A Step-by-Step Guide to Becoming Famous on Reddit

Old post, reposted for the archive. Written 2011/07/20

Preface

Uncle Zhao Benshan said it: do the math on a human life and you get thirty-six thousand days. In that time, gone like a white horse through a gap, what are we really chasing? That’s right — becoming a celebrity with an absolutely maxed-out presence! What’s the most expensive thing in the 21st century? Fame, obviously. Only fame can fill your life with sunshine; only fame can make your love life flourish; only fame can make you the topic of conversation on every street corner; only fame can keep you from being lonely during your wow sessions.

Jealous of Master Lu, who left the scene long ago and is still talked about? Jealous of Hana Sama’s exploding popularity? Jealous of the hordes of followers behind Jerusalem Snow? Jealous of the warm greetings in every yaoniming3000 thread? You look at your own no-name ID, you stare at the single-digit reply count on your thread, and you want to blow up in this little Reddit society? Well, that’s no longer a dream!

“Why do you dance? Because I love Michael!” “Why are you on Reddit? Because I want to get famous!”

I’m no genius, but after years of stumbling around, I’ve done a deep analysis of how every Reddit celebrity made their name, and I’ve distilled it into a fast-track fame guide for the Reddit forums. Follow it and you’ll max out your presence in this little Reddit society and become a cult-leader-tier figure everyone knows. Get clever with it and you can even leave Reddit for the real world, become a “famous WoW player,” and enjoy media interviews, anime voice roles, cameos in videos, and a verified Weibo account. Master the essence and push it to its limits, and you might even cross the ocean and get your American daddy green card before you know it.

Preparation

“Give me a lever and a place to stand.” You can’t start your Reddit fame journey without prep. Simply put, you need an Reddit account with enough potential.

You might be surprised: “I have an Reddit account, but what does ’enough potential’ mean? You mean an account that can post?”

No, no, no. Being able to post is the absolute bare minimum — if you can’t even scrape a code, what are you even doing here! By potential I mean your Reddit account should be as “out there,” “derpy,” and “anon” as possible.

• “Out there” means you need an avatar or name that makes people slap the table and go wow. Like a sleazy Doraemon avatar, a really moe pure maiden, or a philosophical name like “Tree of Provence,” “Jerusalem Snow” and so on. Even a bit of cringe-edgy characters in the name is fine — it’ll actually help your fame.

• “Derpy” means your account needs some prior posting history on Reddit, ideally showing off how clueless you were when you first started playing WoW. Like some super noob help-me threads in your class forum, or dumb shitposts in the council hall, or getting 6+2’d for some rookie mistake — all of this becomes capital for your future fame.

• “Anon” is especially important. By anon I mean you’d best never have exposed your armory or what class you play on Reddit, and more importantly never exposed your gender. If you can make the horny bastards of Reddit think you’re a girl, you’ve hit the jackpot. This matters because it’ll bring you a ton of related topics down the line.

Those are the three conditions, but the script is dead and people are alive. If you’re clever enough, you can get famous fast even if your account isn’t “out there,” “derpy,” or “anon” enough!

The Grand Entrance

So you’ve decided to walk the path of fame. Time to write your first presence-farming thread. Lady Sun Xiaomei said: a good start is half the battle. Whether your first shot lands decides whether your road to fame goes smoothly. Just like the “time,” “place,” and “characters” of an elementary school essay, a thread with off-the-charts combat power and maxed-out presence has three key elements: “topic,” “bait,” and “argument.”

• “Topic” means your thread has to ride the current wave — exactly what the Reddit masses are enjoying and hotly discussing right now. Absolutely do not pick relationship topics. Sure, Reddit has seen countless romance threads and countless cult leaders, but they flash and fade like a mayfly and leave nothing behind. Even more, don’t discuss anything the forum rules explicitly ban, or you’ll get buried before you’re famous. Historical experience tells us Reddit is ultimately a gaming forum — play by the local house rules, and only game-related content will make your fame last.

Stay observant and catch the crowd’s eye. Like the recent CTM client issues, the “is CTM or WLK more fun” debate, and the current spirit-gear distribution drama, worgen vs. goblin coolness, 5-man heroic difficulty — these are all hot, worth-a-thread, presence-farming teaching materials.

