I had always heard about Reddit, but didn’t think about looking around — or even plain looking at — until about a month back. The concept of subreddits was nice, and I figured having an account wouldn’t hurt. Although I’m quite jaded by online communities, I decided this couldn’t be worse than some that I’ve been in. I’ll keep my experience with Reddit as a service for another day though.

What amazes me is the human nature/instinct to bunch together. Give people a reason — any reason — regardless of how obscure or irrelevant it may seem, to come together, and they will. And this isn’t just about meeting people in real life and forming said community; we will use whatever resources that are at our disposal if it allows one to feel connected to someone else.

I’ve seen subreddits that span from love for a game to a promoting a belief. These are common factors to form communities around because they’re tangible. But my moment of epiphany was running into the r/randomactsofpizza subreddit. Take a moment and have a look at it. It’s the simplest thing: you can barter a pizza for something, or you can send a pizza, and it’s a mini-community built out of giving and receiving pizza.

I’ve been critical of the human need to belong, to feel connected, even though I understand where it comes from. And I do still feel that looking for that sort of validaton outside of oneself is wrong. But every now and then I run into something like r/randomactsofpizza and realise that in a big bad world full of unfamiliar, stressful and scary things, feeling like you’re not alone even though it’s because of an obscure habit, belief or idea, can’t be such a bad thing. It’s the little things that are worth living for.