[Note: the link is for the archive, to not give Reddit unnecessary traffic. Here’s a link to the original.]
Apparently r/pics is protesting through malicious compliance; the subreddit is open again, but all content being shown is uninteresting pictures of… who’s John Galt Oliver?
And the moderators decided to actually consult their community, on what they should do. You could vote on two options:
- Upvote this comment if you want /r/Pics to feature only images of John Oliver looking sexy. As of time of archiving this option was at +51k points.
- Upvote this comment if you want to return to normal operation. As of time of archiving this option was -8k points.
Interesting detail on how the r/pics moderators worded it:
Anyway, we – the so-called “landed gentry” – definitely want to comply with the wishes of the “royal court,”
I personally didn’t realise that there is such an implication on what Pigboy said - that if he’s calling the mods “landed gentry”, he sees himself as a king.
EDIT: as other users are pointing out, other subs are doing the same sort of malicious compliance, so I’ll share them here:
- r/gifs (archive link, (original link). As of time of archiving it has +21k points for John Oliver gifs only, and -5k points for returning to normal
- r/art (original link) - as of now (7:20, São Paulo time), votes are still not visible. Same as above, John Oliver vs. normal operations.
- r/aww (archive link, original link) - +56k “to only feature John Oliver, Chiijohn, and their lookalikes bein adorable”, -2.5k to return to normal.
- r/showerthoughts (archive link, original link). Voting on the days that the subreddit should be open or closed.
I didn’t ask who he was. I asked why pick him especially for the malicious compliance thing.
He often does segments on his show aimed at publicly shaming companies or groups of people, has a very good record of spurring on some kind of change, at a minimum raises a lot of awareness, and provides updates in later episodes on changes that happened due to him putting people on blast. He also feuds with and mocks the parent company that owns his show so this seems like something he would be interested in supporting with a good comedy segment making fun of spez. Sadly not sure if it’ll work out due to the writer’s strike but if we were to try to get the support of a public figure, he’s a pretty good option.