/r/IAmA

Last updated
/r/IAmA
Type of site
 Subreddit
Available in English
Website www.reddit.com/r/IAmA
LaunchedMay 2009;10 years ago (2009-05)

/r/IAmA is a subreddit for question-and-answer interactive interviews termed "AMA" (short for "Ask Me Anything"). AMA interviewees have ranged from various celebrities to everyday people in several lines of work. Founded in May 2009, the subreddit has gone on to become one of Reddit's most popular communities.

Reddit online news aggregator

Reddit is an American social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website. Registered members submit content to the site such as links, text posts, and images, which are then voted up or down by other members. Posts are organized by subject into user-created boards called "subreddits", which cover a variety of topics including news, science, movies, video games, music, books, fitness, food, and image-sharing. Submissions with more up-votes appear towards the top of their subreddit and, if they receive enough votes, ultimately on the site's front page. Despite strict rules prohibiting harassment, Reddit's administrators spend considerable resources on moderating the site.

Contents

Concept

IAmA is based around posting "AMAs" (for "Ask Me Anything"), or similarly "AMAAs" (Ask Me Almost/Absolutely Anything) – prompts for others to ask questions about any topic. AMAs are open to all Reddit users, but interviewees require proof that they are who/what they claim to be. They use the site's comment system for both questions and answers; this process has been equated to an online press conference. [1] Like the rest of Reddit, users can also upvote and downvote potential candidates - with the most favoured being more likely to receive an answer.

History

According to The Atlantic , this concept is new to the digital age. They deemed the closest equivalents to be game shows, and radio call-in shows, which placed a heavy focus on the interviewees. [1] Contrastingly, /r/IAmA places more emphasis on users answering the questions.

<i>The Atlantic</i> Magazine and multi-platform publisher based in Washington, D.C.

The Atlantic is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher.

Game show Type of television or radio program where contestants compete for prizes

A game show is a type of radio, television, or stage show in which contestants, individually or as teams, play a game which involves answering questions or solving puzzles, usually for money or prizes. Alternatively, a gameshow can be a demonstrative program about a game [while usually retaining the spirit of an awards ceremony]. In the former, contestants may be invited from a pool of public applicants. Game shows often reward players with prizes such as cash, trips and goods and services provided by the show's sponsor prize suppliers.

The concept's genesis on the internet began in the 1990s; Slashdot launched similar interviews in 1999, but only 10 questions per person were allowed. Participants included free software advocate Bruce Perens and Linux developer Alan Cox. This was followed by Something Awful's Ask/Tell forums, which was more focused on interviews with everyday people.

Slashdot is a social news website that originally billed itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters". It features news stories on science, technology, and politics that are submitted and evaluated by site users and editors. Each story has a comments section attached to it where users can add online comments. The website was founded in 1997 by Hope College students Rob Malda, also known as "CmdrTaco", and classmate Jeff Bates, also known as "Hemos". In 2012, they sold it to DHI Group, Inc.. In January 2016, BizX acquired Slashdot Media, including both slashdot.org and SourceForge.

Bruce Perens American computer scientist

Bruce Perens is an American computer programmer and advocate in the free software movement. He created The Open Source Definition and published the first formal announcement and manifesto of open source. He co-founded the Open Source Initiative (OSI) with Eric S. Raymond.

Linux Family of free and open-source software operating systems based on the Linux kernel

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution.

Reddit built on this idea with video interviews with site staff Alexis Ohanian and Erik Martin. The following demand for AMAs led to the creation of the current /r/IAmA subreddit in May 2009. Unlike its precursors, it requires proof of identity. Since its founding, similar features have appeared in other social media sites, like Tumblr and Ask.fm. [1]

Alexis Ohanian American entrepreneur, investor, and Reddit co-founder

Alexis Kerry Ohanian(arm.- Ալեքսիս Օհանյան) is an American Internet entrepreneur and investor. He is best known as the co-founder and executive chairman of the social news website Reddit. He also co-founded the early-stage venture capital firm Initialized Capital, helped launch the travel search website Hipmunk, and started the social enterprise Breadpig. He was also a partner at Y Combinator. In 2012, Andy Greenberg of Forbes magazine dubbed him "Mayor of the Internet."

