Reddit's "know-it-all" Hivemind.

Maybe it's just me, but Reddit seems uniquely prone to people reading between the lines so hard that they stop reading the actual post.

Someone asks a question, and instead of answering it, commenters start responding to what they think the OP meant rather than what was actually written.

For example, someone might ask:

"Why do people clap when a plane lands?"

And instead of getting answers, they get:

"Why does this bother you so much?"

"Just let people enjoy things."

"You sound fun at parties."

Nobody said it bothered them. Nobody said people shouldn't do it. They just asked why it happens.

What I've noticed is that once one highly upvoted comment decides what the OP "really means," the rest of the thread often follows. Suddenly hundreds of people are arguing against a position that was never stated.

It's not even the disagreement that annoys me. It's the combination of overconfidence, assumptions, and groupthink. Sometimes it feels like people are more interested in winning an argument they invented than engaging with the question that was actually asked.