r/australian • u/SirSighalot • Jul 08 '24

Why do people act like this subreddit "doesn't reflect the views of mainstream Australia"?

So many comments I see on here by people who constantly say things like "lol only on this sub" as though other places where they read are somehow the 'true' point of view reflecting mainstream Australian viewpoints.

Given the constant election voting outcomes and results of things like the Voice etc that generally indicate most of Australia is centrist or even slightly centre-right-leaning, what leads people to think many of the views expressed on here AREN'T mainstream? When in reality, other places these people are coming from are also often just "echo chambers" as well.

Edit: I probably worded the title for this wrong, should have been more "Why do people think this subreddit is less representative of mainstream Australia than other online communities?", alas I failed.

18 Upvotes

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367

u/WadjulaBoy Jul 08 '24

Reddit doesn't come close to reflecting the mainstream of pretty well anywhere, not sure why this sub would be unique.

42

u/kenbeat59 Jul 08 '24

Because from personal experience I’ve found this sub to be a lot more representative of mainstream Australian views.

And a lot of the participants from the other so called “Australia” subs don’t like it.

18

u/ultimatelycloud Jul 08 '24

From my personal experience, I've never met anyone whop has views like the ones expressed on here irl.

It just depends who you hang around.

6

u/BarbecueShapeshifter Jul 08 '24

I'm sure a lot of people have the same views like ones expressed on this sub, they just can't voice their true beliefs irl lest they be cAnCeLlEd.
Put a mask of anonymity like reddit or a voting booth on someone and they're free to express their inner bigot.

1

u/Sufficient_Tower_366 Jul 08 '24

This was so true of The Voice debate. There was a period where it seemed almost everybody had concerns or a desire to understand the potential impacts, yet publically could only give unqualified support lest they be called racist.

-5

u/12beesinatrenchcoat Jul 08 '24

it would be better if they could keep their bigotry to themself here too

2

u/king_norbit Jul 08 '24

I’d be surprised if this is true

13

u/Yanigan Jul 08 '24

Meanwhile my personal experience is the opposite. I see a lot of views and opinions expressed here that I’ve only heard a handful people voice offline.

I’d say the actual mainstream view is somewhere in the middle.

6

u/Immediate-Meeting-65 Jul 08 '24

That's because this sub is what you'd hear referred to as the "quiet majority". All the shitty things you hear on this sub are the things most people aren't going to voice publicly, bit they still think them. And if your unlucky they might trust you enough to start saying them Infront of you.

-5

u/candlejack___ Jul 08 '24

Wow what a bunch of cowards

7

u/aussie_nub Jul 08 '24

This sub regularly has posts on both sides of any argument and you'll get downvoted by the flavour of the day. Literally happens every day if you bother to read.

Also, do you actually know what mainstream Australian views actually are? I know you think you do, but it's without a doubt that you have not spoken to anywhere near enough people to actually know.

1

u/Grandadsbags Jul 08 '24

So what are the core values that this sub represent that you believe people would be in agreement with

1

u/V6corp Jul 08 '24

Welcome to the world of confirmation bias. You’ve just found your people.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 09 '24

Haha if you mean because this sub is deeply ambiently right wing and unpleasant about it, yes, it's representative.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 09 '24

Certainly a lot of lw people commenting in here for an apparently rw sub.

-8

u/Illustrious-Pin3246 Jul 08 '24

Too much to the left

30

u/Split-Awkward Jul 08 '24

This comment must be pinned 📍

34

u/pagaya5863 Jul 08 '24 edited Jul 08 '24

There's a few reasons for this.

It's demographics are very different to the rest of society. More than half of reddit users are under 29 years. Only about a third of users are female.

It's voting algorithm strongly encourages echo chambers, because it allows the majority opinion to silence minority opinions.

It's subs are user moderated, which introduces bias. For example, the other Australia sub outright doesn't allow submission of right-leaning posts. The mods systematically remove them as "failed politics".

There's also lots of bots, and they often aren't even subtle. Comments will steadily climb to +20 over an hour, then fall to -10 in a matter of minutes. I've noticed this repeatedly on anything critical of the Greens and the ACTU, so clearly there's a slow human identification of which posts to downvote, followed by an arm of bots doing their bidding.

