this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2023
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Reddit Migration
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why do people care about karma so much tho?
Probably status. Means you contributed a lot. Of course in real life it doesn’t mean anything!
I'll go against the "it doesn't matter" grain and give you a real answer: It just feels good to know people like having you around and appreciate your contributions. I could look at my karma total and know that in the 12 years I used reddit, an average of ~27 people per day, every day, appreciated the fact that I was there. Even if it took almost nothing for them to show it, it was nice to be reminded that I connected with that many people in a positive way.
On the other hand, it makes the site as a whole shittier, because people become obsessed with making their number bigger, and a huge amount of activity is done purely with that goal in mind.
Well, I only claim to speak for how I view it -- why people care about it (which was the question). Not some guess at how it affects the site overall.
Gamification is a powerful drug.
i honestly don't care about it at all. my main reddit has like 60k and is 14 years old. it's really just a number that shows how much you've posted on the site / how long you've been on the site
sort of like your age. why do we track age? just an arbitrary number based on the earth going around the sun. but it's a number and it shows progress so why not