This Is Us
Why I’m Obsessed With the ‘Am I the Asshole?’ Subreddit
It’s about so much more than advice-seeking and finger-pointing
Like thousands upon thousands of other people, I love reading “Am I the Asshole?” on Reddit. I first encountered AITA through Twitter when an account that reposts particularly juicy threads kept popping up in my timeline. One thing led to another, and I’m now an unabashed asshole addict. Every few days for the past few months, I log on and get my fill of roommate drama, relationship woes, and family fallouts. Locked down and hungry for human interaction, I find a sense of connection here, though I’ve never actually commented or voted on a thread. Without demanding anything of me, AITA offers material to discuss over dinner with my husband, dilemmas to ponder, and complicated social scenarios to occupy my understimulated mind.
As a lifelong fan of advice columns, I am not surprised I’ve fallen hard. Growing up, I’d snatch the Life & Arts section of my grandparents’ newspaper to read Ask Abby and Dear Ann. I moved on to Miss Manners, Cary Tennis, Dear Sugar, Dolly Alderton, on and on. Maybe I’m a nosy person. Or, to be more generous, a curious person. A person accepting of the universe’s chaos while simultaneously longing for it all to make sense. Aware of the fact that there are…
