I nuked my Reddit accounts today. Deleted all comments and posts, then the accounts themselves. The tool I used showed each comment as it was deleted, and it was bittersweet.
I watched old gaming and movie discussions I barely remember appear and then get flagged as deleted. Communities I once participated in and then moved on as the years past flashed by. I remembered how I felt back then, and then watched them scroll on into oblivion.
Now I feel…I guess it’s grief. Sadness for that part that’s gone. Sadness that it’ll never be there again. Like footprints on a beach wiped away by the tide. It’s like it never happened. There is no trace.
And I feel anger. Mad that it came to this. Mad that I let a corporation have so much of my time and thoughts. Mad that they made it clear my life was nothing but a product to them.
It’s over now. Time for a new chapter.
Anyone else have strong feelings about losing a part of the past like this?
I am struggling to go and do it myself but this helps seeing someone with 12 years of history. Would love to be able to download the 10,000+ pages of stuff I wrote though to not lose it forever.
To help, remember that those old comments are not really of any use to you anymore. Now, they are simply a resource for Reddit to mine for profit. Ditching them doesn’t deprive you of anything, but it does prevent them from making money off your work and content.
You can. Reddit will let you request a dump of your data. It’s what I’m doing on my 11 yr old account, and once I have that for my own archives I’ll nuke the account.