It’s about nearly the end of my second year at university and my God, are the deadlines building up. As of the time of me writing these words I face four weeks of exams and hand-in dates for my various coursework projects. I would be lying if I wasn’t feeling at least a little bit stressed. It takes a lot to stress me out, and I’m starting to feel it, so you know it’s pretty dire up in here. As is such the situation that is the situation of right now, I find I don’t really have a lot of time to be writing this at the moment, so this is going to be a short one.

Let’s see… what do real blog writers do when they have to post something but have no idea about what to write about? Ah, yes – steal something from Reddit. I’ve had a Reddit account for about 4 years and my interest in the site comes and goes like the tide. I’ll go through periods of being a little bit obsessed with the thing and then time will pass and I’ll get bored and only type its URL in my address bar every so often. The same goes for things like various Youtubers, like PewDiePie. Between about August 2016 and the end of May 2017 I’d say he was one of my favourite YouTubers but now I’m not so interested anymore. These are the kind of things that are really good if you’re careful not to wear yourself out on them.

What I find frustrating about Reddit is the repetitiveness of some of it. /r/AskReddit is a prime example of what I mean. For those not with it on these matters, this is a subreddit where people ask a question and everyone else provides an answer. These questions can be for example: “What’s the sluttiest thing you have ever done?”, or, “Besides fight club, what is the first rule of something?” (both actual questions). Often, someone has something interesting or funny to say. The problem arises when, because nearly every obvious question imaginable has already been asked, the less creative of Redditors just end up re-asking the same questions as before. You’ll get different answers, but there’s something tiring about the whole thing. A common question will be something along the lines of “Ladies of Reddit, what is the sexiest thing a man has done for you in bed?” and, “Whats a red flag for you on your hot date with a hot guy?” Obviously an attempt to grab some quick tips from some deeply lonely person. It’s fine for a while but then it’s just tedious just to read the same question over and over again. There are some interesting questions being asked but there are too far between to make up for it.

We also have the marvellous places that exist like /r/thatHappened, /r/Im14AndThisIsDeep, /r/IAmVerySmart and /r/TumblrInAction where no one seems to understand a joke. These are subreddits where people see something someone has written somewhere on the internet, or in real life, which is either pretentious, obviously a lie or simply just stupid. These are places that are a bit of laugh at first, but then just irritating. People are incredibly sceptical and sometimes downright nasty towards the subject of a post. It’s not a good mindset to get into and can lead to one thinking that every something someone has written that was intended as sarcasm is just them being stupid or pretentious. Similar things can be said for /r/SavedYouAClick, where people share examples of click-bait and answer the question it is asking – but a lot of the things people post are actually not click bait and intended as a joke, but no one understands this of thinks the can get away with it for sweet Reddit karma.

There are bad subreddits that are examples of good reasons to go on Reddit, however. My favourite being /r/LifeProTips where people share their pro tips for life in the format of “LPT: When packing for a trip, make sure to touch everything you’re not sure you packed. This creates a stronger memory of what you packed and where it’s packed.” Yes, they are normally that stupid. The subreddit ranges from unnecessary ideas like “Go in every room in your house every day to make sure every room in your house is fine”, to bad ideas like “Don’t say sorry, say thank you instead!” Great idea if you want people to not like you. Some tips are unrealistic: “LPT: If you’re about to drop something down the drain, don’t fumble around trying to catch it and risk dropping it again- just cover the drain”, some are obvious: “LPT run your spoon/scooper under hot water before digging into a fresh tub of frozen ice cream” and then some ideas are just oddly specific: “LPT If you eat at a shop regularly and know you won’t be there one day, let them know.” This is often at least mildly amusing and a good way to waste a few hours. Sometimes you’ll come across a genuinely good tip which you’ll forget about immediately and never implement into your life.

There are some subreddits I like because they are genuinely at least slightly interesting places, but there’s nothing out there that makes me feel like I’m spending my time wisely. For some reason, the saying “time enjoyed wasting is not wasted time” doesn’t apply here. I always feel like I could have wasted my time in a more enjoyable way. I decided, recently, that I was going to commit to not wasting time as much as I normally do. This fell apart when I started watching endless episodes of Gordon Ramsay programs, but that’s basically over now. I’ve been able to play more video games, read more and of course get a lot more work done much faster than normal. Yet, still, I only post one of these a month. I’m just lazy when it comes to this blog, I think.