

Credit for Reddit - danso
http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/credit-for-reddit

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clouseauu
I don't post much, but after reading this post I felt like I needed to say
something. I apologise for the harshness, but this post just reeks of Hacker
News Whoring. First, the author very subtly tells the rest of us how smart he
is. As a child, he says, he was intellectually way above his peers. (Oh, BTW,
as an adult too!):

"My teacher clarified that I was not in trouble because none of my classmates
understood what I was talking about or indeed had seemed to pay me any
attention at all (this was a recurring theme of my childhood and also my
adulthood)"

Then he proceeds to associate himself with some people whom I can only assume
are considered heavyweights in their fields. Love me some of that name
droppin':

"Just to name a few of the media researchers affiliated with CMS/W, we have:

T.L. Taylor (...) Nancy Baym (...) [more ad-nauseam]"

All this context and "anectotes", just to mention that MIT is doing research
on Reddit, because, you know, they're awesome:

"And the real cultural story is that a place like MIT, and a department like
CMS/W, is willing to experiment educationally: to basically say, you know
what, this seems really interesting, and it matters, so let's get a bunch of
people from different backgrounds together in a room and figure out what the
heck is happening."

That to me describes _any_ research-oriented University. They're doing
research on Reddit. Woohoo, I'm sure that's original! I don't think anyone
questions MIT's academic rep, so, the way I see it, this post is nothing but
self-inflating idle talk.