Erik Martin German writer, songwriter and composer of songs

Erik Martin was a German writer, songwriter and composer of songs. He was the founder and editor of the literature and art magazine Muschelhaufen.

Social media are interactive computer-mediated technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, career interests and other forms of expression via virtual communities and networks. The variety of stand-alone and built-in social media services currently available introduces challenges of definition; however, there are some common features:

  1. Social media are interactive Web 2.0 Internet-based applications.
  2. User-generated content, such as text posts or comments, digital photos or videos, and data generated through all online interactions, is the lifeblood of social media.
  3. Users create service-specific profiles for the website or app that are designed and maintained by the social media organization.
  4. Social media facilitate the development of online social networks by connecting a user's profile with those of other individuals or groups.

Participants

Initially, AMAs focused more on ordinary citizens; these interviews still make up some of the subreddit's content today. [1] As Reddit expanded, its staff attempted to bring in celebrity guests—early examples include businesswoman Caterina Fake. Since then, a number of individuals have been interviewed in the IAmA subreddit, some of whom have appeared multiple times. Notable participants include then-United States President Barack Obama (while campaigning for the 2012 election), [2] Bill Gates (multiple times), [3] and Bernie Sanders (amidst the 2018 midterm elections). [4] Other people, including Donald Trump, have conducted AMAs in a similar fashion on other parts of Reddit. [5]

Caterina Fake American businesswoman

Caterina Fake is an American entrepreneur and businesswoman. She co-founded the websites Flickr in 2004—for which she received much recognition—and Hunch in 2011. Fake has been a trustee of multiple nonprofit organizations, and was the chairwoman of Etsy. She has been recognized as a leader in Silicon Valley.

Barack Obama 44th president of the United States

Barack Hussein Obama II is an American attorney and politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American to be elected to the presidency. He previously served as a U.S. senator from Illinois from 2005 to 2008.

Bill Gates American business magnate and philanthropist

William Henry Gates III is an American business magnate, investor, author, philanthropist, and humanitarian. He is best known as the principal founder of Microsoft Corporation. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of chairman, CEO and chief software architect, while also being the largest individual shareholder until May 2014.

The increased traffic for Obama's AMA brought down many parts of the website when it occurred on August 29, 2012. [6]

Celebrities participating in AMAs have seen both positive and negative responses. In 2012, Woody Harrelson's AMA was criticized after Harrelson declined to answer questions that were unrelated to the movie he was then promoting. [7] By contrast, rapper Snoop Dogg's 2012 AMA attracted 1.6 million page views [8] after he provided several candid responses to the community's questions. [9]

Controversies

From 2013 to 2015, Victoria Taylor assisted reddit's volunteer community in presenting interviews. [10] [11] She primarily transcribed spoken celebrity responses, but also helped organize timing, affirmed best practices, and assisted in preparation. [12] On July 2, 2015, hundreds of subreddits, including several with over a million subscribers, were set to private by their respective volunteer moderators after Taylor was dismissed. [13] [14] [15] These moderators stated that a primary factor for the shutdown was a lack of warning for Reddit's decision; Reddit provided no immediate replacement for Taylor's services. Sources closer to Reddit users cited an increased focus on commercializing AMAs as the most likely reason. [12]

Related Research Articles

Snoop Dogg American rapper

Calvin Cordozar Broadus Jr., known professionally as Snoop Dogg, is an American rapper, singer, record producer, television personality, entrepreneur, and actor. His music career began in 1992 when he was discovered by Dr. Dre and featured on Dre's solo debut, "Deep Cover", and then on Dre's solo debut album, The Chronic. He has since sold over 23 million albums in the United States and 35 million albums worldwide.

