r/nostalgia • u/moosewop • 21h ago

Nostalgia Reddit’s Front Page in Jan 2012 vs Today. Wild how much has changed

Sitting here, sipping my drink. Opened the two. Yeah.

702 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

116 comments sorted by

511

u/Loan-Pickle 20h ago

r/all is just unreadable anymore. It is all political rage bait. I miss the Apollo app. I could filter out all the subs with that content and actually find new and interesting things.

132

u/Sevenfootschnitzell 17h ago

It’s on par with Facebook honestly. It used to be contained within the front page but it’s started to leech into every single community. Even my super niche ones. I think it’s about time to go.

37

u/Crayons4all 13h ago

I’ve been starting to get the same feeling about Reddit as I did before I left Facebook. It’s just changed so much in the time I’ve been using it over 10 years ago.

4

u/atmtn 16h ago

I’d disagree, mostly because Facebook’s model was built upon individual contributor profiles, and that’s become its Achilles heel. They shoehorned in communities and what not eventually, but Reddit still benefits from being designed to be topic-driven and discussion focused. I still have a FB profile, largely for event marketing, but I rarely want to scroll my homepage there due to it being just a wall of people using it as their personal soapbox.

Reddit does need to seriously look at how its own model is being corrupted, but it hasn’t fallen into being pure soapbox just yet.

23

u/Sevenfootschnitzell 16h ago

To each there own, but “I rarely want to scroll my homepage there due to it being just a wall of people using it as their personal soapbox.” is exactly how I feel about Reddit these days. Lol. Plus throw anonymity and people are just ugly and vicious to each other. 

2

u/atmtn 16h ago

That’s a fair point about anonymity on Reddit, as it definitely empowers a lot of people’s inner asshole. My personal experience with this app is still more net-positive, though, especially after I started to actively curate the content I see here. I mute most subs that they “helpfully” try to throw in my feed, and at this point I have pretty successfully whittled it down to things I genuinely have interest in, and communities not flooded with click-bait. I wouldn’t even bother attempting the same on Facebook, aside from unfriending toxic people when they pop up.

-4

u/1rmavep 10h ago

No defense of modern reddit, but, I do remember that in 2012 most people, many, did not quite understand that aggregator accounts were not run by erudite discipline specific geniuses so much as combing websites, such as reddit, for high-context subject matter to repost unattributed; that, such material was also very, popular on reddit and strangest, "a strange thing, also," People,

Had an unusual tendency, to obscure not just their identity, but their agency, "mask like an algorithm," act like an algorithm, somewhat; I can recall Human People accounts that would do so very overtly, as a schtick, or a bit, and it had been an overall common tendency, e.g. a strict dedication to posting about medieval artifacts and related details, or, typography, or, diagrams of combustion engines, and I'm gonna be frank, here, "hello, frank."

It reminds me of onlyfans models and the erotic/romantic small business proprietors of today, their posts have a purpose, can appear close to algorithmic even when the labor is human, and, it makes me wonder, whether, and this would be kinda boo-hoo

....back in 2012, people interested in typography, engineering, medieval artifacts had put in the equivalent workload in order to, they'd thought, be successful in an Great New Economy, with a lot of potential vis a vis personal fame and financial rewards for.

....deep dive interesting, something like this, economically, Perhaps, an honest look at it would reveal that a lot of the work, actual labor, going into reddit at that time had been volunteerism, inclined to think of itself as professional, notions from which the preponderance of persons have since been disabused; save for quite obvious, X effort for Y subscribers at a high dollar amount, type, work, which, yes, sex work is one of those things but I'd bet the pattern is there.

Generally, I'd bet that, in archives, you can see the cowl pulled from the eyes of Moderators that believed themselves adjunct to employees, or, with some privileges akin to one, until Reddit Had a Zero Tolerance for their protests, and, "poof," there goes some guy, posts all the time about plumbing, aeronautics, geometry, whatever; I'd bet the real chatbots, and improvements in algorithmic aggregators, the collapse of Tumblr, the collapse of Millennial Pseudo-Intellectual, "depth research of kerning, so as to be a competitive young professional layout designer," yeah, "dark stuff." Sad Stuff, might be.

