How “Am I the Asshole?” ate the internet

AITA , as it’s known for short, is hosted by Reddit , the one -stop clearinghouse for internet drama, comeuppances.

The AmITheAsshole subreddit boasts 20 million members ready to decide who's right in a given situation and who's wrong, if a hair more evocatively.

This is meta-gossip: gossip about the idea of a person and about ideas of human nature.

AITA is the central nervous system of the network, but it doesn’t allow users to post content that falls outside of what it deems “interpersonal conflict” Alongside the advice subs themselves, curation subs have also exploded.

The biggest curation machine on-site is arguably r/BestofRedditorUpdates, which pulls stories from all around the site.

Many of the off-platform content creators trawl the meta forums because they have serialized stories and a sense of resolution.

Their appeal makes sense; not only are Redditors churning out a bottomless well of free content for podcasters and other creators to curate, but the stories themselves reside in that irresistible space between the real and fictional.