• “Bait” doesn’t mean your thread literally has to be sarcastic. It means you need to pick a take that’s attention-grabbing enough that people want to come in and argue. Whatever you do, no wishy-washy opinions — black or white is best! You must praise what you approve of and trash what you don’t. Like “Worgen are cool, goblins are shit,” “Horde is the shit, Alliance is trash” — great bait topics. “Seek common ground while reserving differences”? Forget it, forums are for fighting. So, hero, come on, let’s fight!

• “Argument” means that after settling on a topic, you need some language to argue “why you think this way.” If you say worgen are cooler than goblins, you have to explain where worgen are cool. There are generally two methods: praise and roast. Still using worgen vs. goblins, either praise worgen to the heavens or roast goblins to slag — and if your combat power is off the charts, combining both works even better. One more thing: no obvious profanity or personal attacks. But! Note this: even though you need substantial language, don’t write too much. This is a restless internet society and the masses basically don’t have time to read your whole essay. Three to five lines is ideal — the more concise and blunt, the better. Honestly the content of the argument has little to do with whether you get famous; its only purpose is to shut up the people trying to report you. Keep the scale appropriate so you don’t get instantly deleted as a faction thread or race thread.

Case study:

Some title: “I personally think blood elf females are the prettiest race in all of WoW.”

This is a classic failed title. It brings some attention, sure, but it’s nowhere near cult-leader aura.

“I personally think” has no reason to exist — it violates the “bait” element. We said it before: black or white, anyone who disagrees with me is my enemy! Likewise “should” and “probably” are redundant; that wishy-washy, cover-your-ass tone isn’t needed.

Second, you should use tags that highlight the feature and heavier phrasing. The revised title should look like this:

[PVP Insights] Blood Elves are the prettiest race in all of WOW, no contest!

Alpha as hell, right?

Maintaining the Thread

After you post, because your title is sufficiently one-sided and bait-y, you’ll definitely get a lot of people flaming you in a short time, all kinds of replies, varying by person. Some will rebut your points one by one, some will drop a one-liner and bounce, and some will leave full-of-holes comments trying to refute you.

Note: Now you need to stay calm and rebut these repliers. No, no, no — I don’t mean reply to everyone. Be selective, specifically pick the ones with holes in their words. For example, if the thread says blood elves are prettiest, someone will definitely reply “I think human females or NE females are prettiest.” That reply deserves a rebuttal: “A thick thigh and a muscle arm count as beauty?” As for the ones endlessly saying blood elf females have crooked necks, ignore them — replying to them does nothing for your fame.

In short, pick the replies that favor you and respond to those. Ignore the rest. Keep your thread active and make everyone remember you as “that guy who really loves blood elves.” If the thread stays on the front page all day and the heat doesn’t die down — congrats! Barring accidents, someone’s probably already calling you cult leader.

Daily Quests

The god of guides said: love is like watering flowers — meet often enough and the flower finally blooms. Same for the road to fame. Having gone viral with your first thread, you need to farm presence every day like doing dailies, so everyone on Reddit has an impression of you — good or bad, as long as there’s an impression. There are generally two ways to farm presence: enthusiastic replying and solo new threads.

• Enthusiastic replying should be obvious: build on your first thread and keep reinforcing your take. If you said blood elves are prettiest, then your shadow should appear in every race-discussion thread. For the blood elf maiden in your heart, reply, boy — roast everyone who thinks blood elves are bad into slag! If you can grab the first post in every thread, even better.

• Solo new threads are harder; I don’t recommend daily ones. You can play the edge-ball approach. Like “A lot of servers’ first 85 paladin was a blood elf” / “Looking at the arena ladder, blood elf paladin ratio is really high” / “Lots of human paladin players I know race-changed to blood elf” — try these, but pick your timing carefully so you don’t get scythed.

• Another presence thread worth posting is the face-slap thread. You can go slap someone with examples, or ask to be slapped. Do it however you like… but one thing: if someone posts a thread slapping you, absolutely do not reply — instead keep chatting merrily in a nearby thread. Onlookers who see you never show up will eagerly bump the thread, which does exactly the presence-farming job.

• If you’re confident in your writing, try throwing out a second take, like “Horde is cooler than Alliance” or “CN server is cooler than TW server.” Of course you need enough energy to maintain both takes — recommended for shut-ins with lots of online time.

