does anyone actually care about AMAs? I thought they were glorified advertising lol. Also that's a tough sell, what instance would you point them to, and how would you convince them they'd get good PR?
They used to be organised by a talented individual, employed by reddit, who was great at drawing in more well known people, while still preparing and liaising with them so the event went smoothly. Then reddit fired them.
Do an AMA then. I completely agree with you. I’m a firm believer in the idea that every person on this planet has at least one batshit crazy story they can share. There’s also so many jobs out there that I’ve never even heard of.
It heavily varies by person. Some people give AMAs that make you question if the responses are even from the real person ("let's just talk about Rampart") but other people's AMAs are really fascinating and feel like you're getting a genuine answer to your question (pretty much any AMA that hit BestOf). Even if the AMA is only done for publicity purposes, it can still be interesting and that's what really matters.
One of my favorite threads was an AMA from Nick Offerman in like 2012. Mostly I liked how if you looked at his comments in order, you could see him getting drunker as the thread went on, eventually posting answers to the wrong questions.
AMAs on Reddit used to be magical. No PR, no advertising, if you tried to "stay on message" you would become a laughingstock (see Woody Harrelson's infamous AMA).
Then they fired Victoria and celebrity AMAs rapidly became boring and obvious parts of the promo circuit for any new media.
Ama's we're the content that got me hooked on Reddit. I think it was a lengthy Dan Harmon ama and I read it for hours. I think it's pretty telling that I haven't read through an ama in years.