[Ultra-Meta] An in-depth analysis of why CB is often referred to as SRS-Lite, and whether or not these claims are correct.

Though I can't claim to be a senior member of the wonderful people here at CB, (in fact, my first post here only happened yesterday (Eugenics thing)). Though I have picked up quite a bit in the past few months. This post will be a bit unlike most threads here, which are (generally speaking) well written debreifings about the internals of some of reddit's various jerks. I instead want to confront a somewhat meta issue.

Why is circlebroke being called 'SRS-Lite'?

From my time spent sailing the seven seas of reddit, I've ventured several times into the realm known as SRS. From what I am able to understand, it is a place to complain about reddit. Whenever I stumbled upon it, didn't look further, due partially to warning from strangers about the place, and partially because I was lazy. To understand the answer at hand, let us first try to establish what people believe SRS is about, and the validity of those ideas.

First of all, let's agree that the people who call CB 'SRS-Lite' are using the term in a derogatory sense. Without making any of my own judgments (for the moment) on SRS, it is clear that a vocal majority on reddit thinks ill of SRS. Why is this? Well, the common consensus is that they push a 'female agenda', bring forth 'downvote raids' and are very... stuck up? I may lack the vocabulary to describe what I mean. Anyways, it can then be agreed that for CB to be honestly be considered 'SRS-Lite', we have to portray, to perhaps a lesser degree, a female agenda, 'downvote raids', and be 'stuck-up'. First, let me dive in to SRS, study the inner workings, and see if the popular reddit opinion is in fact, true.

On further examination, it appears to me that SRS often looks to have an arguably 'female agenda', though I use the term as loosely as possible. I highly doubt they have an 'agenda' to wipe 'male dominance' off the planet. It is more probable that many of the users gain the superiority fix by pointing out other views 'not entirely unlike here'. It is mostly like 'worst-of', but especially for pointing out bigotry. Bigotry, which, due to the nature of the community of Reddit, often manifests itself against women.

But here are a few distinctions I have found among SRS and CB:

SRS allows, or possibly encourages 'circlejerk behaviour' (a term I maybe just made up).

• It is a rule on CB that individual users and posts not be linked to. It is my personal opinion that this prevents the 'sub-culture' that, instead of getting angry towards certain people and groups, creates a mentality that tries to instead understand other groups, albeit with a bit of a sense of superiority.
• SRS on the otherhand, seems to always link to the offending posts, and often times, users. Not only does this encourage 'downvote raids', but allows the complaining to be turned into rage against the particular users. Instead of productively (I once again use the term loosely) studying and seeking to explain certain behaviours, they simply all agree that a certain post is objectively evil, with no explanation given, and downvote away.
• Once again, for the sake of clarity, I will define 'circlejerk behaviour' as behaviour that includes: constant agreement between members, to the extent that any dissenting opinions are downvoted. Behavior that is conducive to sending 'raids' on threads.

SRS can't take a joke.

• Okay. I realize that I could possibly be treading dangerous water here. I try to stay as objective as I can in all of my observations, but I can't quite figure out a way to phrase this question as to sound unbiased. I also realize that what I say is further perpetuating the idea that redditors are callous, and think that 'offensive jokes are the new normal, suck it up'. What I mean to say, is that there are many posts on SRS that are clearly just links to redditors' misguided attempts to be sarcastic/ironic.
• Many of the posts link to 'women bashing' (perhaps both literally and figuratively) or sexualization, which is understandably offensive, but to take these comments absolutely personally is equally misguided. To further explain my point, there is currently a front-page post on SRS linking to someone making the old '9 out of 10 people enjoy gang rape' joke. Sure, the joke is distasteful, but it's been repeated hundreds if not thousands of times. Also, besides the humor-killing repetition, I admit, I find it vaguely funny. If SRS truly cared about not just complaining, but understanding and evaluating certain trends in reddit, this post would have not made the front page.
• The fact that this makes it to the front page proves that the majority of SRS just wants something to hate on. Though I suppose the same could be said for CB, at least we try to engage each other in thought-provoking arguments, and do not permit ourselves to become slaves to hatred (wishful thinking?).
• SRS posts lack... anything? This point doesn't really need to be elaborated on, so for the sake of brevity, less than half of the frontpage posts on SRS at this are text posts. And many of the text posts just simply contain a link to a post with no other context. One of the great benefits to CB, I believe, is true discussion and debate to whether or not a certain thread can be considered a jerk or not, not the possibility to find an offensive thread, barge in, and claim our moral superiority.

FEMALE AGENDA POINT

• I was going to write about this, but time is running out, I will possibly add this in later. It will be another analysis on whether or not SRS displays a 'female-agenda' and why.

So with these many distinctions, is it still possible that we are, in fact SRS-Lite?

After searching for many hours (probably minutes actually), I have finally determined two 'base-line' opinions that one can have about this matter. Here they are:

• Since it is true that both CB and SRS both complain about reddit, both, on occasion, point out bigotry, and both have an unwarranted sense of superiority, it is not to far of a stretch to claim that CB is SRS-Lite.

• Since SRS is often used in a derogatorry sense (and possibly rightfully so), the derogatory qualities would be the ones shared with CB to be considered SRS-Lite. Since these qualities can be summed up as 'circlejerk behaviour', 'female agenda' and 'stuck-up'ness, it is clear that CB is far from SRS.

I will make no further effort to draw conclusions from the data I've studied, and instead I ask you, dear reader, for your opinion in this matter. Is there truth in the claim that we are SRS-Lite?

TL:DR: So anybody else excited for the new Hobbit movie? Could be pretty good.