reddit was more of a third place when I first discovered it, but now that position is definitely debatable. I think it's gotten too big for its own good. Hubski seems to be where it's at now. There is a more authentic community spirit and everything I read is thought-provoking in the best ways possible. On reddit I lurked for about a year before I started posting, but here I've been comfortable diving in head first.
Haha, you literally took the words from my mouth. I've been saying the same words for as long as I can remember (or, the bulk of 2013). Reddit has become a cesspool of ignorance disguised as pseudo-skepticism and intellectualism, and a cesspool of teens looking for cheap laughs. And they're not always mutually exclusive. Whenever I say the latter, people go "You can't generalize an entire demographic! How can you say that?" and I say that because in my mixed grade classes the freshman are always going "Did you see that new rage/may-may/vid?" or "You should submit this video I found for the epic Karma. I would, but I don't have an account." That last comment really hits hard. Reddit has eras, like humanity. Originally there weren't comments or subreddits, but that's no matter. The content was niche enough so as not to warrant discussion. It was just programming articles upon programming articles upon programming articles. Then it shifted, comments were added and Reddit became somewhat like Hubski is now. Discussion. About science, ethics, humanity, you name it. However, at some point, imgur was created. I call what it is now the "imgur/qkme era" where on all the big subs, 99% of posts are images. I really want you to think about it. 99% of posts on /r/funny, /r/gaming, /r/atheism (what a joke), are just images. Where's the discussion? To quote Kleinbl00, people need to realize your Karma isn't a pachinko game, it's an odometer.
Or at least I think Kleinbl00 said that.