What are your honest opinions about fake reddit stories?

Seems like a waste of time and erodes the trust people have in other stories. I've seen plenty where half the OP's replies are trying to convince people they are genuine.

I think if you want to write a fake story, you need to make sure that by the end of it people realize they've been had. A high-effort troll is entertaining. A person who writes a story that just happens to not be true is just wasting everybody's time.

EDIT: What if OP wasn't a Reddit story faker? 😮

Feels pretty exploitative. Hope it goes away without karma as an incentive.

First off, I'm glad to know you're reconsidering your previous actions. While it's a good thing to regret and genuinely feel remorse for things you in hindsight maybe should not have done, beating yourself up over it won't really help you, and all you can ever do is change your present and future, not the past.

Now: as for my opinions on that sort of thing, I have a few. LOL

On a smaller scale/short term, fake stories are mostly an annoyance depending on where they're being promoted as real; in some cases as in subreddits/places that are attempting to help people with serious problems, it can be more problematic. There was a sub called justnomil about in-laws who were causing problems in people's marriages. There were some creative writers who seemed to be going through some awful abuse, and were describing 'found memories' of previous sexual abuse in somewhat graphic detail. The problem with that is there were people in that sub with actual traumatic SA in their past who read those things and felt deeply for the OP, who were devastated and to a degree re-traumatized by the fact that they had invested their emotions and energy into something that wasn't true.

On the larger scale, though, fake stories can be of a societal problem in a subtle but real way.

People form their world views from everything around them, including stuff they read online, even if they aren't trying to let that stuff influence them. So if they're reading a ton of (fake) stories presented as real where, say, someone's girlfriend/wife is cheating on them, or cops egregiously abusing their power, or men beating up their SO's, or trans people littering, they may not on the surface believe all of them are true, and may doubt many of them, but sort of the whole glob (lol IDK what to call it) of those type of stories will subconsciously form part of their opinion about cops, men, women, trans people, or who or whatever.

People like to think that they're above that but our brains are tricky things and process stuff below the surface that we don't realize.

So that's why I get soooo frustrated with fakers online. It seems like just a minor thing, but even known fictional stories can shape society, so fake stories that people actually think may have happened, or could have happened, are IMO at least that powerful.

I suspect it's that in some way people who write those understand the power/influence they have and it fills a void in them, but the problem is the way they are filling that void or need to feel important (which is a natural need that all of us have) is unhelpful or potentially harmful to others.

Anyway, cheers. Thanks for the question.

I've assumed all "personal" stories on reddit were fake since I started reading reddit. I'm sure that isn't true of all of them, but I've found it better for my mental health to just assume those stories are all fiction or creative writing exercises.

If it's a one-off story being told in a comment, I don't care. If it's one where it becomes obvious that it's fake while reading it (e.g. the jumper cables guy, or the Hell in a Cell guy), that's great.

When it's problematic to me is when it's posted as a thread purporting to be asking for advice about a topic, or one intended to be controversial. I don't want to waste my time writing a thought-out response to a post to help someone, only to find that it was fake all along, or debating solutions to a non-existent problem with people.

It depends if it's funny or not, good troll posts can be the heart of internet culture - but if the only punchline is that the story is fake it seems like a waste of everyone's time.

I have never been as annoyed by a fake story as I consistently am by people whining about fake stories. To my mind any community that invites people to tell their stories needs a "no crying fake" rule.

Many years ago I posted a true story on r/nosleep or r/letsnotmeet (forget which) bc I didn’t realize most of those stories are fake. It was frustrating to realize my weird situation that I wanted other people to know about and empathize with me about (bc the cops did nothing) was largely ignored.

Realistically it probably doesn't matter much. You could probably become one of those legendary posters where there's always a twist at the end (e.g. the guy whose dad is always beating him with jumper cables) if you enjoy it but feel bad deceiving people, or put in your account bio that you like to make up stories.

I'm there for entertainment not a scientific accounting of any event, so I frankly never cared.