How AITA SubReddits Are Changing the Way We Interact
How do we measure our morals against the society at large, and how has internet culture impacted our code of ethics
AITA is short for Am I The Asshole?. There are many variations of this subreddit on the Reddit app, and even now many YouTube channels dedicate segments of their show to the retelling of these stories. The videos usually have a host alongside a group of people listening to these stories and then discussing with the aim of figuring out if indeed the Original Poster (OP) is an asshole. The AITA subreddits have moderators, and redditors do have to follow certain rules before posting.
I have unintentionally started a new routine over the past couple of weeks, every night before I go to bed, I find myself searching for a bedtime story that takes the form of AITA podcasts. I first stumbled on this form of storytelling on TikTok, those Minecraft or subway surfer gameplays with the robotic voiceover, reading out a story. Those were okay but never really did pull me in. It was later, still on TikTok, that I discovered AITA podcasts, and when I realised that there were hour long versions on YouTube, my life as you now know has not been the same. I find myself quite eager to listen to the stories of people's lives near and far, recounting human behaviour and hoping for some sort of clarity.
“We are still primitives in the art of being human”
AITA presents itself to me as evidence that the world is constantly learning itself, constantly iterating and constantly changing. I look at history and remember that we have never been here before, every action taken in our collective histories has been us learning and figuring out ways to adapt. At each moment in history, something is highlighted in our consciousness that needs to be addressed, delivering pivotal avenues for change and reconciliation. As the world continues to wake up, accountability is now something that everybody must participate in.
The world now filled with overzealous Gen Z-ers have in some way commanded that we pay more attention, that we all take accountability. It seems customary that with every new generation, there is a new inquiry into the current state of affairs. The OP in an AITA subreddit, is taking a part in this accountability. By coming online and asking a group of random people, how does this action measure up against everyone else’s experiences? In the process of this, they are submitting themselves to a level of scrutiny that you would usually only find in a village amongst a small community or in a court.
I remember a younger version of me, shouting from the rooftops about how I wanted to become a lawyer when I grew up. It wasn’t until I realised that studying law meant that I was studying a set of rules written by people as a way to encase our society in some sort of order, that I started to rethink. For some reason, I expected that it would be a God, and maybe that’s why I chose a different career path. I don’t think that realisation has left me since, it opened up new parts of my brain that started to comprehend politics and in turn grew a general disdain for systems.
I have since learned that we humans are in charge of our own evolution. It is necessary for us to create these sorts of systems, no matter how dysfunctional they may seem. Life in itself is so magically humbling that the creation of these systems are a signifier of us accepting this fact, realising that alone none of us know anything and need a community of people dedicated to holding up the lines surrounding our reality. In effect teaching each other how exactly we want to be treated and what sorts of boundaries we want to maintain. AITA reiterates to me that there is a general code of ethics.
Sometimes when I get too deep into an existential inquiry, I find myself tearing apart the very fabric that maintains my own reality. I question everything that is, who I am, what I am and what the fuck is this world? I break apart ideas of light and dark, of good and bad, thinking surely there is nothing so evil and nothing so good; however, because of the constant dichotomy that life presents, it is almost impossible for anyone to go about this inquiry without leaving themselves in a temporary mental crisis. I usually end up realising again and again the fluid nature of things, one thing is a thing, until it is viewed from another perspective. It is good until it is bad and then bad until it is good. AITA as a platform then allows the individual to understand through a community where their actions lie in the ever shifting ideals of morality.
Am I The One-Lacking-Emotional-Intelligence?