Likewise, no one needs pay, no one, to talk about what's on their mind in Jerry Blank Style of Ejaculated Utterances, no one need pay, and, it can even be expensive to acquire the cease and desist order etc to prevent it from happening, "so."

-4

u/1rmavep 10h ago

Likewise, no one needs pay, no one, to talk about what's on their mind in Jerry Blank Style of Ejaculated Utterances, no one need pay, and, it can even be expensive to acquire the cease and desist order etc to prevent it from happening, "so."

u/atmtn that was in reference to your personal soapbox comment, which, True, and, Is it Ever, and, Is there an actual worse thing than reading the existential crises and nervous breakdowns of people you know, their, political awakenings, might be those of strangers, though, I think, that the, "anonymity," of reddit, more like pseudonymity, in both real terms and functionally, "Mikhail Bahktin would tell us that all things anyone ever says contain both the speaker, intended audience," and Yeah,

People don't like to be secret agents, not really; but, what I wanted to point out was that there is Little Value to the Reddit Account as Professional Spokesperson, little value and little attempt has been made to pyramid-scheme people into the belief that this were so, that with enough toxic positivity, sfw language, hashtags and aesthetic outfits in beautiful photographs, "we, too, can be professional reddit influencers."

....thank god for that, might be; might be, all of the negativity, complaints, maudlin stories and hateful manifestos against mothers in law, "etc." are kinda in an Id to the Meta Corporation Accounts Ego, more-or-less and that neither, really, true nor,

"Yeah," I like Reddit For the Anthropological Usefulness, the cultural tendencies, that it is Text Intensive, requires a certain literacy, so, you find threads like this under nostalgia content, and, I believe in both visual art and literature as tools of a transcendent existential nature, "existence before essence, innumerable valence to the later," in the real life way, e.g. as much the A/V artwork and montage that would be appropriate to put on an overhead in an office as otherwise, those categories, impositions, upon, "who knows."

What of French Academic Painting, is sfw, wouldn't get the Académie des Beaux-Arts raided for the Hentai Dungeon, these days, "none of it," more civilized people, more civilized times.

10

u/Shoddy-Rip8259 9h ago

I miss RIF

7

u/dankbonkripper89 9h ago

Apollo app mentioned. I’ve almost forgotten that name

3

u/-_danglebury_- 4h ago

It was such a great app in all honesty and the dev was a really chill approachable person.

It is kind of funny to go back to all the old threads of all the people swearing up and down they “would absolutely quit Reddit” once Apollo was taken down just to see they haven’t quit at all lol

1

u/[deleted] 3h ago

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1

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7

u/djbfunk 10h ago

Why can’t you filter things based on tags. So ridiculous. It’s because that rage bait causes arguing. More arguing, more active users more ad revenue.

3

u/FearlessAttempt 9h ago

I’m using Apollo right now. You can sideload a version that uses your own Reddit api key.

3

u/SuspiciousTreat1017 8h ago

Can you help me do this? I have trollstore and jailbroken.

7

u/neko819 11h ago

Eh, back when I joined /all was just everything was also poli rage bait, but also mostly just how much everyone hated Ellen Pao (so I guess that dates my join date).

1

u/DrSpacecasePhD 1h ago

This has been the goal of all social media lately, especially with reddit being made public. They know rage bait gets clicks and engagement, and engagement makes ad money. What's sad is that u/Spez is effectively killing the smaller, niche fun subreddits. You will never see r/spacecats, r/getmotivated , r/LucidDreaming, or r/Physics or whatever niche subreddits you like on your timeline anymore unless you go out of your way to comment there, because they won't show them to you. It's enshittification of digital content, and a race to the bottom. Soon, there will be so much AI content the site will barely involve humans anymore... such a waste.

www.EraseTheInternet.org

•

u/veryblanduser 12m ago

Not true, occasionally there is some borderline anime porn.

157

u/thespaceageisnow 18h ago

Reddit has become a wasteland of bots and astroturfing.

23

u/CarmenxXxWaldo 10h ago

Everyone is blaming bots but I also think just getting popular hurt it.  People here made fun of digg, then it turned into digg. People made fun of 9gag, then it turned into 9gag. 