Interview structured series of questions and answers

An interview is a conversation where questions are asked and answers are given. In common parlance, the word "interview" refers to a one-on-one conversation between an interviewer and an interviewee. The interviewer asks questions to which the interviewee responds, usually so information may be transferred from interviewee to interviewer. Sometimes, information can be transferred in both directions. It is a communication, unlike a speech, which produces a one-way flow of information.

Clare Kramer actress

Clare Elizabeth Kramer is an American actress best known for her starring role of Glory on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and for her role as Courtney in Bring It On. She is a co-founder of GeekNation and hosts the podcast Take Five with Clare Kramer.

Ama or AMA may refer to:

Ask Me Anything may refer to:

<i>Start from Here</i> 2008 studio album by Joanna Wang

Start From Here is the debut album by singer-songwriter Joanna Wang, released by Sony BMG Taiwan in January 2008. The album consists of two disks, featuring songs performed in English and Mandarin. It received mostly positive reviews and commercial success, with the sales of over 200,000 copies in Asia.

<i>Rampart</i> (film) 2011 drama film directed by Oren Moverman

Rampart is a 2011 American drama film. Directed by Oren Moverman and co-written by Moverman and James Ellroy, the film stars Woody Harrelson, Ice Cube, Ned Beatty, Anne Heche, Steve Buscemi, and Sigourney Weaver. It is set in the midst of the fallout from the Rampart scandal of the late 1990s, when corrupt Los Angeles Police Department Officer Dave Brown (Harrelson) is forced to face the consequences of his wayward career. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 10, 2011. and was released in theaters in the U.S. on February 10, 2012.

An online interview is an online research method conducted using computer-mediated communication (CMC), such as instant messaging, email, or video. Online interviews require different ethical considerations, sampling and rapport than practices found in traditional face-to-face (F2F) interviews. Online interviews are separated into synchronous online interviews, for example via online chat which happen in 'real time' online and asynchronous online interviews, for example via email conducted in non-real time. Some authors discuss online interviews in relation to online focus groups whereas others look at online interviews as separate research methods. This article will only discuss online interviews.

Ellen Pao American businesswoman, writer, and diversity activist

Ellen Pao is an American investor and activist who co-founded the diversity consulting non-profit organization Project Include. She was previously a partner at Kapor Capital and the Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at the Kapor Center for Social Impact before leaving in 2018 to focus on her role as Project Include's CEO. Other positions she has held include interim CEO of social media technology company Reddit, investment partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, board director at Flipboard, and corporate attorney at Cravath, Swaine & Moore.

Barack Obama on social media

The topic of Barack Obama's usage of social media in his political campaigns, including podcasting, Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, and YouTube has been compared to the adoption of radio, television, MTV, and the Internet in slingshotting his presidential campaign to success and as thus has elicited much scholarly inquiry. In the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama had more "friends" on Facebook and Myspace and more "followers" on Twitter than his opponent John McCain.

The social news site Reddit has occasionally been the topic of controversy due to the presence of communities on the site devoted to explicit or controversial material. In 2012, Yishan Wong, the site's then-CEO, stated, "We stand for free speech. This means we are not going to ban distasteful subreddits. We will not ban legal content even if we find it odious or if we personally condemn it."

Hector Janse van Rensburg British artist and redditor

Hector Janse van Rensburg, better known by his pseudonym Shitty Watercolour, is a British painter and cartoonist who started posting watercolour paintings on the social media website Reddit in February 2012, and later expanded to publishing his work on his own website, on Tumblr, and on Twitter. He graduated from the University of York with a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.

Ben Eisenkop, better known by his Reddit pseudonym Unidan, is an ecosystem ecologist and doctoral candidate in biology at Binghamton University, who became popular on the social media website Reddit as the "excited biologist" who answered questions and explained concepts related to biology and ecology. He was banned from the website for vote manipulation – using multiple secret accounts to increase the popularity of his own posts and decrease the popularity of competitors' posts.

8chan English-language imageboard website

8chan, also called Infinitechan or Infinitychan, is an American-based imageboard website composed of user-created boards. An owner moderates each board, with minimal interaction from other site administration. To own a board, one must either create it or claim it if the board has had inactivity for over a week.

