Unmasking the highest-voted user on Reddit
Scott Steffens of Wisconsin has mastered popularity on website used by millions
The middle managers at the sales office in Appleton, Wis., had no idea who they were interviewing. How could they? His alter ego was a guarded secret, like a superhero.
“So,” one of the managers asked, “do you have any experience? We’re looking for someone to handle our social media.”
Way_Fairer shifted in his chair. If they only knew.
He could start by telling them he’s a published poet who yearns for artistic greatness. He could tell them how an “ego-erasing” mushroom trip helped catapult him into a newfound life of contemplation and creativity, that this drive manifested as quips and storytelling on Reddit, the popular corner of the Internet where millions discuss politics, philosophy, cute animal videos and racy pictures.
He could have disclosed that he’s actually the highest-voted commenter in the website’s history, meaning he’s a social media titan — the Wayne Gretzky of Reddit commentary.
Way_Fairer didn’t tell them that; too many lewd posts, too embarrassing. So he wound up with a job in sales.
But now, for the first time, the person behind Reddit’s top commenter account has agreed to unmask himself, telling the Star, “What the hell, why not?” His name is Scott Steffens. “I’m not ashamed,” Steffens said, “but I’m not super-proud of it. It’s sort of a weird thing to get so into. And I don’t know . . . I just sort of do it for myself.”
What Steffens has accomplished is monumental. Reddit boasts more than 36 million users from 209 countries. Every time someone makes a comment, users can “upvote” if they like it, by clicking an upwards arrow, or “down-vote.” Since Reddit’s 2005 founding, more than 16 billion “upvotes” have been awarded. Way_Fairer has earned more than 2,750,000 of them, far and away the most of any individual account.
“I’m sure there’s a part in my reptile brain that likes the dopamine,” Steffens explained, “seeing the objective number of people who like something you say.
“And then it’s sort of just interacting with strangers and seeing their responses. Some people will say, ‘Oh, I was having a bad day, you made me laugh, blah blah blah.’ That’s sort of a nice aspect of it, too.”
Before you paint a portrait of a dishevelled shut-in confined to his mother’s basement, know this: Steffens is 31and has a sharp haircut. He’s articulate and affable with an intellectual bent. A poet and hobbyist crafter of short stories, he professes admiration for Hegel’s spiritual dialectic. He has a girlfriend, whom he lives with in their small Wisconsin city. He seems interesting and kind, not wildly out of the ordinary — except, of course, for that one big thing. And he’s bashful about it. “I’m so not interesting,” he laughs. He enrolled in business at the University of Wisconsin — Eau Claire. In retrospect, it wasn’t the right move. “I partied my ass off and experimented with drugs and got kicked out.”
Dark and directionless, Steffens then penned his first piece of prose to grab someone’s approval: a letter to the school’s dean begging readmission. He was told he has talent and should take English.
He re-enrolled and gravitated to creative writing and philosophy, the latter focus sparked by a particularly intense and revelatory episode he endured after eating too many hallu- cinogenic mushrooms.
It wasn’t long before he was blogging, mostly about politics and cosmology, under the name “Wayfarer.”
About four years ago, he discovered Reddit.
“The first year I was on Reddit, that’s when I was going nuts,” he says. “I just had this goal of getting more upvotes than anyone . . . I was like, ‘Man, I’m f---ing awesome at this, so I might as well become the best, right?’ ”
It began as little jokes and comments: a confession that he smells his toenail clippings, accidental modification of a “shrugging face” emoticon that garnered untold attention. He became, in a way, addicted to the feeling of seeing the upvotes rack up, and started deducing ways to maximize the impacts of his posts, which he usually types out on his iPad or phone when he visits the site throughout the day.
His success comes down to timing and taste. He weighs in on threads that are new and rising in popularity and homes in on the preferred tone of the website: a mix of respect for intellectual rigour and an appreciation for silliness and good storytelling.
For example, weighing in on a discussion of interesting hobbies last year, Steffens wrote: “Falconry is cool until the bird flies away. Then you’re just a dude with a weird glove on his hand, staring at the sky.” That reaped 5,200 upvotes. As for his life in Appleton, Steffens says he’s happy, even if his day job is distinct from — and less fulfilling than — the creativity of his online life. His girlfriend knows his secret, though, he says sheepishly.
“She thinks it’s a huge waste of time.”