Any billion dollar company or industry that faces public backlash due to their practices, ethics, death or disability toll of their products, or even environmental damage, is an a position where they need to effectively steer public opinion in their favor. Today, with Reddit's internet influence on not just its own users but users all across the web, it has become arguably the most effective tool for shaping public opinion. Here I'll examine how the process takes place on this site, and why its so incredibly effective.

Active User Base

While Reddit is home to people of virtually every profession including doctors, scientists, plumbers, and everything in between, the most active and vocal majority are young males. The maturity of this vocal majority is evident in almost every up-voted thread as lame jokes, inside jokes, puns, and circle-jerking are front and center in these threads.

The very fact that these users (the vocal majority) are compelled to engage in this activity, is a powerful indicator that what the user really gets out of it is a feeling of acceptance, rather than 'merely' internet brownie points in the form of karma. After all, no one enjoys ostracization, ridicule, or being bullied. The vast majority of humans yearn for connection, belonging and being a part of something bigger than themselves.

Avoiding the negative, gaining the positive

Many socially awkward children have a tough life as they find themselves ridiculed, attacked, and belittled by peers in school. Not for unpopular views, but rather the way they look or dress, or the activities they engage in. Social rejection is a painful and scarring event in any persons life independent of age. Being socially rejected comes with its high costs, and also prevents the person from gaining the benefits and feeling of being connected and belonging.

Along came Reddit

For social rejects, Reddit is as close as they can come to utopia. No one can judge them on their looks or how they dress, and even their unpopular personal hobbies may have a quiet corner on this site. More importantly though, they can easily join the “cool kids”, the “in crowd”, they too, for once in their life, can be popular. Finally achieving for the first time in their life that feeling of being connected, belonging and popularity.

Best of all its simple. All a person needs to do is discover the popular memes and the socially accepted mainstream party lines and then repeat them. This one quick trick ensures they will never be bullied, or rejected, and instead insures that they can meld quickly into the pack whom will come to their defense instantly should an outlier crop up. Users who adopt these tactics soon find themselves inundated with sweet, sweet karma, and feel the associated dopamine rush that comes along with feeling validated and popular. It's literally addicting, particularly for those who have never experienced the rush in their personal lives.

The other side of the coin

For anyone outside of the pack who holds an unpopular view they are Reddit's version of a social reject. How do people deal with social rejects? Ridicule, attacks, and belittling. The exact thing that the real life social rejects are running from in their personal lives, becomes their arsenal of weapons on Reddit as they do their part in stamping out social rejects and towing whatever party line is on the block.

Throughout history holding an unpopular view could have literally meant the death of you. Today, it only causes psychological damage in the form of ridicule, personal attacks, and ostracization. It takes great fortitude to stand against the tide, all alone while a pack of wolves slowly devours them piece by piece. The vast majority of mankind does not possess the strength and fortitude to weather these attacks, and instead succumbs to the pack and quickly melds to stop the assault, and gain these weapons and protection for themselves.

Establish the mainstream – Make it fashionable and popular – Ridicule opposition

So how does a company or organization shape public opinion? By following the formula.

1. Establish the Mainstream: Using a team of posters an organization posts a positive spin on the target topic, then dupes the Reddit vote system by rapidly pushing it up “hot”. Anything massively up voted must be popular and 'cool' with the majority of Redditors, right?

2. Make it fashionable and popular: The same team then goes in to divide the debate. All positive or reinforcing views are up voted. Again, any weak users who enters the comments sees these highly up voted comments immediately identifies that “this is the popular crowd”. And on the other side, all negative or dissenting comments are down voted and or replied to with ridicule and attacks.

3. Ridicule Opposition: This phase begins in the establishing threads, where dissenters are attacked (often personally, rather than their content) and downvoted. But it expands more thoroughly in subsequent posts where the other side of the debate will be ridiculed, belittled or labeled as “crazy” for holding the opposing view often using “funny” pictures to get the message across. When people recognize that an unpopular view is being ridiculed, it causes them to immediately recognize what the popular view is and they can then rush to prove to the pack how worthy they are by circle-jerking and ridiculing the opposition.

As the formula is repeated, less actual works needs to be done by the organization to create the desired outcome. This is because the active and vocal user base quickly adopts the idea as part of the popular opinion, and fearing ostracization and attacks, and yearning for acceptance, they quickly adopt the role of enforcers and thought police. Lenin, is alleged to have called this crowd “useful idiots”, and regardless if he did or not, the term fits this crowd precisely. The views they hold are dictated simply by popularity rather than research, self discovery, or personal experience. The truth of the matter is irrelevant to these people, as maintaining their position in the pack is their only driving force.

Casualties – Truth, discussion, and true science

Once the pack has formed on an issue, it becomes virtually impossible for any debate to occur. No matter what opposing evidence or discussion is started all popular views are up-voted, and all unpopular views are buried. The pack will then engage in vicious personal attacks and ostracization of the opposition not just to stifle them, but to warn their fellow pack members that this is the fate that awaits them should they have a change of heart.

Name calling like “crazy, lunatic, denier” serves to shutdown any form of debate on the topic. Even on topics that in a free and open scientific society, clearly need more research, debate in any form is crushed through these ad hominen attacks. For instance, I don't think anyone on Earth actually debates that the climate is changing, but everyday people are labeled as “climate change deniers”. This is a clear and intentional attempt to stifle dissent and prevent the pack members from daring to look into the issue for themselves.

Society as a macrocosm and Reddit as a microcosm has been shoehorned into believing that all reality is black or white. Good or evil. With us or against us. When life is actually filled with thousands of shades of grey. By consistently reinforcing this belief that issues are black or white, all issues that truly fall into a shade of grey can never actually be fleshed out, discussed and studied.

Conclusion

I hope that after reading this it is self-evident, and you'll begin to really recognize the formula and the pack mentality it produces as pervasive on this site. Holding an unpopular opinion is arguably the toughest thing a person can do to themselves in 2015, while the easiest thing to do is adopt the party line. The nail that sticks out gets hammered.

“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”

• MLKJR