For new readers:
The original incident involved artist Hayden Clay (u/Strawbear) being permanently banned for mentioning "prints" in a comment, followed by hostile modmail exchanges where the mod said "I don't even know who the fuck you are" and reported the artist for harassment.
What happened since:
- The story went viral across Twitter and Reddit and even famous youtubers like penguinz0 covering it
- Users began spamming "print" in r/Art comments as protest, resulting in mass bans
- The subreddit locked down all posts and comments
- r/Art mods have now reportedly resigned
Source: https://twitter.com/Awk20000/status/1993794852841206226
This went from a single power-tripping mod exchange to a full subreddit meltdown in 72 hours.
There's a reason the stereotype of reddit mods exist.
To be honest, most of the mods I've interacted with have been helpful and professional, but a few like these have made it difficult for everyone else.
While most likely true, 1 bad apple does spoil the bunch unfortunately.
This only makes sense if there’s interaction, for example it applies to a police district since the police there are colleagues and interact.
Mods rarely interact with other mods, except maybe from similar communities. I’ve modded a community since 2018, and the times I’ve interacted with other mods in my capacity as mod can be counted on one hand with fingers to spare.
(This is not to say that there aren’t many mods who are power-tripping bullies rather than gardeners, just that good mods and bad mods rarely interact.)
This is WILD! Basically, every single Reddit Mod I have interacted with acted like a child while I tried to act like an adult. They are the BIGGEST babies on the internet and pretty always act like little shits in my experience. I am always shocked by how poorly they behave.
who is surprised by this? give humans anonymous power with no oversight and that's what you get. mods should not be allowed to go anon in modmail and there should be some semblance of democracy. bad mods should be oustable through some kind of standard procedure, a restricted form of no confidence vote perhaps. we shouldn't be reliant on angry mobs and reaction YouTubers to fix this stuff
You'd think the mods of f'ing r/Art have more standards but no, they embraced the typical Reddit mod stereotype.
I don't think you can mod a multimillion user sub if you get most of your vitamin D intake from the Sun. I think in the application you need to show your place of residence is underground
Good. Fuck off.
Seconding this. They've been awful over there for years.
Seriously gtfo losers lol
What a bunch of babies
Right? "You win." As if they got bullied away by those mean redditors.
It's very obvious that they aren't used to pushback. So naturally their first response is a total meltdown in whatever group chat they have going and locking down the sub out of spite.
Apparently it's only 1 mod with total powertripping power/control. There's been posts about other mods being forcibly kicked and unable to unlock the sub.
Idk how Reddit is setup to allow this.
Yeah, the fact that one mod can go sicko mode and just completely tank a sub is weird.
My dyslexic ass read this as rabies
Out of control, rabid and attacking anyone that gets near? I think that works too.
This is great. Reddit mods are never punished for these power trips. Couldn't have happened to a better bunch of people.
I have like a whole list of mods I want punished fr. but am being the bigger person here lolol
Release the files.
I could genuinely dm you bc if i posted publicly im sure i'd get reported...again
DM me
They will be back modding other subs tomorrow.
[deleted]
You are likely correct.
Sadly, they put an automod in place so I can’t write to the mod team, but I wanted to put this out there in the slim hope that they’ll read it. :
We didn’t win — you chose for everyone to lose
You're all fucking cowards.
All you had to do was show a little bit of maturity, acknowledge a mishap in judgment, and promise to do better in the future.
Modding is a job! Granted, you're not paid, but cry me a river — volunteers in soup kitchens aren’t paid either, and they’re no less professional.
But hey, you do you. If you want to go down in Reddit history as a group of 14 people who weren't even capable of showing basic human decency and saying “We fucked up, we're sorry, we'll do better,” that's your choice. But you really should be ashamed.
Anyway, I sincerely hope you learned something today, but I also sincerely doubt it. And you're very wrong — it was never about “us vs. you” or about winning. We were just hoping for a little bit of accountability and self-reflection.
But take it however you want. We “won,” but everybody lost something today.
It is pretty amazing that instead of taking one step back they just guaranteed that they'll be laughed at by everyone on Reddit forever.
That level of delusion never ceases to amaze me… I mean, bro, just admit you messed up. You won’t be a loser for it — if anything, the opposite. But I guess that comes with this whole “winner/loser” worldview…
the dramatics
In true artist fashion no less.
I don't get it, why can't you discuss Prince in that subreddit?
you mean The Artist Formerly Known As Prince.
Nooo they mean Finger Prints
...
I don't think so.
No no it's the artist formerly known as u/Strawbear who talked about The artist formerly known as Prince
from what i understand the ninth rule they had listed said something to the effect of "no advertising or self promo" - and u\strawberry's comment violated that rule when they promoted their prints
This is awesome
So what happens now? How do they get new mods or is that the subreddit basically done and closed?
There's a subreddit called r/redditrequest for formally asking to take control of a subreddit after its mods either abandon it or just go MIA. I'm sure somebody is trying to get the sub there.
Now it IS a decently sized subreddit so I'm willing to bet that admins are already privately trying to sort out who will get it
Thanks for explaining. I was curious considering it is such a large sub, and what would normally happen in instances like this with major subs.
LOL this is crazy
What happened? OOTL.
Hayden posted his artwork on r/Art . Added a self promo (print available in his store). Mods removed the post and perma banned him. Hayden reached out to the mod, apologized. Mod didn't have any of it, threatened him, removed his post history (some of his posts had tens of thousands of upvotes) and reported him for harrasment, his account got site-banned for 3 days. He posted this on Twitter (currently known as X) and voila
Wow. That’s some drama. Why can’t people just be nice.
r/de has one of the best moderation policies in my opinion with a three strike system where the strikes also decay
If you consider what they ban, its just a joke
Average reddit mods experience.
Never had a good Reddit mod experience, they delete posts without even taking a second to verify whether it actually violates a rule or they just misunderstood it.
lmao bye
Will the admin be apologizing to Hayden?
Is this the best outcome? Ngl they deserved getting clowned on for being assholes.
I don't even know who the fuck these people are, so I'm unsure why I should care.