— picture courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

After YouTube, reddit has to be the greatest time waster in the world. Whenever I am trying to fix an awkward place in my first draft, reddit comes to my recue. It’s probably the most effective tool in my box of procrastinators. I love it.

Whenever I get on reddit, there is no such thing as “just five minutes.” I will read thread upon thread until five in the morning and never notice the time until the pure liquid chirping from the robin who lives in the bush below my window tells me that dawn is breaking and my alarm will be going off in half an hour.

What’s so special about reddit, you ask. It’s true that most of the posts are about pretty ordinary stuff: “Look at my cute baby/puppy or kitten/what I knitted today/my co-worker’s screwup/the weird insect I found at the park.” Sometimes, though, a post can be deep or profound, revealing some serious personal issue or an observation on people and life. A few areas of reddit I stay away from because they show a dark side of human nature I’d just as soon not know more about. And sometimes a random post will be so abysmally dumb that the scathing replies it generates are really amusing. But the best part of reddit, the place I love to hang out at, is Ask Reddit.

Ask Reddit is the place where people can openly ask, well, literally almost anything, and anybody can post an answer. As with reddit generally, Ask Reddit is a mixed bag. Some questions are ordinary, some are offbeat, sexually oriented or even socially unacceptable, some are fascinating and insightful, and some are just…really, really stupid. All those questions are interesting to read, but what I find the most entertaining is when redditors start riffing off each other’s replies. When posters build upon and add to each others’ posts a thread can soon become hysterically funny, and it just keeps on going.

Here is an example of a profound thread:

What fact did you learn too late in life?

This is an offbeat thread (warning, disgusting content):

What is the worst smell you’ve ever encountered?

Another fascinating thread (warning, graphic content):

What is an animal that is not more afraid of you than you are of it?

And here are two threads that got funny quickly (warming, inappropriate content):

When was a time when you had to hold in laughter, and failed?

Reddit, which word(s) do you always struggle to pronounce correctly?

(Seriously, I live for threads like these!)

I don’t post in reddit myself. I don’t even have an account there, because I couldn’t possibly compete with the quick wit of many of the redditors there. But is reading funny stories about people’s worst bosses worth losing a good night’s sleep over? To me, yes. Yes it is. So I merrily read my threads, muffle my laughter in a pillow so as not to wake anyone else, and slide into bed guiltily as I hit the snooze button on my alarm.