1 month ago
19
After observing how things work around here I had an epiphany and decided to do a little test.
I noticed (like most people) that 90% of the stuff going viral here follows the same exact pattern. Any new post about these topics IMMEDIATELY get flooded with comments:
Trump, Musk, Covid, Russia, Democrats, Republicans, NASA, Flat Earth, Epstein, memes, screenshots
Its almost like multiple online armies are waiting for these topics to come up so they can begin doing their job: damage control. So I thought: what if I make a post about a brand new topic that none of these online armies have a clue about?
So I chose The Elan School, a super obscure topic, and decided to make a few conspiracy posts about it. What happened? Well, exactly what you would expect.
As none of these online armies have prepared any scripts or talking points for this topic, then logic would dictate that only the REAL users of this sub would engage. And that is exactly what happened! But overall the topic still bombed, engagement wise, because so few people were commenting. Because REAL comments take time and energy but shill army comments get copy/pasted in seconds.
As sad as it is, the "shill army brigade" factor drives up comment totals and overall engagement. When the shill army is not prepared, they dont even enter the comment section and this actually keeps the genuine posts at low scores. So ironically, NOT engaging a shill topic will make your submission fall flat on its ass, regardless of how well researched or awesome it is.
On the flip side, the lowest effort nonsense that engages a shill topic will have a HUGE potential to go viral. Because the very engagement brought on by the online armies fighting will immediately make that trash rise above all the non-shill topics.
I dont know, its just really sad. But at least once you understand it, this whole place makes sense.
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