Some time ago, as Google’s search engine got worse, I – along with many other people, it would seem – got used to appending the word “reddit” to the beginning or end of the search query. Usually, this garnered the best search results in the form of anecdotes. What’s a good tablet to buy for Home Assist? Reddit will know. How often should I lather my dog in butter? Reddit will know.

What’s the best passive air freshener for a home?

That’s all from one thread, by the way, and the thread only had, like, 10 top-level comments.

Look, I knew there was advertising on Reddit. At least they used to try to hide it, using manipulation and subterfuge. This, though? Just blatantly having a GPT or other LLM troll threads and post long-winded advertisements? Jesus Christ.

The funny thing is, fifteen or twenty years ago, when I was first on “the net,” if I saw a comment on a site with a numbered list with hyperlinked headers, I would have been impressed at how much effort that person puts into their post and inherently trusted them over someone else (not like I was too worried about hidden advertisements in forum posts back then). Now, though, in The Year of Our Lord 2024, I feel like I only trust a comment online if it’s lacking punctuation, says “lol” a bit more than it should, and has at least one misspelling in it somewhere. Even then, I’m finding I have to basically hire a private investigator on the user in order to make sure it’s a real person, and not a bot, account-for-hire, or someone utilizing their “human” status to get people to click referral links.

There has to be something better. I guess I could just stop appending “reddit” to my search posts – the Mom Blogs that I avoided so passionately back in the day can’t be that bad by comparison.

Oh god, what have I become?