Shall we have an adult conversation about reposts? Yeah, let's at least try that. Because the top comment is "if it is new to me, it is new to me, repost or not."

So here's the thing. Reddit's fiat currency is karma. The fact that karma is completely valueless everywhere but Reddit is irrelevant; the system we occupy puts a score next to every post and every comment and gives every registered user an opportunity to increase or decrease that score. Despite the valuelessness of karma, the admins quickly ban karma parties. Despite the valuelessness of karma, the admins prohibit manipulation through sockpuppets or scripts. So despite the valuelessness of karma, it is a currency system with fiduciary controls and active policing.

Here's another thing. Without extra scripts, the only value you see next to your name is link karma. For the longest time, link karma was the only karma counted. I know web stuff worse than lots of other things, but my theory on this is that external links are those that increase Reddit's pagerank. By linking Reddit to other websites, Reddit's "GNP" increases. Reddit is essentially an importer and exporter of intellectual property - we import things from 4chan, we import things from SA, we import things from Fark, we import things from far-flung and disparate corners of the internet for local consumption. We then export them - to Facebook, to stumbleupon, through email links to our friends, etc. If cat pictures and memes could be put in a shipping container, there would be supertankers and barges full of Reddit sailing the seas to all harbors great and small.

But in international commerce as well as internet culture, "new and fresh" counts for more than "old and venerated." Your friends and family are going to be more impressed when you link to the homeless dude with the incredible voice than they are when you link to dancing baby or chocolate rain. Sure, there are people on the internet who have never heard Chocolate Rain. There are people on the internet who have never been rickroll'd. But they are people whose email forwards you tend to delete without reading, and people who are always a little bit behind the curve.

Culture is always best when it is served up fresh. And while Reddit has grown as big as it has by serving up fresh culture (comparatively speaking; few individuals are brave enough to comb the bayous of /b/ but they are more than happy to reward those who come back from the wilds with treasure), "freshness" has taken on different meaning for different redditors.

"new to you" does not cut it.

You see, when the economy is happy to reward Chinese knock-offs, originals do not make their money back. When piles of karma are heaped upon old jokes, the effort of finding new jokes is diminished. When your marketplace has no taste, the tasteless are rewarded and the tastemakers leave.

Call it gentrification if you want - that cool Arts District that everybody wanted to live in even if it meant sharing a toilet ceases to be cool when insurance reps in Hunter Green ford explorers move into trendy new "live/work" lofts just so they can convince their friends in the 'burbs that they're hip. The very thing that drew people in the first place leaves.

And every time you reward a Reddit user with Reddit's fiat currency for serving up something stale rather than something fresh, you are diminishing the market value of freshness. And every time you diminish the market value of freshness, you push us one step further away from Zanzibar and one step closer to WalMart.

How 'bout a visual aid? For those of you not in the US, here's the transcript:

This... stuff'? Oh. Okay. I see. You think this has nothing to do with you. You go to your closet and you select... I don't know... that lumpy blue sweater, for instance because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back. But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue, it's not turquoise. It's not lapis. It's actually cerulean. And you're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002, Oscar de la Renta did a collection of cerulean gowns. And then I think it was Yves Saint Laurent... wasn't it who showed cerulean military jackets? I think we need a jacket here. And then cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers. And then it, uh, filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner where you, no doubt, fished it out of some clearance bin. However, that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs and it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when, in fact, you're wearing the sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room from a pile of stuff.

Most of us are on Reddit because we like to be closer to Oscar de la Renta. Reposts drag us closer and closer to Casual Corner. And while Casual Corner might be just fine for you, understand that when you diminish the value of Oscar de la Renta, you're watering down the stuff you're here for, whether or not you care to appreciate originality when you see it.

original