Do you think this subreddit, and reddit as a whole, is an accurate reflection of real life poeple in the United States?

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AskAnAmerican-ModTeam@reddit

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ATLien_3000@reddit

Not at all. Not even close. Comparable subreddits are even less of an indicator of real life in other countries.

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InevitableRhubarb232@reddit

I think the examples and comments are very real but obviously don’t reflect every experience

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Pitiful_Ad2397@reddit

I’m always questioning my own realness, so no.

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breadexpert69@reddit

No, not the average person. Its more a reflection of big city metro area culture.

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rileyoneill@reddit

Something like 85% of Americans live in Metrozones though.

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extremefuzz777@reddit

Most people lives in metro areas but that doesn’t necessarily mean they live in the city itself. I live 35 minutes outside my city in the countryside but I’d still probably be considered part of the metro area. There’s a big difference with people living out here compared to in the city.

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rileyoneill@reddit

Yes, but i would argue living 35 minutes outside the city is vastly different than living 2-3 hours outside of the city. There is a difference between suburban neighborhoods and urban neighborhoods within the same city even if they are only 5 minutes apart.

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sto_brohammed@reddit

The average American lives in a place like Milwaukee, not like Los Angeles.

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rileyoneill@reddit

Greater Los Angeles (where I am from) has 18 million people. Greater Milwaukee has like 1.5 million people. 80% of Americans don't live in the midwest.

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EpicBlinkstrike187@reddit

100% Most the people I know are Christian and voted for Trump. I have a few gay people I talk to at work but no real gay friends. I have two kids and have been married for 13 years. Most the people I interact with are in a relationship and have kids. But reddit heavily skews single, childless, liberal. It’s just what it is.

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garysaidwhat@reddit

A lot of it is the way normal Americans out on the street behave when they come home, close and lock the door, and pull a Mickey's Big Mouth from the fridge.

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InevitableRhubarb232@reddit

Yes it’s accurate, but I think it’s probably not a completely equal cross-segment comparison as Reddit tends to lean young, left, and more urban overall. But it’s a good variety of locations and experiences. And current political affiliations don’t really have a ton to do with what you called rectangular donuts in your home state I also think that having state flairs helps display any geographical biases

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ALoungerAtTheClubs@reddit

Short answer: No. Loner answer: "Real people in the United States" are a very diverse group. What people in Piqua, Ohio, are like will vary a great deal from who'll you'll meet in Little Havana in Miami or rural Washington State. What makes reddit (and this sub) different from anywhere IRL is the self-selecting nature of participation.

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No-Assistance476@reddit

Hey, I'm from Piqua!

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ALoungerAtTheClubs@reddit

I know someone who was born there, but I've never been. Is it still the Underwear Capital of the World?

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ErrantTaco@reddit

And now I know a little bit about Piqua from my quick perusal. It looks beautiful.

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Rony_Seikaly@reddit

First question: not really, but you can get some interesting perspectives of every day people here Second question: hell no

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TillPsychological351@reddit

I think this subreddit is a little more representative of the broader US than many other. Reddit in general skews urban and left, but this sub is a little more balanced politically.

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BookLuvr7@reddit

It depends on the redditor and what person you met on which street. Attitudes on the street vary greatly depending on where you are in the US.

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Maybeitsmeraving@reddit

I think if you took a truly random sample of, say, 500 Americans and stuck them in a room together, they would disagree about almost every question posed on here. Half of all Americans never leave their state. Many never live more then 50 miles from where they're born. What people think of as a "typical american" behavior or thought, is an amalgamation of things they see in their chosen media and their limited experiences in their home area. So I general the portrayal of Americans and discussions about America, even among Americans, are kind of fictionalized.

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Abdelsauron@reddit

No. Reddit is an accurate reflection of high school and bachelor's degree progressives with nerdy interests, aggressively progressive politics, from a major metro-area and probably some form of mental illness. This subreddit is largely the same group but slightly less aggressive about politics.

