Hello! A long time lurker here on Reddit, on an account where I wish to be more active. If you don't care about my long essay, I get to the point in the last part.
I find it hard to engage on Reddit in any meaningful matter, because I'm far too inexperienced to give any advice, I find it hard to comment any of the stuff that pops up on my feed most of the time, and... The stuff that pops up on the popular tab sometimes feels like it's overrun by bot comments (or comments essentially indistinguishable from bot comments) or cheap engagement bait.
Generally, I feel like I may be overthinking this. I am self-conscious about posting comments or making new posts, because I don't want to be "the guy who farms karma in a cheap way". Hell, I feel like that just by making this post right here.
But I genuinely have no idea how to approach Reddit if I want to be more active. It's a mix of posts being really hard to comment on or enjoy in my opinion (And I really wonder how they even go viral), or, well...
...my posts being completely ignored. It's one of the reasons I wanted to start out fresh. I recall trying to engage a bit on my old account, but all my contributions were ignored. Completely. No people viewing my comment, no upvotes, no downvotes whatsoever (despite new people commenting under the same comment as I did on a pretty niche post). And yeah, I could've been shadowbanned, but my appeal didn't change a thing, even after a few weeks. I assume that my appeal was denied, as I didn't get any feedback whatsoever. But that's not the point anyways.
I'd like to ask: How do you guys approach Reddit? I know that it's not a serious business and you can just chill, post funny stuff and engage wherever you want, but do you have any specific ways you handle the feeling of "nothing is worth a comment"? Because that's how I feel most of the time - Like my comment would be cheap, not worth it. Or, perhaps, is it a common feeling?
For commenting - find subreddits that interest you specifically instead of just staring at the popular tab
Finding subreddits to start with as a new user:
Some more notes on starting on Reddit:
Newtoreddit Resources There are a lot of resources here in this subreddit you might find useful with The Common Questions Page, Reddit And Karma Walkthrough, and Frequently Asked Questions Page.
View by New (or rising). This will filter the posts so first see the most recent posts first and can make your comments much more visible. On app when viewing a subreddit look near the top left for where it says "hot posts" - click that and select "new" or "rising".
Read the Room and Avoid Controversy. Each subreddit has different rules, norms and prevailing views. Look at subreddit rules. Read top posts and comments to get a feel for that subreddit. Do users reward sarcastic one-liners or well sourced essays? And in particular avoid controversial topics or arguments. These discussions are more likely to attract downvotes and potentially trip into rule-breaking. Call people idiots in your head and move on instead of getting involved. Utilize the block feature as necessary and have a read of Reddiquette.
For posting make sure you read the room before your post, and know that the average post gets very little interaction
Reading the Room Each subreddit has its own norms and rules and prevalent views. Have a look around a subreddit before diving right in. At least skim the subreddit rules. Look at "pinned posts". Look at automoderator comments as that's what moderators most want you to see. Is everyone using specific formatting? Look at top posts and comments to get an idea of the vibe and norms and prevalent views. Do the users want well-sourced essays? Or dark one-liners? How does it sway politically?
Not every subreddit is a match. In the above process you might realize a subreddit isn't actually a match for you. In some cases it might mean adjusting how you interact if it's only going to require minor changes. And in some cases it might mean finding alternative subreddits. You might find r/findareddit's subreddit directory helpful there.
What is an average post?
When looking at a subreddit by the default view ("best" or "hot") you will be seeing the most popular posts of the last day or week. These are often the outliers in terms of popularity and you cannot rely that your post will get that amount of engagement.
To see something closer to an average post change your view to "new" and scroll down. You want to get to the point where you are seeing posts at least a few hours old. This will give you a "random sample" of posts in the subreddit since they will just be the posts made during some period of time ignoring vote totals. Scroll around and look to see how many comments and/or votes you are seeing most commonly. Its often a reasonably small number, or you may even be seeing a lot of posts with no comments and/or upvotes at all.