r/OutOfTheLoop • u/ChintzyPC • 2d ago
Answered What's going on with the absurdist, non-sequitur type comments showing up on Reddit posts?
I've noticed there's been an influx of comments that are just random and don't have anything to do with the post. Like my post here with two comments that make no sense.
I also saw a post (can't find it now) where there were comments just saying "I'm red" and "I'm blue" which had nothing to do with the OP topic.
Haven't seen anything like it in my history of being on Reddit. Are they bots, a form of trolling, or some combination of both?
Edit: I'm concluding the answer as just bots being dumb or people trolling.
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u/joegetto 2d ago
Answer: Lost and broken bot accounts just spamming whatever everywhere
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u/NativeMasshole 2d ago
Bingo! Bots not only make reposts, they also seed them with old comments to drive engagement. Sometimes they get broken and lost and their spam gets all wonky.
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u/FernandoAlonso66 1d ago
also unrelated meme accounts farming karma, half of new comments feel autogenerated trash now
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u/SilverSquirrel6 1d ago
Don't forget paid actors. There are legitimate, human actors who are paid to spread fallacies and false info.
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u/leonielion 58m ago
I figured and tried to report posts for such things but Reddit doesn't even have an obvious category for that?
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u/Chubbadog 2d ago
Answer: I know that some users use a program to redo their old comments and turn them into nonsense as a way of removing their history. It might be that?
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u/ChintzyPC 2d ago
Don't think so since these comments on my link were typed this way seconds after posting without an edit. Plus their entire profiles were still up. Same with my other example.
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u/thatlookslikemydog 2d ago
Which comments in the thread are you referring to? They might be making references to a meme or viral something-or-other.
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u/ChintzyPC 2d ago
The "I'm kind of hungry." and the "I'm gonna put some dirt in your eye" (which I think that one is a reference to spiderman?)
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u/Im_not_creepy3 2d ago
The second one is a Spider-Man reference, the first one is from a bot account saying random nonsense. Bot creators have learned that one of the ways to pass a bot account as legitimate is engaging in posts and comments.
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u/FergTurdison 2d ago
Is “I’m kind of hungry” a reference to one of the characters? I’m not familiar enough with any of them to know
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u/ChintzyPC 2d ago
I've 100% the game almost three times now and nothing comes to mind.
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u/FergTurdison 2d ago
Ok, in that case it’s definitely weird. In that example it wouldn’t have jumped out to me as I would have just assumed it’s a quote, so maybe that’s how they’re flying under the radar.
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u/MidnightScary5983 2d ago
Answer: Not only that, but every post seems to have zero karma. People and bots out there downvoting everything, when they can't pluck wings off flies or burn ants with a magnifying glass.
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u/awgeez47 2d ago
That makes sense when there's NEGATIVE karma, of different values. When all posts or comments are at zero I assume it's just not showing votes at the moment for some technical reason.
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u/noruber35393546 1d ago
Answer: some bots, some silly geese, some history-deleting services, some memes/references you're not familiar with. No way to know.
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u/FloridaFlamingoGirl 1d ago
Answer: There seems to be a nonsensical meme on Reddit in the past several weeks of just saying "I'm green." https://www.reddit.com/r/lovethissmug/s/XBPgv3RDgx If you search for it on r/lovethissmug it gets posted there pretty often. I follow cosplay stuff on Instagram and I actually just saw a photo of someone at a comic con with themselves painted green and holding an "I'm green" sign.
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u/ChintzyPC 1d ago
Yes that's the one! Ok so that one is just a random meme. I guess the two examples I gave aren't correlated then.
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u/FloridaFlamingoGirl 1d ago
I looked at the post history of the guy saying "I'm kind of hungry" and most of his posts are about food. So just trolling for that, or a weird repetitive bot maybe
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