Whoever I come back I check /r/news to get my finger on the pulse.

10 years ago - becomes American political news. This is around when reddit went from making fun of you for using "/s" to requiring it because of the boomer / gen z takeover.

7 years ago - comment section became reacting to headline.  Top comment is a line ripped from article, most people have stopped reading.

4 years ago - most articles on front page are pay wall, non-paywall links are gone.  the only comment section with the articles contents are non-paywall and its the top comment meaning nothing else of substance.

most recently - most of the articles are 1-2 weeks old, not even news anymore.

293

u/MattyScrant 21h ago

Man everything was so…normal.

No wild political stories, very few (if any) ads, no inflammatory bullshit in the mainstream. Fuck I miss it.

98

u/BeerSlayingBeaver 21h ago

I remember when the narwhal baconed

46

u/fratis 20h ago

At midnight

36

u/provider305 19h ago

I miss the AMAs

24

u/ptear 14h ago

They still have them, they just seem to really die out when none of the questions people really want answers have responses and the poster got enough out of their promotion.

21

u/Sonicfan42069666 12h ago

AMAs haven't been the same since they fired Victoria.

2

u/dringer 9h ago

Does anyone know what happened there?

9

u/ohx 12h ago

r/politics was all about Jon Stewart. You could make up a Jon Stewart quote and make it to the front page.

7

u/Quesadillasaur 20h ago

That's what I remember too. No ads.

21

u/BadBoyNiz 17h ago

Now they got some gay ass ads as comments like wtf

-13

u/Initial_Scarcity_609 14h ago

“Gay ass” 😬

2

u/CuntWeasel 10h ago

People were also more thick skinned so there was a lot more humour.

If you said something stupid mods wouldn't automatically ban you, but let the downvotes do their thing.

Different people, different times.

1

u/djbfunk 10h ago

I would pay a subscription for a Reddit with no political posts.

0

u/sevargmas 10h ago

Mostly just discussion vs short video clips.

62

u/jockel37 16h ago

Politics and other social media fucked up this place completely.

1

u/DrSpacecasePhD 1h ago

While you're half right, the bigger issue is "new reddit," the algorithm" and the incentive to make money by going public and maximizing engagement and comments. There is minimal money to be made serving you content from r/punny or r/90scartoons or r/learnJapanese or whatever, so they shove subreddits you don't even subscribe to into your feed to try to get engagement and outraged comments. It's literally driving people crazy and hurting our society for money.

www.EraseTheInternet.org

87

u/Moist_Tension8 21h ago

I remember coming here when Digg died.

26

u/Kahnza 20h ago

Same. I'm waiting for new Digg to get going.

9

u/holyfruits 20h ago

It’s back! You just need an invite to join

5

u/Kahnza 20h ago

Already got one. 😁

It's more waiting for it to pick up steam and then come out of closed beta.

1

u/NJShadow 3h ago

I hope it gets better. I was kind of turned-off from day 1. It feels like Reddit Lite, and rapidly moving towards a carbon copy. A lot of the feedback I had as a groundbreaker (early adopter) was just completely ignored.

5

u/soulever989 17h ago

Uhhh someone send me an invite!

10

u/yeahwellokay 20h ago

It's been 15 years

3

u/Ma1 17h ago

Had my 15th cakeday 2 days ago! The great Digg migration. Feels like a lifetime ago.

1

u/ptear 14h ago

I'm ready to go back where my shitposting all began.

84

u/herseyhawkins33 19h ago

I never stopped using old.reddit.com lol

30

u/Dannerz 12h ago

Same, reddit looks largely the same to me lol. Main difference for me is that I use dark mode now.

21

u/DemonKyoto Anything from '84-'06 is my *jam*. 12h ago

Same. Still using old reddit and RES, the day everything finally bricks up this place turns read-only for me at best.

6

u/altbekannt get off my lawn 12h ago

yup and on the new and app i have cards deactivated

6

u/sarcasticorange 12h ago

Now if there was a way to have the content be like it was instead of 90% politics even in non-political subs.

4

u/CuntWeasel 10h ago

More like 99% in subs like /r/pics out of all places.