What is particularly interesting about AITA is that it is not a platform for crime and punishment. It is much softer in the issues that it deals with, from our relationships, to our friendships and everything in between. I think it is beautiful in this way because it is not measuring up to a hard and fast written rule of how people should generally be, but alluding that there is a better way to exist in the spaces that we share with each other. It deals with our emotional connections and the intimate relationships we have with our close family, friends, and lovers. I find this so poignant because as a general society, we tend to lean more into stoicness, logic or survival depending on where you find yourself, completely neglecting the state of our relationships and emotional health. It is easier to see this when you look at older generations, and how they have operated. Second-Generation Immigrants tend to report strained relationships with their Boomer parents, most likely because those parents did not grow up in environments that stressed the importance of their emotional and mental well-being, focusing on survival first before anything else. Now that most of us have come into a world where it is relatively easier to get our daily needs met, also having collectively experienced the Covid-19 phenomenon, a lot more of us have been forced to turn inside, and re-evaluate what is truly important to us.
The non-physical nature of AITA is particularly interesting. In history and currently, meetings like this usually happen in person, with both parties present, in front of a council of elders, or a judge, with each person stating their case and asking for mediation. The form AITA takes is different though, there is no real verification on who the best person to give input on a subject is, they have not undergone any rites or training to assume the role of judge. Instead the OP is putting their trust in the wider community, not just in their home or area, but in the world at large, the internet.
I’ve had my fair share of disliking being on the internet, it can be a lot. Everyone is invisibly connected by loads of computers and has something to say about everything. I am only now starting to see the internet as less of a hassle, and starting to understand the generic things that people say to me about participating online, “You can express yourself!” “ You can make money!” “You can catfish!(don’t catfish)”. However, this understanding comes from my belief that we operate singularly as a collective membrane, we hold the general pulse of the world around us, we know when things are off and what the energy of the season is, of the moment. We operate primarily energetically and extend that into our physical environment, and that is where we see the internet, a physical manifestation of that invisible collective membrane.
AITA is like a never ending jury, the only requirement is that you are a living breathing and hopefully well functioning human being who at the very least cares about other people. It shows me just how important the internet is for our growing culture, one can argue that we are too connected, but if we accept that the subtle collective energy has always existed, and the internet is its physical counterpart, then we are just as connected as we were before, only now we can see it, feel it and somehow control it.
It feels like an unlikely community. Something that has become out of the necessity of a growing structure. It is hard these days to have access to a small community that you can speak to and figure out life with, half of us don’t even talk to our neighbours. The internet seems to be brimming with new life, encasing new colonies of culture, and within it new communal systems to help us grow.
Of course the choice of anonymity and lack of physical presence comes with its problems. Some stories seem too insane to be true and there is no real way of knowing if someone just made it up for fun, after all there are no real repercussions. What surprises me though is the swiftness with which our bullshit detectors come into play. One would think that not being able to hear a tone would severely impede our judgement but it turns out to be the opposite. AITA asks that the OP tells a clear story, revealing all sides and then wait in surrender for a response/multiple responses. Most times you can tell when the OP has twisted the account and refused to surrender, from the language used or how the story unfolds, you can tell they are not ready to take accountability, not giving the full story and are trying to outsmart the community. The redditors however, take it upon themselves to make it known to the OP that there is no fooling anyone, they ask for more details or just cuss them out if need be. From what I've seen most of this is done quite constructively.
Storytelling continues to prove that it is one of the strongest ways that human beings learn about themselves. Almost all social media platforms prompt us to share our experiences in the form of a story, because we always have something to learn from each other. Some people get overwhelmed with this task, in essence social media asks you how well can you tell your story? How engaging can it be?, but not everyone is made to be a story teller in this format. What I enjoy the most about AITA is that it is earnest. These are actual peoples lives with actual problems, and though it may be entertaining for some, most people leave with answers to questions or new insights that they were not privy to beforehand.
It makes me wonder in what ways our current systems will change and evolve. Is it possible to have an invisible collective jury participate in issues for society? The internet and technology is forever changing and advancing, unless there was to be a world-wide power cut, we are going to continue to be online forever. I am not one to cry doom and gloom, I am one to mull it over till I go insane, and after much mulling over, I think it will be beautiful to watch as we evolve with the products of our minds.
This would not be complete if I did not suggest some AITA Podcasts for you to listen to?
Here are the subreddits
AITA
AITAHHere are some YouTube AITA Podcasts