I don't think Reddit gets enough credit for how hilariously buckwild the subreddit system is.
Like it makes sense on the surface. The subreddits are all topic-focused independent message boards, each with their own moderator teams, and you can curate which ones show up on your feed. Subscribe to the ones that suit your interests and bam you're good.
Except the question of WHO is in charge of every subreddit is an objectively hilarious system. Anyone can create a subreddit. Under any name. Who holds the keys to the kingdom is strictly determined by whoever managed to camp the name first. It's like tumblr URL wars except if whoever managed to grab the URL "homestuck" got to be defacto in charge of the entire homestuck fandom.
Or at least they get to be in charge until they anger the populace and get ousted, Julius Caesar style, by the team of fellow moderators they brought aboard, or until they voluntarily sign the deed over because they don't want to deal with 600,000 angry homestuck fans every single day, or they get mutinied against and all the REAL homestuck fans flock over to "curatedhomestuck" or "homestuckcirclejerk" or "homestuckcirclejerkcirclejerk".
You get seemingly benign subreddits about things like baking or kittens that have absolutely batshit rules because the whole thing is being run by a paranoid and power-hungry 23-year-old from Arkansas. You get inter-subreddit beef where the mods of r/cutekittensdoingcutethings will ban you from their subreddit because you have a history of posting in r/genshinimpact. You get subreddits that fall to ruin and spam because the moderators in charge vanished into the night without passing power along to anyone else.
Redditors love to complain about Reddit moderators and this surprises me not at all because there is simply no possible way that the Reddit moderation system could be a smooth-running machine when its defining underlying mechanic is First Come First Serve. And that's hilarious to me. That's hilarious. Political system where the King is chosen from among the populace of people who comment "first" on Youtube videos. You can't beat that.
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