I’ve really grown to love Alexis Ohanian, who is the co-founder of Reddit and currently Serena Williams’ husband. I love Alexis and Serena together and I love their love story. I love that they have the same cheeseball/nerdy sense of humor and that he’s more than fine with her being “the star.” I love that to most people, he’s “Serena’s husband” and he’s unbothered by that. He’s refreshingly non-toxic. And as the husband of a black woman and the father of a black child, Alexis has gone through a *journey* on race over the past five years. I believe he probably started out as pretty woke, but now he’s seen first-hand in daily life both the obvious and subtextual racism that plagues society at every level. And so he’s doing something about it: he’s stepping down from Reddit’s board and asking that his seat be filled with a black candidate, and he promises to donate $1 million (and future Reddit-associated earnings) to social/racial justice causes.
— Alexis Ohanian Sr. 🚀 (@alexisohanian) June 5, 2020
Racial representation in boardrooms across all industries is desperately needed. If more companies had racially diverse boardrooms, perhaps there wouldn’t be all of these weekly stories about “how did this racist ad get through” or “how did this offensive product get made” or “why is ‘white’ the default consumer?” I think Alexis is doing a good thing, but I’m not sure his move will actually encourage other white dudes to step down from various corporate boards so that more diverse voices can be heard.
I believe the board will follow through.
The Reddit community is also asking for it and more. Exciting times seeing this level of energy asking for change (including from community itself asking for a hate speech policy). https://t.co/enaIDOFukW— Alexis Ohanian Sr. 🚀 (@alexisohanian) June 5, 2020
Serena is proud of her man too:
So proud of your commitment to not just me but to “us” https://t.co/kVUaJZoe7v
— Serena Williams (@serenawilliams) June 5, 2020
Having diverse views on any boards is important. So proud of you Alexis. I know Olympia will be too https://t.co/kVUaJZoe7v
— Serena Williams (@serenawilliams) June 5, 2020
Photos courtesy of WENN, Avalon Red and Backgrid.
I’m kind of in love with him? He just seems… so secure with who he is, and completely content letting his wife be an absolute star. I know that’s not super high bar or anything, but it’s sadly just so rare to see. It’s refreshing. And I think he’s really cute.
It’s just extra nice to see these qualities in tech guys. While I work in the industry, there’s just so many awful men (and some equally awful women at the company I work for). We have some absolute gems as well, but they’re of course sadly the minority.
A step in the right direction, but let’s not applaud too hard – he has left some of the darkest, most repulsive corners of the internet intact at Reddit. He deserves not as much but certainly a portion of the blame hurled at Zuck for the state of America today, he just flies under the radar because “reddit is for nerds” or… something.
Yeah I was about to post the same thing. Reddit has hideous white supremacist groups, pedophilia groups, you name it. If he founded it and sits on the board, he helped created it and he controls it — so he’s complicit in that. And why?! What the actual f, seriously? Is this hard to understand?
Exactly. Good article on Jezebel about it: https://jezebel.com/its-not-enough-to-quit-your-job-1843927546
I don’t understand why Reddit does not face the same criticism as Facebook and Twitter for promoting hate.
Because somehow it’s more under the radar (despite tons of celebs and even Obama doing reddit AMAs).
Reddit is a massive dumpster fire. Who’d want to be connected with that?
The good thing about reddit is the way it’s structured makes it easy for you not to bother with anyone you don’t want to bother. Like most people I used to have a negative view of it because of it’s terrible subs, but then I noticed it’s, once again, a case of social media presenting a very small group as a much larger and bigger threat than it really is.
I’ve been posting on reddit for 3 years and outside of some occasional rude poster here and there (and the trolls that lurk in every online forum large enough), I’ve never been threatened or insulted or anything. I used twitter for only a couple months and that happened at least 3 times…
And he definitely doesn’t “fly under the radar”… I think people complain about reddit far more than they do facebook and twitter.
Yeah I’ll be honest – if you find good subs it’s one of the best places on the internet. There’s some absolutely amazing unbiased reviews out there – when I want to know how a product is I check reddit because it’s been LESS infiltrated by paid reviews.
I’ve seen some of the most polite interactions on the internet on reddit, as well.
I think a lot of the reddit hate comes from people who just… don’t really understand how it works? Obviously there’s plenty of awful people on reddit – and certain subs should absolutely not exist – but there are much more decent people on it. I think a lot of people just don’t bother with it because of the layout/how it looks in general.
Another reddit fan here. A couple of the subs in there have been life changers for me and are full of respectful and helpful commenters. (@al-anon and @raisebynaricissists).