This is a timeline of Reddit, an entertainment, social networking, and news website where registered community members can submit content, such as text posts or direct links, making it essentially an online bulletin board system.

User revolt

A user revolt is a social conflict in which users of a website collectively and openly protest a website host's or administrator's instructions for using the website. Sometimes it happens that the website hosts can control a website's use in certain ways, but the hosts also depend on the users to comply with voluntary social rules in order for the website to operate as the hosts would like. A user revolt occurs when the website users protest against the voluntary social rules of a website, and use the website in a way that is in conflict with the wishes of the website host or administrators.

/r/The_Donald Subreddit in support of U.S. President Donald Trump

/r/The_Donald is a subreddit on Reddit where the participants create discussions and memes supportive of U.S. President Donald Trump. Initially created in June 2015 following the announcement of Trump's presidential campaign, the community has grown to over 700,000 subscribers and, as of September 2017, is ranked as one of the most active communities on Reddit.

r/AskHistorians is a subreddit on Reddit where users may ask questions or start discussions about history, and is "one of the largest history forums on the internet". It was founded in 2011 and has remained highly active ever since, having over 700,000 subscribers. Unlike other Reddit communities, it aims to "provide serious, academic-level answers to questions about history" and is strictly moderated. The community has a strict moderation policy towards Holocaust deniers, in comparison with the more lax policies of Facebook.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Madrigal, Alexis C. (January 7, 2014). "'Ask Me Anything': How a Weird Internet Thing Became a New Form of Media". The Atlantic . Retrieved January 7, 2014.
  2. ↑ "President Obama makes online appearance on Reddit". The Telegraph. London. August 29, 2012. Retrieved August 30, 2012.
  3. ↑ Michelle Castillo (27 February 2017). "Bill Gates is 'concerned' about U.S. influence overseas and political divide online". CNBC. Gates participated in an "ask me anything" feature on Reddit that allows notable people to answer questions from users. This is the fifth time Gates has participated.
  4. ↑ "Bernie Sanders' book promotion backfires in Reddit AMA". Burlington Free Press. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
  5. ↑ Scott Bixby (28 July 2016). "From the media to moon landings: Trump takes questions in Reddit AMA". The Guardian.
  6. ↑ Alabaster, Jay (August 29, 2012). "Obama makes appearance on Reddit, briefly crashes site". IDG News Service. Retrieved August 30, 2012.
  7. ↑ Huff, Steve (February 4, 2012). "Woody Harrelson and the No-Good, Very Bad Reddit AMA". The Observer. Retrieved May 31, 2013.
  8. ↑ Hernandez, Brian Anthony (December 11, 2012). "Snoop's Reddit AMA Is 2nd Biggest, Behind Only Obama's". Mashable. Retrieved May 31, 2013.
  9. ↑ Simpson, Connor (December 5, 2012). "How High Was Snoop Dogg During His Reddit AMA?". Atlantic Wire. Retrieved May 31, 2013.
  10. ↑ Horgan, Richard (July 3, 2013). "Meet Reddit's New Director of Communications". adweek.com. Prometheus Global Media. Retrieved July 3, 2015.
  11. ↑ Fenn, Mike (June 24, 2013). "Reddit's newest employee used to type celebrities' AMA responses". dailydot.com. Retrieved July 3, 2015.
  12. 1 2 Holiday, Ryan (July 6, 2015). "I'll Miss Working With reddit's Victoria Taylor". The Observer. Retrieved July 12, 2015.
  13. ↑ McCormick, Rich. "Huge chunks of Reddit are locked after AMA coordinator fired" . Retrieved July 3, 2015.
  14. ↑ Hern, Alex. "Reddit revolts: subforums shut down in protest over AMA co-ordinator sacking". the Guardian. Retrieved July 3, 2015.
  15. ↑ "Reddit in uproar after staff sacking". BBC News. July 3, 2015. Retrieved July 3, 2015.

Further reading

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.