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vacuum_tubes@reddit

OK, you got me!

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KR1735@reddit

The majority of Reddit is non-American.

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Abdelsauron@reddit

If you include bots I guess.

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Ok-Race-1677@reddit

No lol this site is literally a textbook example of a big tech propaganda board lol

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ChessedGamon@reddit

This sub has a left wing skew like everywhere else on this site, but the responses I see here are generally in line with my own experiences. It's an incomplete picture, but I think people here are being honest. Broader reddit is frankly delusional -- I wonder how many of them are actually Americans...

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DrNurse63@reddit

As an American, I think we are too diverse to capture an overall average anything. As for myself, I’ve lived in WV my whole life; I have a doctorate; I worked at the same company 43 years rising to the level of VP before I retired; I’m a liberal; hate Trump; Married twice; White female and I’m 66 years old. So… the point being the independent variable doesn’t change but the number of dependent variables is mind boggling.

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Baddhabbit88@reddit

Internet does not reflect real life

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gaeuspompeius@reddit

This is the thing to keep in mind!

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ShoddyCandidate1873@reddit

Reddit is a left leaning sound board. So it's accurate if you live in a major city or a blue state. There is little representation of rural conservative republican voices here. So if the person you find in the street is from my mid Atlantic farming region no reddit isn't accurate of their daily experiences.

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gaeuspompeius@reddit

Reddit is an echo chamber of leftist and people trying to be edgy. It doesn’t reflect any where in the real world really.

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CalmRip@reddit

It's not a scientifically designed survey pool, so it likely does not reflect *the country as a whole*. It probably is younger, better educated, better off, whiter, more urban, and more likely to work in IT/engineering/science than the country as a whole. That's not to say that some of us aren't old, conservative, rural, blue collar, non-university or persons of color. We're here, but not in the numbers we exist in American society at large.

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Ok_Buy_9703@reddit

My answers reflect me. I am a real person but there's only one of me.

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monster2018@reddit

Same on all counts. I’m also a real person, there is only one of me, and my answers also reflect you.

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Leelze@reddit

That's what we want you to think.

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TsundereLoliDragon@reddit

Everybody on reddit is a bot except for me.

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Shiny_Mew76@reddit

Dead internet theory at its finest.

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the_owl_syndicate@reddit

One of my matrix-inspired conspiracy theories is that the internet is the ultimate mass delusion. It's not real, we've created a fantasy in our minds .

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OhThrowed@reddit

Sounds like something a bot would say.

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TsundereLoliDragon@reddit

Damn it beep boop.

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ALoungerAtTheClubs@reddit

If I have to be a bot, I want to be the John Coltrane bot from /r/jazzcirclejerk. A love supreme.

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ThisFingGuy@reddit

Only freaks spend time answering questions on Reddit

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KyloWrench@reddit

lol not even close America is probably best summed up by something like a local Facebook discussion about the towns new Walmart

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Dreamweaver5823@reddit

80% of Americans live in urban areas.

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quixoft@reddit

And they are all different. New York City Americans are much different from Houston Americans. Both are different from Minneapolis Americans. New Orleans Americans are different from all 3.

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NoTomatillo@reddit

Reddit is very left leaning. If that was the same case for the country, Trump wouldn't have won in any election. The average American is conservative.

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Awsomethingy@reddit

Of course not, what? “Do you think reddit is an accurate depiction of the opinions of everyone?” Uh, no. No, I don’t. .005% does not equal 100% to me lol

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WKU-Alum@reddit

Well that’s not how sampling works. A fractional sample of the whole can be used to get generalized ideas about a given population. However, you need a sample that is broadly representative of the population, that’s where Reddit misses. There’s actually probably more than enough users on this sub to create a sample, but they skew towards a handful of interrelated sub groups.

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Awsomethingy@reddit

Uh, the question was specifically about if this subreddit, or reddit, represents the American opinion as a whole. It’s in the title

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ZeroGeoWife@reddit

I am a 50 year old married woman who resides in the south. I have 2 grown children. My experiences are my own. I try to answer the questions here as honestly and authentically as I can. I would hope everyone else is as well.