I use it for skincare and I will occasionally check into a TV show oriented one if I’m really into the show. I also like AITA if I’m feel groggy. It’s a different beast than typical social media and that’s fun sometimes.
And while I know Reddit’s fairly popular, I’ve seen tons of outrage about twitter and FB being able to spread fake news, but not nearly as much with reddit.
No. The point here is not whether or not you and I have found subreddits that we enjoy or we have been bullied/trolled. It’s about the disgusting, harmful, dangerous subreddits that have been allowed to exist and thrive during Ohanian’s tenure. Never mind the political subreddits – there are parts of Reddit that have been and continue to be a straight up threat to women, to children, to POC. I refuse to even list them, but if you don’t know what I’m talking about, look it up. And despite being an organisation that can make it’s own policy decisions and determined what does or doesn’t exist on the website, it continues to hide around the argument of “free speech” and blah blah blah. I ask you, why is this “very small group” of “terrible subs” allowed to co-exist amongst my fav fitness/cooking/skincare subreddits? Why? Why not shut it down? Because it was founded by white men whom it does not impact. Because its user based continues to be predominately male and white. Because – god forbid – they do something that might impact their inevitable IPO.
The internet might complain more about Reddit, but your local news certainly doesn’t. There has been exponentially more coverage over how Facebook/Twitter is a “threat to democracy”, what Mark or Jack is or isn’t doing, etc. Reddit pops up on the radar when something horrific happens and it gets tracked back to a website. And then they release some wishy-washy statement, maybe quarantine a subreddit or two that’s been flagged for, oh, I don’t know, YEARS (which, by the way, does nothing). And then it just all goes away again.
DO NOT let Reddit off the hook just because you like elements of it.
I hope his parents write a parenting manual because they did something RIGHT. He just seems to lack that typical white man fragility and he gives me faith in believing that not all men are afraid of strong, successful, outspoken women.
I would think watching medical staff totally ignore the concerns of your wife, who is black, while giving birth to your child, who is also black, would be a wake up call for anyone to wake the hell up. They are both hand over fist millionaires and Serena still almost died in childbirth.
Don’t say ‘currently Serena Williams’ husband’!!!
It sounds like they are about to split up…. 🙂
These 2 are adorable. I love her responses to him.
lol yeah that sounded shaaaady
He had a POC who was CEO…who was ran away due to them not putting a handle on the racist fascist cesspool that Reddit is…so I’m not moved by this tokenism at all…and I feel sorry for whomever takes his spot
He also has been integral to knowingly sitting back while Russian interference got Drumpf elected. And has allowed TD and a myriad of racist, p3do, subreddits to go on for years. And allow spez, a known racist and white supremacist, to run his website. Ohanian is a mess and there are many of us who have said that for years.
Thank you! Yes!
People act like Reddit isn’t famously horrible.
I agree, I wish he had done more to fix it. While I think Reddit absolutely should have a black board member, I hope he’s not expecting that person to come in and fix the mess. I also don’t want that person scapegoated when things inevitably stay awful on there.
Thanks, Lala. I came to say that. She was Asian and had been fired from a venture capitalist firm for her allegations of sexual harassment. One of the first things she did was try to shut down chat rooms that focused on racism and sexism. The racists and sexists complained, the chat rooms stayed open, and she was ousted.
Let’s wait to see who applies to be the token black person on this horrible company’s board…waiting…wait…are those crickets?
The last female CEO of color wasn’t protected and backed up by the BOD. Crickets indeed.
Nice gesture, but Alex needs to do something about the board, too, or nothing will change. He needs to stay on the board and maybe put some women of color on it. It will lose money initially as the racists and sexists leave. Hoping that enough people stay to keep it vital and relevant to the IT community.
He can step down because they have money..most people cant afford to step down from a job.
As a mod on Reddit, this is good and bad. Good because it’s movement towards something, considering Steve Huffmans empty words on not supporting racism and hate. It’s bad because he’s one of the people you want there, supporting those minority voices. Reddit has always prioritize demonetization over removal of hate speech. For a brief overview and call out, I’ve linked an open letter below.
R/feminism, r/racism, r/black ladies and a ton of other subs have joined r/againsthatesubreddits in calling this out. As well as the other subs who have protested with sub closures like r/nba and r/nfl.
The open letter to Huffman can be found here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AgainstHateSubreddits/comments/gyyqem/open_letter_to_steve_huffman_and_the_board_of/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
I like he’s unbothered that many people have no idea he’s rich on his own but this is such PR move. “Black people” don’t need one person to step down to make place for them! Also reddit is full of terrible content and they do nothing about it.