As your dailies get more frequent, your dark history will get dug up — the noob questions you asked, your inscrutable gender, your unknown class and server. All of this becomes the focus of continued attention. In those threads you can stay tight-lipped and act coy, hiding half your face behind a lute, and keep raising your popularity. I guarantee plenty of otaku will keep treating you as a girl and asking to date you.

Dailies are a long grind. Along the way you might get 6+2’d, Nuked, reported, gawked at, and face-slapped. Don’t give up — best to prepare a sock puppet and alternate. For the dream of fame, how can you just quit?

Of course, if your dailies get you gawked at every time you reply, and your classic quotes are already in several people’s signatures, you’re basically halfway there. Next up: expand the battlefield.

Expanding the Battlefield

Presence farmed in the council hall no longer satisfies you. Now you need to expand your war zone — Blade’s Edge and the Maelstrom are great choices.

• If you’re good at arguing class strength, Blade’s Edge is your pick. Before you go, seriously study [Big Brother Sangbiao]’s threads — they’ll absolutely help you farm presence there. And remember to stick to the three elements when posting.

• If you decide on the Maelstrom, you need a second topic away from WoW — could be domestic vs. imported, could be wumao vs. meifen, could be Sony vs. Nintendo. The point is to let the masses discover another side of you, to make them go “wow, our cult leader can be cute too.”

While expanding, remember to change your strategy — some well-timed cuteness and good relations with the scythe-wielders are absolutely necessary. There are many ways to be cute: post holiday greetings during festivals, or secretly mention you have no boyfriend/girlfriend, or post that you often use a thermos and an electric toothbrush but forgot to switch sock puppets.

You can get closer to the scythe-wielders by joining official class Discord groups, or posting discussion threads in boards where they hang out. Reputation with the scythe-wielder faction is very effective for your future development.

Changing Your Image

A good person doing good deeds every day — you might find them pretty ordinary. But a guy who’s normally evil suddenly does one good thing, and you’ll feel his silhouette instantly grow towering. Hero, after your earlier grind, you should now have very low reputation and a public base of terrible reviews. The god of guides said: a bad impression built over long contact can be converted to a good one through a flag.

So… it’s time to whitewash yourself.

Whitewashing is simple: you just need to post a normal thread. Anything normal works, but the content must be your own original — could be collecting and organizing, could be your own insights, your own game videos, your own drawings or screenshots, but absolutely not wholesale copying! The famous csywdw uncle failed to whitewash because he copied a WLK guide — painful lesson.

If you don’t know what organizing means, refer to cult leader 3000’s Cataclysm experience whitewash thread. [ http://bbs.ngacn.cc/read.php?tid=4337965 ]

If you farmed too much presence earlier and one whitewash isn’t enough, then give up evil from now on and post only normal threads. After a while your reputation should come right back.

Leaving the Virtual, Becoming a Life Winner

After your battles, you should now be a household name on Reddit — every thread you post has hordes of followers asking to date you, and the masses surely say “I roll in whenever I see the cult leader.” Your initial goal is achieved. But as someone determined to be famous, your goal shouldn’t stop there. Leaving the virtual and becoming a winner in real society is your new goal. You can keep enriching your presence journey; with your efforts, soon various WoW anime voice roles will come knocking, various WoW parody videos will invite you for cameos, and your name will appear in household works like Sexy Watermelon, Beibei Mawisi, I’m DPS. If you have Weibo, getting a [Famous WoW Player] V won’t be hard either.

If you’re confident, press the advantage, leave the WoW circle, challenge the various professors, and do a one-on-one video PK with them. If you pull it off — congrats, you’ve successfully jumped out of the WoW circle into the whole entertainment industry. Follow in Sister Feng’s footsteps, head to the US, and get your own US green card!

Afterword

The master opens the door; the cultivation is up to you. I’ve summarized the fame paths of all kinds of celebrities, and the feasibility and reliability are high. I believe that as long as you persevere, you’ll achieve your own road to fame. Someone might ask: if you’ve summarized the method, why don’t you try it yourself? Fame is risky; enter the pit with caution. I’m indifferent to fame and fortune, don’t care about glory and gain, and I’m especially bad at playing the fool — so I’ll leave the opportunity to you fine gentlemen.

Original by me, Reddit link:

http://bbs.ngacn.cc/read.php?tid=4437346&_fp=2&page=1