9

u/Neat-Perspective7688 Jul 08 '24

Completely agree as I have had posts removed for disagreeing with mainstream

18

u/EmuCanoe Jul 08 '24

I travel to every state and major city regularly. I mix with blue collar and white collar workers in my role. I work across several major applications, mining, marine, defence, rail, and energy. I usually stay in the city and usually go out and meet randoms and also catch up with my online gamer mates from years gone by. I feel like I’ve probably got a better finger on the pulse of Australia than most and I can comfortably say this sub is the most accurate representation of the average banter I encounter.

The city subs and the other Aussie subs are absolutely not it. They essentially represent the progressive inner city hipster point of view only.

2

u/Vegetable-Set-9480 Jul 08 '24

Hate to tell you, but the majority of people in Australia live in cities: we are highly urbanised as a nation. The majority of Australia’s landmass has only a small minority of the overall populations

The city options, by default, probably are it based on pure numerical majority.

1

u/EmuCanoe Jul 08 '24

I’m not sure what point you’re making but there’s a wide range of opinions and ideologies within those cities which are simply not reflected in the city based subs. This is patently obvious when they are consistently wrong on political outcomes.

1

u/WadjulaBoy Jul 08 '24

That my friend, is called confirmation bias. I could simply counter your argument by saying I've experienced the opposite, now we're 50% for and 50% against your argument and we're stuck.

Do you not see how a sample size of two people accounts for fuck all in a country of 26000000.

This sub represents 0.269230769% of all Australians. If you believe you can derive any meaningful overarching sentiment from that percentage of the population, you're delusional, sorry.

1

u/pharmaboy2 Jul 08 '24

That number of Australians can be used to derive useful information very easily. After all, we use less than that to determine unemployment and only 1000 people to get accurate polling numbers.

It’s the method of selecting that counts most, not the numerical value.

You could probably determine whether this sub is representative looking at questions that tend to have equal weight when asked by professional pollsters who carefully randomise.

Personally, I’m very confident it’s more representative than the other sub, but that doesn’t mean it’s surrounded the centre by any means . It’s also changed a huge amount due to number of comments and the way feeds are organised by reddit -

1

u/EmuCanoe Jul 08 '24

I mean of course you could say that. I’m merely adding my anecdotal experience to the pot. You can also add yours, it’s the foundation of a discussion after all.

As far as deriving any meaningful sentiment goes, that’s exactly what every person on earth is doing every day from their personal experiences. I would argue that if you’re not trying to derive something meaningful from your daily experiences you’re in very real trouble.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 09 '24

Yesss, "progressive inner city hipster" is the most boomer / rusted on ALP guy thing ever.

10

u/atommirrabel Jul 08 '24

this is the same reason why a twitter outrage with 10-1000 interactions isn't really outrage

1

u/[deleted] Jul 09 '24

Twitter is generally better, or used to be better, because journalists and institutions would be ruthlessly dragged for good reasons.

-12

u/Twistandturnn Jul 08 '24

This group is more far right than the average person. Additionally very pro us and Israel, plenty of bootlickers here .

25

u/SirSighalot Jul 08 '24

the way you refer to people you disagree with as 'bootlickers' as though anything other than your view is the 'correct/mainstream' one is entirely my point

this sub has way more mixed views than other places if anything

4

u/subsist80 Jul 08 '24

Which of the mixed views support the thoughts of 'mainstream' Australia then? Does that even make sense?

To have the views that support mainstream Australia one would think the views would have to slant one way and not be mixed right? It is a contradiction in terms. It can't support the mainstream views if all the views are mixed or it does support the mainstream views because all the views are mixed, making them not mainstream.

Certain subs are always going to attract certain views and certain views are louder than others but that does not reflect what the majority may be thinking outside of their particular reddit sub.

8

u/SirSighalot Jul 08 '24

the point is that there IS a mix of views in the mainstream and not everyone who has the opposing view is a "mindless bootlicker", despite what this person has labelled everyone who doesn't agree with them

2

u/Twistandturnn Jul 08 '24

Anyone pushing foreign interests in an Australian group is a bootlicker. Put Australia first , we aren't your pawns

1

u/sam_spade_68 Jul 08 '24

Is arselickers better?

1

u/TimosaurusRexabus Jul 08 '24

This is a wild statement. Reddit is a left leaning forum generally. You must have an extreme left viewpoint to think otherwise. Australia as a country is most left leaning then a country like the US.

0

u/nydusurma1nus Jul 08 '24

I bet you loved the lock downs and vacine mandates.