Reddit

Speaking of open source websites, Reddit has recently brought attention to Zeddie Little, aka “the world’s most photogenic guy”. I am sure that by now, a good amount of people in the world, or at least the United States has heard about him. Zeddie Little was just a random guy with a nice smile and white teeth who was running a marathon. He looked to the sidelines to wave and smile at a friend and then sees a camera, which just so happens to take his picture as well. That picture as then uploaded to Reddit and become immediately viral. It spread from Reddit to other websites to the news and to other media. In fact, this guy was even on Good Morning America. For what? For just having his picture taken at the right time and place. There have been memes made of him and fan pages and he has been getting a lot of attention lately, not to mention hundreds of marriage proposals. It is amazing to me how fast the internet works its magic.

In class the other day, we were also discussing why people contribute to open sources and one of the reason s was to gain acknowledgement. Going back to Reddit, I personally know one person who made it to the front page and one who attempted but failed. The person who succeeded posted something just to share it and it was upvoted all the way to the front page – but this only lasted for a few minutes. In those brief few minutes, the girl who uploaded the picture was ecstatic and shared her fame with all those on her facebook.

Another example - My cousin recently uploaded an adorable picture of my puppy Colby to Reddit as well, hoping to make the front page. And as cute as he is, Colby failed to do so. I suppose it’s because cute puppies are not uncommon, but cute puppies doing something unique and human-like would be.