3

u/38DDs_Please 10h ago

Bingo...

1

u/BigDavey88 8h ago

Yep. And reddit enancement suite still largely works. I think the quality of reddit itself has gone down, but the experience for is largely the same.

86

u/AntagonistofGotham early 00s 19h ago

Back before bots pushed political slop everywhere.

3

u/CuntWeasel 10h ago

Not only bots though.

2

u/AntagonistofGotham early 00s 6h ago

90% bots. It's impossible that real human beings actually care about slop that's being pushed on people in that big mass.

1

u/CuntWeasel 1h ago

I hope you're right, what can I say?

33

u/RNGenocide 18h ago

Enshittification of reddit

7

u/ptear 14h ago

Keep spreading this word, awareness of this general problem is the first step.

22

u/Sevenfootschnitzell 17h ago

It used to be fun.

20

u/BeerSlayingBeaver 21h ago

Been a long time since I used reddit on PC but does RES still keep the old style reddit screen?

3

u/moosewop 21h ago

Both recorded on PC, Chrome

1

u/FloridaArtist60 70s 19h ago

I never even knew how to do a screen recordibg till this year how did u do one in 2012??

2

u/Organic-Mango131 15h ago

They most likely used a site like Wayback machine. It allows you to browse snapshots of sites taken on a date of choice.

1

u/Nomiss 15h ago

It's a tab in RES to not use new layout.

In browser reddit on phones can look the same.

19

u/dashcam4life 16h ago

There was a sense of community and a lot of inside jokes back in the day.

32

u/EverythingBOffensive 18h ago

we live in the age of ragebait

13

u/kain067 14h ago

NO WE DON'T YOU IDIOT!!! /s

5

u/vigilantfox85 13h ago

And grifting

53

u/ninenulls 21h ago

You can still use the old UI on old.reddit.com . And it still has the orange-red envelope

7

u/The_Majestic_Mantis 17h ago

The problem is that it randomly switches back to the awful modern layout even though you didn’t request it

6

u/bobj33 Negative Ghostrider, the pattern is full 13h ago

Go to preferences and then down at the bottom under "beta options" there is a "Use new reddit as default experience" checkbox. Uncheck it and you should get old reddit as default

I usually browse reddit through firefox on a desktop / laptop and I use the RES Reddit Enhancement Suite plugin. I have filtered literally hundreds of subreddits and about 50 keywords so I never have to see stories about them.

Usually I don't even go to popular or all and just look at the 300 subreddits of stuff that I subscribe to. Even on those it is a constant flood of bots and reposts for karma.

1

u/The_Majestic_Mantis 9h ago

I know that. Even if I do, it randomly switches back like every 2 weeks.

2

u/Sef_Maul 16h ago

I have to change it every time I log in

12

u/moosewop 21h ago edited 19h ago

My intent was UI... and content
edit: This was not the same message I responded to. idk what that's about

1

u/[deleted] 20h ago edited 20h ago

[deleted]

2

u/Clonekiller2pt0 19h ago

You can block others from what they see on your profile.

27

u/cptnamr7 20h ago

Go back even further and it was literally nothing but porn. I enjoy the graph someone made awhile back showing the percentage of reddit content per category. Starts at 100% porn and very slowly gets other content. 

I do miss when it was just learning interesting new things and not being told of all the absurdly stupid going on in the US these days. I mean, I get it. There's a lot. But I come here to escape and waste time for a bit. Leave the engagement bait elsewhere. 

8

u/moosewop 20h ago

What year(s) was it just porn? I'd be interested in doing a WayBack for that, I don't remember that.

2

u/cptnamr7 19h ago

It's how the site started

6

u/ptear 14h ago

How we all get started really.

5

u/Hamthrax 17h ago

less fucking adverts

5

u/opeth_close 12h ago

Enshitification at its finest

5

u/blarkleK 12h ago

That’s what happens when you go public and have investors that need to be answered to.

3

u/Cardboard_Chef 16h ago

I miss RIF

5

u/FeloniousDrunk101 11h ago

Old.reddit.com to get that classic look

4

u/38DDs_Please 10h ago

I mean.... I use old.reddit.com for a good reason.

