Upvoted by Reddit

A special Pride Month edition of Upvoted. Six perspectives on coming out, told firsthand from Reddit users—and employees—in a new segment called Storyboard.

On Death, Addiction, An All Women's Pentecostal Discipleship Program, and Assimilating Back In Society Reddit user m3rlino is the focus of this week’s episode. We discuss her upbringing, the death of her stepdad, moving in with her father, addiction, how she was sent to an all women’s Pentecostal discipleship program, the rules of the program, the restaurant all the students worked at, fundraising, and assimilating back into society.

Meet the artist who paints presidents and redditors—with his signature "shitty" style. Artist Shitty_Watercolour is the focus of this week’s episode. We discuss his upbringing, how he started doing paintings on Reddit, welcoming celebrities on AMAs, how he started getting paid commissions, depression, growing as an artist, his recent novelty account art battle with user AWildSketchAppeared, and his upcoming project with user Poem_for_your_sprog.

Willie Barcena is the focus of this week’s episode. We discuss his upbringing, career, development deals, the art of comedy, fame, his experience as a cruise ship comedian, couples therapy, and what he hopes his legacy will be.

David Reynolds (Reddit user DavidMReynolds) and Shaz Abdullah (user dartmoorninja) are the focus of this week’s episode. We discuss Game of Thumbs, zombies, their church residence, meeting Steven Spielberg, Dartmoor, their trailer for the Raindance Festival, Kickstarter, First Person Shooter, and Level 2.

Matthew VanDyke (Reddit user MatthewVanDyke) is the focus of this week’s episode. We discuss his upbringing; his motorcycle trip through North Africa as well as the Middle East, why he fought in the Libyan Revolution, his experience in Libyan prison, his experience in the Syrian Revolution, his documentary films about these experiences, and his new organization fighting Isis in Northern Iraq, ‘Sons of Liberty International.’

Reddit users Minifig81 and Ben10MMA (Ben Nguyen) are the focus of this week’s episode. With Minifig81 we discuss how he got into fighting spam on Reddit, moderates 138 community, and why he spends so much time on Reddit. With Ben Nguyen, we discuss growing up in South Dakota, how he got into fighting, dropped out of college to pursue a career in MMA, trained in Thailand, met his wife, his infamous fight with Julz Jackal, and what lies ahead.

Elyot Grant (Reddit user elyot) is the focus of this week’s episode. We discuss how Elyot created Prismata, how he dropped out of graduate school at MIT, his epic TIFU, how reddit came to the rescue, the Prismata Kickstarter, and what Lunarch Studios has planned for the future.

One ex-addict is using an online community to save heroin users' lives. Tracey Helton (Reddit user traceyh415) is the focus of this week’s episode. We discuss her depression growing up, how she became addicted to heroin, life as a homeless heroin addict, being the subject of the HBO documentary Black Tar Heroin, how she got clean, her involvement in harm reduction, how she got involved in Reddit’s opiates community, Naloxone, and how she saved the lives of over 120 users by sending naloxone to those with no access.

Heather (Reddit user sailingshort) is the focus of this week’s episode. We discuss Heather’s upbringing, how she discovered sailing after high school, how she started working on tall ships in New Zealand, how her ship almost sank on a trip at sea, how the crew banded together, and how this experience led to her to fall in love with her husband, a carpenter on the ship during this traumatic event.

Unidan (user unidanx) is the focus of this week’s episode. We discuss how he fell in love with science; his comedic development; discovering Reddit; Reddit fame; his ban; the aftermath; harassment; what he is currently been up to; and what he has learned from the experience.

Steve Huffman (a.k.a. spez) and Alexis Ohanian (a.k.a. kn0thing) discuss the founding of Reddit. They discuss tags vs. subreddits; star rating systems; faking users; the debate on comments; the RTM button; how Reddit was originally built on LISP; the front page; recommendation engines; the Google Acquisition offer; Chris Sacca; their meeting with Yahoo; Aaron Swartz; free speech; and their hopes for Reddit in the next 10 years.

The social impact of the Indian Net Neutrality debate is the focus of this week’s episode of Upvoted by reddit. This is the last of our two part series on this subject. We discuss the original TRAI paper, the involvement of redditors in India in the debate, AIB’s video, Internet.org’s change in policy, and where the debate is currently.

This episode chronicles the story of “Double Dick Dude.” We discuss how he decided to come out to the internet; his infamous AMA; his struggles in high school; coping with internet fame; lessons he learned from his parents; being ridiculed in high school; Superman; and his new book, Double Header: My Life with Two Penises.

This episode chronicles the story of Val Kiossovski and Gino Jevđević (Reddit user ginoyevdjevich) from Kultur Shock. We discuss Gino’s rise to pop stardom in Yugoslavia as Gino Banana; the Bosnian War; Gino’s production of the musical ‘Hair’ during the war; how Joan Baez helped Gino emigrate to the United States; Val’s upbringing in communist Bulgaria; how a song Val wrote granted him status as a political dissident; the inception of Kultur Shock in Seattle; working with Billy Gould from Faith No More; overcoming prejudice in the music industry; finding success in Europe; returning to the Balkans; their new record IX; and Gino’s most recent AMA.

In this episode Alexis is joined by Elana Glassman, Jean Yang, and Neha Narula from MIT for a roundtable discussion on STEM. We discuss their upbringings, the public vs. private sector, challenges women are currently facing in the field, misconceptions on programming, their recent AMA, and the future of CSE.

This episode chronicles the story of Jordan Axani (Reddit user jaxani). We talk to Jordan about his experiences growing up in Canada; his love of travel; buying tickets around the world on glitch trip for himself and his girlfriend (Elizabeth Gallagher); their breakup; how he used Reddit to find another travel partner named Elizabeth Gallagher; his experience going viral, and using what he learned to launch the non-profit A Ticket Forward.

This episode chronicles the story of DeStorm Power. We talk to DeStorm about his experiences growing up in the projects; his first encounters with art; moving to New York City to follow his dreams, his period of homelessness; breaking into the music industry, and becoming one of the biggest social media stars of all time.

This episode chronicles the story of Max Gleason aka Smooth McGroove (/u/SmoothMcGroove). We talk to Max about growing up in Oklahoma; falling in love with videogames; developing as a musician; teaching drums, delving into video game a cappella music; and creating a unique career for himself with the support of his fans.

This episode chronicles the story of Rome, Sweet Rome by James Erwin (/u/prufrock451). We talk to James about growing up in Iowa; winning Jeopardy twice; writing Rome, Sweet Rome; meeting his manager, Adam Kolbrenner; selling his script to Warner Brothers; and Acadia.

This episode chronicles the story of Dante Orpilla (Reddit user youngluck). We talk to Dante about his band, the Bottom Dwellerz; losing custody of his son; his addiction to drugs; his trial; discovering Reddit; having Kleinboo from the Reddit “favors” community help him write a speech for the judge; Blackmarketarts; getting involved with Reddit Gifts; and eventually finding his dream job.