Nine Circles of Shell

PoliticalCompassMemes is Gaslighting You

The users of the PoliticalCompassMemes subreddit are pretty insistant that the sub isn't just a place for right-wingers to attack strawmen of left positions constructed by other right-wingers in bad faith. You wouldn't be crazy to point out that the posts from the sub that make it to the front page of Reddit are usually making fun of SJWs. You also wouldn't be crazy to point out that in the comments of such posts, users flaired as "lib-left" or "auth-left" are often seen making comments like "as a leftist, SJWs are the worst" or something along those lines. We can't really see into the hearts of these commenters. Maybe they truly do see themselves as leftists...

I lied. We can see into their dumb little hearts. Go on over to subredditstats.com and check out the overlapping subreddits that PCM users are subscribed to.

The overlap search generates a list of subreddits that users of the sub in question also post on. It assigns a score based on how likely any given participant of a subreddit is to comment on another. As an example, we search for subreddit A. It gives us a list of 3 other subreddits: B, C and D with scores 1.00, 2.00 and 0.5 respectively. Scoring 1.00 means users of sub A are no more or less likely to also use sub B than average redditor. A score of 2.00 means that users of sub A are twice as likely to also use sub C. Finally, with a score of 0.5, users of sub A are half as likely to participate in sub D.

One thing to keep in mind is these stats only include users who comment or post in PCM, and in other subreddits. These stats do not include lurkers who don't post on PCM, but are subscribed to it. It is impossible to see what subs a redditor is subscribed to unless you can log in as them. The end result is, these stats aren't telling the full picture because we can't see what subs lurkers on PCM are also subscribed to. We can't actually make a statement like 60% of people subscribed to PCM are also subscribed to furry_irl using this data. What you can say, though, is that someone who posts on PCM is twice as likely to also post in furry_irl than an average redditor.

So as of time of writing, PCM users are most likely to also post on these ten subreddits...

1. politicalcompass (30.01). A subreddit where people share results of taking various political compass quizes. I took a few of them and they seem about as legitimate as a Hogwarts house quiz.
2. polcompball (20.75). Poland Ball comics are cutsie representations of national stereotypes acting out international affairs in humorous ways. If you're thinking to yourself, "how on Earth could international relations be good fodder for comedy", I have no answer for you. Anyway, polcampball is the same concept but for political ideology. The ones that I have seen are generally funnier than their nation-based counterparts, but they still generally betray the ignorance of their authors.
3. theleftcantmeme (17.10). A place for rightwingers to aggregate what they perceive as bad takes by liberals and leftists.
4. shitstatistssay (15.14). A place for libertarians to aggregate bad takes by people who support states in any capacity.
5. libertarianmeme (14.87).
6. averageredditor (14.81). A place for redditors to aggregate bad takes by the average redditor. It just so happens that the average redditor is a liberal SJW according to this sub, and also the users of this sub really parrot a lot of right-wing talking points.
7. enoughcommiespam (14.71). Redditors complain about communist takes in the big subs.
8. anarcho_capitalism (13.58).
9. tnomod (12.51). A community dedicated to The New Order mod for the video game Hearts of Iron IV. According to tnomod's sidebar, the mod's setting is an alternate reality Earth where the Axis defeated the Allies in WWII and the Cold War was between Germany and Japan. I don't know anything about this game, but any game that lets you LARP as a Nazi winning the war seems sketch to me.
10. shitpoliticssays (10.71). A place for right wingers to aggregate perceived bad takes by liberals and leftists on the main politics sub.

So if I can take away one thing from that list, it's that participants on PCM are way more likely to also hang out on subreddits dedicated to aggregating perceived bad takes by liberals and leftists. Like more than 10 times likely to do so than the average redditor. Let me repeat that, users of PCM are over 10 times more likely to hang out on subreddits whose sole purpose is to shit on anyone left of center. No, you're not crazy for thinking PCM is full of right-wing trolls.

For a chuckle, let's look at the otherside of the coin. What subreddits are PCM users least likely to post in? This list is excluding the porn subreddits, which dominate the bottom ranked subs for PCM. Quick sidebar on that, the reason porn subs are at the bottom is not because PCM participants are less likely to look at porn than the average redditor (I'd wager the opposite), it's that they are web savvy enough to know not to be horny on main.

1. BONUS femalefashionadvice (0.06). Okay so I included 11 on this list just to get this one in there. It speaks volumes to to who the users of PCM are not.
2. puppy101 (0.06). Apparently PCM users don't adopt puppies very often. Or maybe they do but they're so good at raising puppies they don't feel the need to post questions or tips? I'm going with the former, but who knows!
3. winnipeg (0.06). The entire city of Winnipeg saw PCM and collectively were like "nah".
4. knitting (0.05). Not very crafty, PCM, are we?
5. shibarmy (0.05). This looks like a fan sub for an anime? I have no idea.
6. retrogaming (0.05). Was honestly surprised by this one because I would figure a male dominated subreddit would also be into gaming. I guess you can't play modded strategy games that let you LARP being a Nazi on an SNES though.
7. marriage (0.05). I'm dying.
8. houseplants (0.03). Who needs home decor when you're BASED.
9. teenmomogandteenmom2 (0.03). Who has time to watch this when you're watching Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson. By the way, PCM participants are 4.32 times more likely to post in the Jordan Peterson sub.
10. thebachelor (0.03).
11. bravorealhousewives (0.02).

It's pretty clear to me based on the lowest ranked subreddits, and some sexist generalizing on my part, that the users of PCM are largely dudes. If you look at some of the mainstream male oriented subs like askmen (0.97), malefashionadvice (0.33), and malelivingspace (0.39), there isn't very much overlap there either. Some of the more rightwing male subreddits like mensrights (2.55) seem well travelled though.

So in conclusion, if you've ever felt off put by PCM and their claims of political neutrality but couldn't quite put your finger on why, you were right to feel that way. They are right-wing, and the stats betray their insistance to the contrary.