Hyperlinked is a column written by Media Columnist Colin Angell, asking readers to think about how different types of media impact our lives, and how our lives impact media in turn. Put away the tinfoil hats — this is just about the digital age.
Colin Angell is a Year 2 bachelor of media studies student. He comes from a background in different media and creative practices and has written and reported for several sections at The Ubyssey.
Last week, I’d found a rather lovely spot in the library to set up shop for the afternoon. Though the chair was uncomfortable, I settled in and got to work on my to-do’s. I meandered through this reading and then that assignment and — oh, god: it’s only been thirty minutes. I needed to stretch. I yawned and turned to crack my neck.
As I did so, my eyes skated by my desk-neighbour’s screen. I’ve grown used to seeing peers in the library with iPads full of Good Will Hunting squiggles or asthmatic gaming laptops crunching lines of code. You may be surprised when I tell you I wasn’t shocked to see her on the UBC Reddit reading about whether salt & vinegar chips are valid or not?
Or, maybe, you’re not surprised. You might even be thinking, “Hey, something like this happened to me in class today!”
Grimace or cringe all you want, you’ve probably encountered the page at some point or another, looking online for details on a class or housing tips or even out of unbridled boredom. Whatever or wherever, I know I’m not breaking news to you that a UBC student was using Reddit.
That’s because of a certain truth at play: UBC is a school full of Redditors.
The UBC Reddit community - plainly named r/ubc - joins over 100 thousand alumni, staff and current and prospective students as well to actively engage on a wide range of topics about seemingly anything relevant (or not) to campus. A post from 2022 touted it as the fifth largest university page on the site; by 2025, it’d moved up two spots and is now only behind the University of Toronto and University of California, Berkeley, respectively.
But why is it that UBC students favour such a quaint take on student life when other Canadian schools are often known for their immersive and rowdy campus experiences?
Ontario schools go shoulder-to-shoulder for street homecomings. McGill and Concordia freshmen live on Le Plateau barstools. Here at Point Grey? Well, we’re just quieter as a whole. Besides our enrollment and a shared campus, there is no single defining campus experience that bonds us under blue and gold.
I think this is predictable considering just how diverse of a campus population we have. Nearly 30 per cent of students at UBC’s Vancouver campus are international students — collectively representing 157 unique countries and countless cultural profiles. Running clubs pass posses of war-gamers and ski-bums on the Main Mall like they see it all the time. Snakes, Comp-Sci wizards and the Tote-Bag Bucchananites all make use of the AMS Nest.
As a student body, we are united by the fact we are not united. Being a Thunderbird represents a bouquet of varied, multi-faceted interests. The fact is, there is no ‘average’ UBC student.
Given such a varied and disjunct make-up, it makes perfect sense that a school with a daytime population of over 80,000 would flock to their phones unlike other institutions. It’s a reality of the 21st century that young adults are plugged in and that a university campus full of them would be dialled in.
I mean, that's a reality of school in the 21st century — being plugged in. Webworks, Canvas, digital archives, Workday — all of the institutional imperatives require of its students a consistent degree of engagement with screens.
As UBC has institutionalized virtual components of administration and academics, it implicitly promotes a decentralized model of schooling characterized by the ability to operate, connect and learn remotely. With no uniting campus identity calling us to be here, our anchor to the physical campus is no longer as heavy. As networks allow us to externalize our education to digital spheres, they too grant us the capability to disperse our social connections by shifting to digital spaces.
Reddit itself is an awfully decentralized platform. The site consists of scattered communities of which are administered by the communities themselves. Groups write their own rules of play and moderators give them force, regardless of what credit you give them. Even the founders of the site ostensibly labelled their creation as a "bastion of free speech."
Regardless of whether you feel these comments are just a big tech mogul spouting off unsolicited opinions, it ideologically supports the function of the medium and its content being steered by its users. The platform lends itself to those with the time for it, regardless if it’s a personal tendency to drift online or someone’s just looking for a few extra minutes to kill behind their screen.
But why Reddit specifically? What about Reddit makes Thunderbirds flock to it? Why not Telegram, or Tumblr or even Rednote?
Perhaps I didn’t give the ‘group identity’ of UBC students enough credit. One theme that, at the very least, seems to find resonance across students regardless of their personal interests or studies is a general academic inclination. It’s hard to see since it’s the only thing most of us know, but UBC as a whole places a strong emphasis on erudite achievement. I’m not exaggerating when I write that students conduct their studies at par with what an international research university expects of them. Hand all the bookworms and budding scholars smartphones and bam: of course they’re on the nerdy social media.
Yes, Reddit is the nerdy social media. I’m not going to tell you to scroll the site to see what people are putting on there — frankly, I don’t even want to do that. But if you do take a quick look with a bit of objectivity, you’ll see exactly what I mean.
Behind anonymous guises of usernames, people possess the technical ability to say whatever they want without it being held to their name, let alone their face. Go to the school’s page and see what people actually post in this cyber free-for-all. When they could be stoking any controversial fire or hot takes, the impression you get is that UBC users are likely to spend weekend evenings venting about the fine details of classes. They gush about geese returning in the spring. They share tips and tricks on how to get the best marks when in certain profs classes. It's brainy, it’s introspective, it’s genuinely curious; it’s nerdy.
If you, as a UBC student, aren’t on Reddit — cool. I’m really not aside from looking up stuff for class (or this article). You’re not getting a gold medal, though.
In our big, disjunct campus, digital networking comprises an intrinsic communicative fabric regardless of who you are. If you’re not on Reddit, what are you on? Is it Instagram? Whatsapp? Are you an old-fashioned email fan? These are all networks that unite remote individuals into larger crowds and I know for a fact you’re using them.
Pick your poison, check your screen time and earnestly tell me your usage — whether for school or just for fun — doesn’t take up a measurable portion of your day-to-day.
Whatever you use, your usage as a whole cheats the light into showing that Thunderbirds’ choice of social media usage is a reflection of how decentralized campus is. Clubs advertise events in multi-platform social campaigns and faculties post research findings to their accounts. For crying out loud, our former president couldn’t even turn down a social photo-op. By every metric — socially, educationally, administratively — UBC embraces digital networks warmly.
I won’t lament as some do as to whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. In my mind, it’s just a thing. I use social networking – what’s a class without reels? If you’re online all the time, surely you could benefit from spending a bit more time on the physical campus. We have a school in quite literally one of the most beautiful places in the world. Enjoy it, and not through the lens of a story. Go to clubs — ditch the plug-in and connect with your digital network. Winter and all the rain is just a bit easier when you do.
But hey, you do you.
The print version of this article incorrectly reported that number of countries represented among the UBC Vancouver campus population as 137, when, according to the cited report from university administration, that number is 157. The Ubyssey regrets this error.
This is an opinion article. It reflects the contributor's views and does not reflect the views of The Ubyssey as a whole. Contribute to the conversation by visiting ubyssey.ca/pages/submit-an-opinion.
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