Vice President Kamala Harris is all but officially the Democratic Party’s 2024 nominee for president. After just a day of campaigning, she was backed by more than 1,976 pledged delegates. That’s enough for her to win the nomination outright on the Democratic National Convention’s first ballot.
Ever since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race over the weekend and effectively turned the party’s nomination over to Harris, the internet has been flooded with Harris discourse, memes, and discussion, from coconut riffs to Brat-inspired rebrands, unburdened by what has been.
On Reddit, there’s been no shortage of discussion either, with posts about Kamala and memes about Kamala hitting the front page of r/all daily.
But some people on Reddit have had enough of what they’re calling ‘Kamala spam,” especially in subreddits where they say posts about the vice president are wildly out of theme or irrelevant. Some posters even suspect astroturfing bots to be behind the flood of Kamala posts. Many posters, it seems, are feeling burdened by what is.
“I’ve been seeing Kamala Harris being posted on literally every subreddit, even apolitical ones. What’s going on? Is Reddit under attack by bots or something?” posted u/bowlis in /r/OutOfTheLoop on Tuesday, pointing to a couple of posts on r/GenZ, r/Pennsylvania, and r/pics.
And while r/Genz or r/Pennsylvania might seem like a more natural place to discuss politics, r/Pics posters in particular have been complaining about the flood of political posts in recent days.
“Why is this sub ‘Us politics’ now?” commented u/rhett_ad under a since-deleted post of Harris at the Mexican border titled ‘VP Kamala Harris at the US Mexico Border. Trump claims she’s never been to before.’
But they’re not the only redditor to complain about the flood of Kamala posts.
“When did this turn into a political subreddit?” asked u/bucky133. “That's all I see from it for weeks now.”
“It's just bots and Karma farming,” explained u/ilaym712 referencing the points accumulated from Reddit’s upvote system.
“*Kamala farming,” u/nate6259 corrected jokingly.
Off-theme Kamala posting also filled up non-politics subreddits like r/Interestingasfuck, where a post to a news article about Harris securing enough delegates to win the nomination was received frostily by redditors wondering what about the news merited its inclusion on the subreddit.
“As an American, this isn't ‘Interesting as fuck,’” commented u/Yolectroda in response to an explanation attributing the flood of Kamala posts to Reddit being a website used primarily by Americans. “Sure, it's good that she got it done, but it was expected once Biden and a bunch of others gave her their endorsements.”
“this place has been political posts for the past few weeks,” commented u/BTSherman.
In recent weeks some smaller subreddits have also lost patience with all the politics posting.
On r/LostGeneration, where posters lament the sorry state of the economy and the feeling among many that they’re part of a lost generation who won’t ever make the same income as their parents, the mods pinned a post a couple of weeks ago warning about “DNC bots.” They pointed to “a frequency with the number of bots trying to push an agenda” as the election gets closer.
And on Tuesday, the mods pinned another post saying that posting in support of Kamala is a violation of the subreddit’s rules against justifying “genocide or genocidal policies.”
“This is not a sub for political campaigning and canvassing, this is not a sub for white washing genocidal world leaders,” posted u/ChickenNugget267. “You have the rest of reddit to canvass for your favourite genocidal fascist. You've taken over so many good subs with your bullshit. Leave this space alone. If you don't like that, feel free to share your discontent down below and we'll be sure to ban you.”
Redditors aren’t just upset about Kamala posting though. As much of the site fills up with political discussion ahead of the presidential election in November, there’s also general backlash from redditors about any discussion about politics outside of the designated subreddits.
And while Reddit’s AutoModerator has an option to filter out all Politics posts from r/pics, all the politics are still tiring some people out.
“is this r/pics or r/politics?” asked u/bowlis under a post in r/pics of an unflattering post of Donald Trump’s hair discussing the former president’s age and impeachment history.
“Until November, you'll find even r/gangstaswithwaifus is r/politics,” commented u/CharlesIngalls_Pubes sardonically.
On r/gangstaswithwaifu, however, no recent Harris pics appear. But there is one from a month ago of Trump.
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