reddit.com/r/movies

Although Reddit sometimes gets a bad rap for being overpopulated with neckbeards, nerdy know-it-alls, and borderline incel level angsty teens, it is hard to argue with the fact that its thousands of communities do come in handy. No matter what you are interested - no matter how niche, obscure, or bizarre that interest may be - there is a 99% chance that a subreddit exists on which you can nerd out about it with other likeminded people. Say what you will about Reddit, it is without a doubt an extremely underappreciated resource of information, news, and interesting online social dynamics. It is a bit of a shame, when you think about it, that Reddit has developed the somewhat off-putting reputation that it has. Essentially, it is a brilliant idea. It is an entirely democratic quasi-social network that thrives on a system of up and downvotes, which creates an intrinsic function of mitigating the infinite slush pile of incorrect, misleading, and subpar content that exists on the internet. By empowering users with the ability to upvote something to the site?s self-proclaimed ?front page of the internet? or downvoting it, as the kids say on Reddit, into oblivion, at its best Reddit is a powerful tool of curating the best of the best when it comes to online content.

Plus, Reddit provides unique and specialized communities that allow users to delve deeper into subjects than almost any other social media platform. If you love, say, Leonardo DiCaprio (and, uh, who doesn't?), there is a community of hundreds of thousands of other Leo fans waiting to discuss everything in the DiCaprio sphere. Any news, rumors, theories, speculations, biographical information, etc. on the actor can easily be found and added on in seconds. And, let's face it, it never hurts to have an outlet through which you can connect with people who share your interests around the world any time of day, any day of the year.

So perhaps it's about time we looked past Reddit's reputation and gave it a chance. It can be a very useful tool, especially for serious film buffs like us. If you thought Reddit was impressive for its extremely specific and niche subreddits, you should see how active and entertaining it can be to lurk on some of the more general subreddits, such as r/Movies.

With more than 22 million individual members, r/Movies is one of the most active online communities concerning the latest in film news, discussions, and upcoming announcements. There is no more frequently updated source on all things pertaining to film, be it Hollywood or indie, than r/movies.

History

Reddit was originally conceived by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian in 2005. After attending a lecture by the famous programmer Paul Graham at the University of Virginia, Huffman and Ohanian spoke with Graham, who was apparently impressed with their drive and knowledge. Graham invited them to apply to his incubator for startups, Y Combinator. During a subsequent brainstorming session, Graham pitched his idea for a site that could serve as ?the front page of the internet.? Thanks to an initial round of funding provided by Y Combinator, Huffman and Ohanian were able to get to work on what would eventually be Reddit. The site launched in June of 2005 and quickly became popular for its user-generated content.

Shortly thereafter, Huffman and Ohanian sold Reddit to the Conde Nast Media Group on October 26th, 2016 for a reported sum of money somewhere between the tunes of $10 million and $20 million.

In 2009, Reddit finally became extraordinarily profitable through the introduction of advertising. Their success in the dot-com space gained them a large fanbase and today their website is one of the most frequented on the internet, with a total valuation of $1.8 billion.

Design

Honestly, Reddit's design took some getting used to for me. When I first visited the site (which was admittedly a good decade ago), I did not find it to be the most intuitive interface that I had ever seen. This is partial, I think because the whole concept of Reddit was so unique and novel at the time - the notion of threads, then, was still foreign to me. However, I stuck with it and it did not take long at all for Reddit's elegantly logical layout to reveal itself to me. At the top of the Reddit home page, you will see several icons that are meant to be used to sort Reddit's content in a way that you prefer. Reddit offers three main viewing styles: large cards that display images well, classic mode which requires you to click into a post to see additional content, and compact mode which more closely resembles a classic message board layout.

As far as sorting posts is concerned, there are four options: Best, Hot, New, and Top. Once the sorting toolbox has been decoded, Reddit will become extremely user-friendly and customizable (even enjoying a dark mode if you prefer). You will also find a dropdown menu that allows for convenient browsing of popular subreddits and those that you visit most frequently.

Content

Reddit is a website that is composed of hundreds of thousands of individual subreddits. The best way to use Reddit is to join subreddits that interest you. Once you join r/Movies, you will find that it is a valuable source of news and discussions surrounding major motion pictures. The content on r/Movies is largely determined by the community's whims at any given time. Whatever topics film buffs on Reddit want to talk about will be featured, with a rich archive of past posts to explore when you're not interested in the current conversation. However, most posts focus on news related to movie studios, awards ceremonies, new releases and big events, and general discussion and debate around all things related to cinema.

Mobile and Desktop Experience

Personally, I find that I prefer to browse Reddit on my phone using its mobile app. The app is constantly being improved based on suggestions that users voice on the subreddit devoted specifically to the app. That is how an app should be optimized in my opinion. There are alternative ways to enjoy Reddit via other apps, such as Beam, Glance, Alien Blue, and Nano for Reddit; if you find that you are frustrated with any of the official Reddit app's features, feel free to check out any of these Reddit-compatible apps. Reddit is like a never-ending social media feed that I can scroll for hours without the annoyance of people's curated social media identities obscuring the actual content. It helps that Reddit is anonymous, so I can browse the latest in all my favorite topics whether on my phone or computer.

Pricing and Plans

Reddit is a free service that provides basic features. If you want more features, you can pay for Reddit Premium. For $5.99 a month, Reddit Premium offers an ads-free Reddit experience, as well as 700 coins each month (and a 1,000 coin sign up gift). Coins can be used to incentivize particularly good, interesting, funny, or diligent posts/comments by awarding them to their authors.

Suggestions that I have for r/Movies

I believe that the r/Movies subreddit is a great resource for film news and discussion. The subreddit's rules seem fair to me, and I haven't had any problems with them so far. This is a robust and usually civil subreddit with a lot of activity, and the majority of its users take it seriously which is refreshing for Reddit. So, all I can really say is that I don't have any suggestions.