When arguing about your favorite recipes or politics, there’s no better platform than Reddit. Reddit started in 2005 as a way for niche communities to share and discuss information. Since then, it has become one of the top online platforms. For creators, Reddit is a powerful way to build your audience. But as your audience evolves, you open yourself up to Reddit snark.
While other social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter have shadowy algorithms that dictate what gets shown or said, Reddit (at least in theory) uses human moderators to determine what gets seen or deleted. In 2024, nearly 51 million users logged in to the site, according to Statista.
These moderators reign over communities of all shapes and sizes, many of which aren’t necessarily positive. Over the past few years, there has been a rise of snark subreddits. These are subreddits dedicated entirely to trash-talking and pointing out the flaws of influencers they dislike.
Since the dawn of the tabloid, people have been writing scandalously about celebrities. However, the snark subreddit, as we know of today, crawled out of the primordial ooze to mock Trisha Paytas.
r/Trishyland and Reddit Snark
R/Trishyland was full of viewers discussing the often controversial creator in less than positive terms, sharing images of the creator’s children, and attempting to contact the people in Paytas’ life.
In late 2022, r/Trishyland was “banned for excessive copyright removals,” according to a message on the platform. In a video after the ban, Paytas said that she would “report to Reddit every day” the posts she’d see. According to Paytas, the subreddit would send “an unwarranted amount of hate towards her.
Since the fall of r/Trishyland, hundreds of other snark subreddits have appeared on the platform for creators of all sizes. It doesn’t matter if you are a TikToker who posts food reviews or a popular podcaster. Chances are you’ve got a snark subreddit made for you.
These safe spaces for shit-talkers can be incredibly frustrating, even outright problematic, for creators who weren’t the targets of high school locker-room gossip.
Most creators who have snark subreddits let them bubble in the background, understanding that it is just part of being a famous person online. Recently, Ethan Klein of h3, who once had a podcast with Paytas, has decided that his snarkers must be punished.
Ethan Klein Goes to War with r/h3Snark
In December, Klein, through his lawyer, started issuing multiple copyright claims against the h3snark subreddit. The subreddit was a mini r/Trishyland, reposting and mocking videos of his bi-weekly live streams. Just a couple of months later on Feb 17, H3 Snark mods announced that the subreddit would be “on break” for the foreseeable future.
On his Instagram Story, Klein gloated, writing “It won’t save you scumbags from what’s coming. I can’t wait for your family, friends, work, and school to know what you’ve been up to.”
As a long-time viewer of Klein, whom he would deem a “fallen fan,” this crusade feels somewhat hypocritical. In 2017, Klein won one of the most important lawsuits for internet creators against fitness creator Matt Hoss. The case cemented the concept of fair use in YouTube videos. It created a legal precedent allowing creators to use snippets of other’s content as long as it’s transformative.
Klein is now attacking others who are using his work as commentary. Even if it is negative and, at times, combative, there’s no reason it should be harassed off the internet.
Know When to Pick Your Battles With Reddit Snark
As a social media influencer, people will always be analyzing everything you do. Sometimes, they will congregate together. Attacking their spaces can lead to positive de-platforming. But it also puts a target on your back that can create future snarkers.
“Communities and users that incite violence or that promote hate based on identity or vulnerability will be banned,” Reddit writes in their rules. It’s unclear if being an influencer is an identity, but some view it as harassment.
Subreddit r/YouTubedrama has banned snark subreddit crossposts because “Snark subs tend to be hate circle jerks dedicated to one person that post content that borders on harassment.”
Snark subreddits aren’t going away any time soon, though I’d be shocked if more creators don’t start speaking up against them. But whether they like them or not, they are a part of their ecosystem. These subreddits continue to add to their popularity, even if it isn’t in the way they’d prefer.
