Bernie Sanders Roasted By Reddit For Self Promotional Post During AMA, Gets Thousands Of Downvotes
Those familiar with social media platform reddit are likely aware of the site’s mercurial user base, one that will turn on a former hero on a whim. This tendency was illustrated in fine detail yesterday, as Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders participated in an AMA — or “Ask Me Anything” — on the subreddit specifically designated for the purpose of conducting high profile interviews.
Things began somewhat smoothly but quickly devolved when the Vermont politician was asked a question about what his favorite book might be. Rather than respond with either a personal suggestion or a non-partisan piece of inoffensive boilerplate, Sanders instead opted to take this opportunity to promote his own book.
Titled Where We Go From Here, Sanders told redditors that the title would be available on store shelves in a few short weeks, elaborating further to give a brief synopsis of the contents. Featuring, perhaps unsurprisingly, a large section on the rise of President Donald Trump and his “reactionary agenda” as well as a section on how best to cultivate a “government that works for all, and not just the wealthy few,” Sanders made a pitch that was not received well by the internet savvy subreddit subscribers.
His karma score on the social media platform was about to plummet as a result of this post.
I'll be on @reddit_AMA at 2 p.m. EST to talk about the upcoming election. Ask me anything! https://t.co/OgkrFL2ofh
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) November 2, 2018
With a comment karma score currently reading minus 4,820, it appears that the Senator from Vermont made a poor choice in how he handled this question
This negative score prompted the bot account TopCommentOfTheDay to quip, “This comment was the most downvoted comment across all of Reddit on November 2nd, 2018!” Amusingly, this comment from the bot account was upvoted by users to a current score of approximately plus 1,500.
As Fox News details, the responses to Sanders’ self-promotional post were largely negative. One redditor wrote, “This is honestly a terrible answer. It’s egotistical, unrelatable, and is simply to push your book. Sorry, you can do better than this Bernie.”
While that particular comment chain didn’t pan out very well for the interview subject or those who came to view the answers, other questions put to the politician received a more favorable review. As Heavy reports, Senator Sanders also spoke out against the brutality of the Saudi Arabian regime, his concerns surrounding the contemporary minimum wage and the cost of prescription drugs, and his support of legalization of cannabis.
With each of Sanders’ other answers attracting between 4,000 and 20,000 — in the latter case, his answer supporting legalization — upvotes, it appears that the misstep in one comment thread did not derail the entire interview.
