He for a time had the highest karma score of any user. He stepped away from the platform. Many redditors felt it wasn't a coincidence that the platforms most successful user was also close personal friends with one of the founders (Alexis) and accused the platform and the user of collusion.

The reality of his situation likely lies somewhere between his and Reddit's position that his content rose to the top purely organically and other users' position that his content rose to the top purely through manipulation. He got his start legitimately making funny memes for Photoshop battles but then at a certain point started manipulating the platform (with Reddit's tacit approval) for his own personal gain

[–] minimar@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think an important part of the story is how he was very obviously getting deals from companies to use reddit to advertise their products. Remember when he just posted the netflix logo animation?

[–] Cube6392@beehaw.org 2 points 1 year ago

I was trying to find some history of that. I recalled him getting monetary compensation for posting (which is what I was trying to allude to with "personal gain") but I couldn't find any specifics. I even kinda think his personal friendship with Alexis had to do with Alexis getting some of the money from advertisers directly in the whole scuzzy affair