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rileyoneill@reddit

I don't think people are giving disingenuous answers most of the time. America is a big place, there are huge generational spans in America. Figure the average American is around 40, 85% of Americans live in Metrozones, 5% of Americans are LBGT, 60% of the population is White, 12% are Black, 20% are Hispanic, 7% are Asian, 2-3% are Native, and then there are definitely some cross over between those groups and some smaller minority groups I didn't mention.

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OceanPoet87@reddit

This sub probably skews wealthier, younger, more Democratic (but more even compared to Reddit as a whole), whiter and higher educated than the country as a whole.

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Rarewear_fan@reddit

Was going to say this exactly, but by skewing democratic it skews more traditional neoliberal which is considered “conservative” by most of Reddit’s standards.

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El_Polio_Loco@reddit

No, it’s just center left of American politics. And if anything it’s moving further left over time.

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eileen404@reddit

I'm adding an older skew... I'm not a bot but know what one is.

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Lcky22@reddit

No I think reddit has more people that like to communicate through reading and writing than the majority of the population

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El_Polio_Loco@reddit

Reddit is very unrepresentative of America as a whole. This sub is slightly less unrepresentative, but still unrepresentative overall. The real America is a little more conservative than this sub, and a lot more conservative than Reddit.

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IPreferDiamonds@reddit

No.

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good_gravy91@reddit

I think this sub has a more accurate description of America than the rest of Reddit. It's not the hellscape that most of Reddit paints it as.

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sto_brohammed@reddit

No, this sub skews towards the well off, white and computer touchers.

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Altruistic_Role_9329@reddit

I interact with a lot of people on Reddit who have views similar to those I know in person.

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No-Assistance476@reddit

Absolutely not. Most of Reddit is a far left echo chamber.

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throttlejockey907@reddit

Not even close. Got some reason mostly people on the left use Reddit. I mean- there’s nearly every type of person here- but the proportions are all off.

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Nodeal_reddit@reddit

Mostly. Yes.

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Setsailshipwreck@reddit

For the food questions, mostly accurate. Everything else, it’s Reddit lol

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Shivdaddy1@reddit

You know the answer to this…

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freebiscuit2002@reddit

Are you insane? Of course not.

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Icy-Whale-2253@reddit

Reddit is not reality

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Mechamancer1@reddit

Not even close. 21% of US adults are illiterate. 54% of US adults have literacy below a 6th grade level. Those people aren't reading reddit all day.

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Moose-Public@reddit

NO I might be crazy but I think people on Reddit may just lean a tad bit to the political left, whereas America is pretty close to 50/50

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Traditional-Joke-179@reddit

it depends a lot on what's being asked, because a lot of times you're asking questions about everyday american life where the answer is plain to most of us and we can agree. for example, a top question recently is, "Do Americans not eat marmalade?" there are 2k answers (lol) and they're all kind of in agreement saying, "we sorta eat it. it's not super popular but it's at the store". another question is about typical thanksgiving foods and what they are. we all agree on what the more common items usually are. both of those questions carry over to what non-reddit answers might be because they're asking uncontroversial questions about general life.[](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAmerican/?f=flair_name%3A%22FOOD%20%26%20DRINK%22)

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Alarmed_Drop7162@reddit

No. Way too many isolated man children.

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rubiconsuper@reddit

Not very. Reddit as a whole leans more left than right, and the anonymity helps with people voicing things they wouldn’t otherwise voice out in public. Not all unhinged lunatics on Reddit look like unhinged lunatics in the real world. Very good chance you’re talking with and working with them and you don’t know.

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BoldBoimlerIsMyHero@reddit

Half of the people I know are on Reddit.

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ifoldsocksatmidnight@reddit

I’m not sure that any online forum could ever really capture how people live day-to-day. Especially emboldened because it’s anonymous. Therefore, people say things that they wouldn’t normally say in a face-to-face conversation. Whether that be discussing their income, their opinions, their politics, their religion… People are always different in person than they are online.

