comments/1kj98l9/comment/mrl87w4/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button similar] too:

[[File:Screenshot - -r-TopCharacterTropes Duplicate Comments Example.png|center]]

and you can find that [https://www.reddit.com/r/TopCharacterTropes/comments/1q57xb5/when%20special%20forces%20are%20treated%20like%20an%20actual/ similarity] [https://www.reddit.com/r/TopCharacterTropes/comments/1kj98l9/when_special_forces_are_treated_like_an_actual/ replicated]

[[File:Screenshot - -r-TopCharacterTropes Duplicate Example 2.png|center]]

On Reddit, usernames can either be chosen or generated as defaults. You'll see that the new usernames are all generated: Word Word Number is the format that Reddit uses. So certainly it's true that one style of post is a duplicate of old posts made by humans. This makes sense. It's the same pressure as studios making remakes or sequels/prequels vs. new IP. A demonstrated well-performing post is easier to redo than trying to create a new one.

Okay, so it clearly does happen and is pretty easy to find. In this case, everything was the same, text, images, comments. I think that's often going to be the case. When you have a large audience, only some fraction are going to see the thing, so repeated exposure doesn't risk saturation.

As for the subreddit or Reddit itself, these things are clearly highly engaged-with as far as the human users are concerned. The [[wikipedia:1% rule|1% rule]] means that  the majority of human users are consuming the content, so these repetitive comments and posts aren't a big deal so long as you don't hit viewer saturation.

But what's in it for the bots?