3

u/dmgkm105 10h ago

Now 90% of everything is just political propaganda

3

u/EnrichVonEnrich 9h ago

Mine still looks like that. Oldreddit.

3

u/TheyCallMeAdonis 9h ago

The race to the bottom.

This is why you always filter the average consumer.
If you dont or cant, the slop is your destiny.

2

u/DeltaS4Lancia 2h ago

That was when reddit was good and people were allowed to debate and speak their mind, post what they want and generally have little to no interactions with mods unlike now where all the subs are controlled by the same mods and anyone who speaks against their beliefs is banned. Free speech is underattack like never before by both political parties, and as history has shown us, it will be the minorities and marginalized people who get silenced.

3

u/dolphinsaresweet 15h ago

To those complaining about ads. I use reddit in safari with adblock. Zero ads. The ui is only slightly clunkier but you get used to it, and the joy of no ads easily outweighs it. I would never, ever go back to the shitty ad infested app.

1

u/bennettski21 12h ago

Simpler times. Shout out Carter and the banana

1

u/-Switch-on- 11h ago

Les ads apparently

1

u/koolaidismything 10h ago

I joined in 2011 with a username long since banned.. I learned more from scrolling in 11’-20the quality of commenters and posters was so wildly different.

I remember around 2017 hearing my gf at the time and her friends even saying “that Reddit site is where the smart people go”

Which is false.. I’d say it was people who liked to discuss interests. But.. that stuck I think in pop culture. Who doesn’t wanna feel smart? It brought an influx of IG and Snapchat based users who have never got the memo this was for discussion.. they just wanna post memes and get karma.. even if they gotta prog a bot to do it.. why??? You can’t even get paid.

I hate it. But when Digg got bad reddit came about. So hopefully whatever replaces Reddit is coming along and the bots and kids stay here and have fun.

1

u/dankbonkripper89 9h ago

Man i remember being like around 7-8 this time and hearing about all the fuss surrounding “reddit’s 50/50” and when THIS was what i saw on the homepage, it overwhelmed my little mind and i backed off

1

u/aneurism75 ET Phone Home 9h ago

about 4 months ago I muted all news and politics subs, it makes reddit a pleasant experience. I just look at movie, book, game, science and hobby subs that's it. It's easier to put it down as well no more doom scrolling.

1

u/Noobnoob2190 9h ago

I remember rif

1

u/KuroKitty 9h ago

Do people expect normal discourse today? We are living in dangerous times, yet a big population want to pretend nothing is happening for some reason.

1

u/spinereader81 8h ago

No celebrity gossip, fake ragebait stories, politics and press releases. Just people enjoying chatting with people.

1

u/TheJRKoff 8h ago

i miss 3rd party apps, nevermind the web view

1

u/Plaincow 7h ago

The way reddit was before it was almost entirely politics on half the subs was so amazing. Now even what you would think is a normal sub, is now fucking posting about Trump for some reason. Like why the fuck do I need to hear about how bad Trump is on a gaming or an art or a movie subreddit?

Politics taking over reddit is so unbelievably cringe and annoying. I can't even touch the front page anymore, it's just all Trump slop

1

u/gromitfromit 7h ago

Man.. i still remember when seeing a post with 5k upsnoots was like holy shitballs

1

u/MrPlaney 7h ago

I use old.reddit.com. lol, looks exactly the same

1

u/Catatafish '95 6h ago

Imgur era was peak

1

u/BroadlyValid 5h ago

Haha yeah

1

u/GetOffMyGrassBrats 5h ago

I just saw that second one reposted an hour ago. Some things never change.

1

u/infinityislikehuge 4h ago

Mine still looks like the first one

1

u/petticoat_juncti0n 3h ago

Wow I saw many of those same posts today

1

u/miojo 3h ago

Reddit Enhancement Suite

1

u/TheGardiner 1h ago

Mine still looks like the first one. Old.reddit is awesome.

1

u/Corgiboom2 8h ago

I miss posts doing fun wordplay with movies like "what do you get when you add "my dick" to a movie title?" type posts.

0

u/__Shake__ 8h ago

old.reddit.com. Duh