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ohgodimbleeding@reddit

I do not speak for all Americans. My views and my opinions are my own, and neither represent nor reflect American society as a whole. Having said that, the comments I do see seem to reflect well with my experiences, though, I can't say I have seen to enough of this sub to sy that observation is wholly accurate.

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KJHagen@reddit

No. Not in the slightest. It skews to the young, urban, left.

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evermica@reddit

No. Redditors are more tech savvy, lean left politically, and think that divorce is the solution to any relational problem.

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Low-Landscape-4609@reddit

They could be but every time you post anything honest your comment gets deleted or they turn off all comments.

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trappedslider@reddit

I don't think reddit is reflective of anything other than reddit.

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Vyckerz@reddit

Americans are not as homogeneous as other countries. There is more diversity of background, race and thought than most other places. The opinions on this sub are going to vary based on that alone. The US is also very large and you will find regional differences that will affect the opinions you get as well.

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revengeappendage@reddit

The thing is…”accurate real life” varies sooooo much by person, location, job, family status, etc. There will never be one actual agreed upon thing

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Old_Palpitation_6535@reddit

Reddit is a bit conservative compared to where I live, but seems to be full of real people.

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Upstairs-Storm1006@reddit

No, a huge number is redditors live in fantasy land.

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TheGarp@reddit

No, reddit overall has a waaaay higher percentage of left leaning liberals.

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Intrepid_Pear8883@reddit

Reddit so so far gone from reality I come here literally just to see what the crazies are up to today. They aren't even on the same planet as the average American, who comes nowhere near this place btw. And if they do, they don't tell anyone.

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TheCloudForest@reddit

Of course not. However, even though r/AskAnAmerican certainly skews heavily male, middle-class (and above) and college-educated (or higher), most posts here seem to receive a mix of comments that at least partially reflect reality. It's not a totally astroturfed or manipulated echo chamber nor full of purely online takes.

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haveanairforceday@reddit

It does reflect real people but it is not an accurate representation of the average american. But the diversity in america is so great that a perfectly average perspective is often unhelpful

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hobokobo1028@reddit

No. Reddit skews urban and progressive

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Greenearthgirl87@reddit

I know I give answers that are correct to me. Sometimes I’m surprised there are so many other opinions/experiences, but that’s the beauty of it all.

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SZGriff@reddit

This sub is right of reddit but left of the country.

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NoCaterpillar2051@reddit

Not really. But anyone expecting a consistent and/or accurate answer about America in general was never going to find what they were looking for. In that way this sub is very American.

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DOMSdeluise@reddit

I do not

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Either_Lawfulness466@reddit

Reddit has a wildly leftist bias. If you can go talk to actual people, your conversation will be far more pleasant people will have a better understanding of the average opinion

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madelmire@reddit

Think of all the conditions that need to be in place in order for somebody to end up having a reddit account. that's the only group that's being reflected here. it's not even a guarantee that any of them are american.

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FrauAmarylis@reddit

Not at all. For instance, most US Redditors didn’t go to Prom. That’s just not the norm.

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Quenzayne@reddit

lol not even close Very rarely does anything on here make literally laugh out loud but this question totally did.

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Illustrious_Hotel527@reddit

Not at all. Reddit skews younger and more liberal than the norm.

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WatchLover26@reddit

I can't say this any louder. HECK NOOO!!!!!

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OhThrowed@reddit

Nah.

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thatsad_guy@reddit

I doubt it.

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Impressive-Weird-908@reddit

Reddit tends to skew young and educated. I would guess that trend extends to here.

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Probably_Caucasian@reddit

This subreddit probably skews more left than the average American, just because this is reddit. Also a lot of bashing of the American south, some points being accurate and some not, which I don't think the average American thinks about that much

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Zestyclose_Crew_1530@reddit

LMAO

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chtrace@reddit

Nope

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