r/AmITheAsshole / AITA

[Cosmos]

I unironically like using Reddit. There are a lot of great subreddits out there for virtually any interest you have. But there are some subreddits I love to read for the drama or because I love a good dumpster fire.

r/AmITheAsshole is one of my favorites.

Here is AITA's mission statement to give you a good idea of what the sub is about:

A catharsis for the frustrated moral philosopher in all of us, and a place to finally find out if you were wrong in an argument that's been bothering you. Tell us about any non-violent conflict you have experienced; give us both sides of the story, and find out if you're right, or you're the asshole.

This is the sub to lay out your actions and conflicts and get impartial judgment rendered against you. Were you the asshole in that situation or not? Post should be truthful and reflect real situations. That means no shitposts, parody, or satire.

After 18 hours, your post will be given a flair representing the final judgment on your matter. This flair is determined by the subscribers who have both rendered judgment and voted on which judgment is best. The power of the crowd will judge you.

Basically, people make a post explaining a situation they were in and ask the AITA community if they were in the wrong in the conflict. Users judge the post and comment their judgement. The judgements are:

Judgement	Abbreviation
You're the Asshole (and the other party is not)	YTA
You're Not the Asshole (and the other party is)	NTA
No Assholes here	NAH
Everyone Sucks Here	ESH
Not Enough Information	INFO

AITA used to be an unironically good sub with thought-provoking and interesting posts, but as it's gotten larger (currently at 1.6 million subscribers) more and more bullshit has gotten in. Most posts and comments nowadays fall into these categories:

• Obvious validation posts where nobody would think OP is an asshole and they’re clearly looking for asspats and for people to tell them how right they are (“AITA for shutting down a worldwide child molesting ring and making the lead pedophile cry because I ruined his life?”). There used to be a "no validation posts" rule where these shameless fishing posts were deleted, but that rule was recently removed for who knows what reason. Probably because the mods realized that like 75% of modern AITA posts are validation posts and they just gave up.
• Posts where OP is an asshole but the commenters give justifications that are tone deaf and socially inept (“You don’t owe anybody anything” is their favorite response).
• Posts where both parties are in the wrong but we only get OP's very biased side of the story so they come off more favorably and get a NTA rating.
• Posts that just drip with "Sure, that totally happened. And then everybody clapped."
• Posts where OP isn't an asshole but gets called one anyway, usually due to the bias of the commenters.
• And my favorite, the reason why I keep reading the sub, is when actual assholes who are oblivious they’re assholes make a post and get destroyed in the comments.

As for the commenters:

• In general a lot of the commenters seem to think that if you’re legally in the right you’re never an asshole. Seriously, at this point the sub should be called "Am I Legally Allowed to Do This."
• They seem to think that being an asshole to an asshole is always okay (the “Everyone Sucks Here” judgement is not used as often as it should be).
• There’s a heavy crossover with the child free subreddit, as posts featuring parents and/or children usually have them getting ragged on.
• They love to tell people to cut off entire relationships based on a single (biased) post about a single situation. Expect to see words "narcissist" and "toxic" thrown around.

This pretty much encompasses all of the shitty commenters and posters I left out and is a fun way to read AITA:

Here's a good example of the child-hate on AITA and people calling OP an asshole when she doesn't deserve it:

r/AmItheAsshole - AITA for blowing up at neighbor for not preventing our child from going missing?

162 votes and 141 comments so far on Reddit

www.reddit.com

(archive)

Yesterday our 3 year old went on a little adventure. My husband came home from doing some errands, we chatted for a bit in our kitchen, leaving our son to play on his own like we always do in an adjacent-but-not-in-eyesight room. He usually watches TV for a bit after his snack, it's been the routine for a year now. Color us surprised when he managed to unlock the front wooden door, open it, unlock the front glass door, and open it, get down our porch all without us noticing. We noticed after about 10min and we freaked out. 911 and 3hr later, he's brought home from a few blocks away: full of mud but otherwise O.K.

I'm not asking if we were the assholes for not paying attention, because I know we full well were. I do want to ask about our neighbor though and if me blowing up at her was justifiably assholish. After we had our baby back, she piped in to the police officers with us in earshot "oh I saw him running across the street, I thought he was playing so didn't do anything". She detailed she knew our kid got out unattended (and did nothing), what direction he went in (and told no one), and previously said she had no idea about anything (lying to cops and us).

I don't get along with my neighbor. She somehow has four cars to their household and frequently parks in our driveway. We don't have a car ourselves. It's been a constant battle over the last five years to get her to stop. She's retaliated, too, but I think this time goes too far. I exploded at her and would have got physical were the police not there.

While I know we should have been more attentive, what my neighbor did was outright malicious. AITA for exploding at her? Is she TA?

Spoiler: Commenters calling her an asshole

"NOT HER KID, NOT HER RESPONSIBILITY!!!"

Holy shit, they're acting like OP asked the neighbor to babysit the child without pay or something. If you see a small child wandering off alone with no parents or caretakers in sight, it's your responsibility as a decent human being to intervene. If you saw a small child wandering off and then the police get involved, it's your responsibility as a decent human being to tell the police everything you know so the child can be found as soon as possible.

As civilized members of society, we must protect the vulnerable. I wouldn't let a dog or cat run away and potentially get hurt, let alone a child. Not because I "owe them anything," but because I am morally obligated as a good person to help the vulnerable. It comes down to empathy, too; if my child or pet were in that position, wouldn't I want someone to help them?

The neighbor is a total piece of shit and so is everyone defending her behavior.

An example of a shameless validation post:

r/AmItheAsshole - AITA For making my girlfriend homeless after she yelled at my little brother?

35,855 votes and 2,587 comments so far on Reddit

www.reddit.com

(archive)

"Am I the asshole for protecting my vulnerable little brother from my psycho girlfriend who abuses him?"

"YOU'RE SUCH A GOOD PERSON OP, LET US SHOWER YOU IN COMPLIMENTS"


Another post where OP is obviously an asshole but it's okay because fuck religious people:

I'll leave it at there for now, but there are many, many more examples. r/AmITheAngel is a good parody sub that makes fun of the shithole AITA has become.

 

[Mongo0o]

Reddit is a soylent cesspool of circle jerking that elicits douche chills, and this sub might be one of the worst. I like the bingo card you used to exemplify the majority of the sub.

 

[Mediocre]

I'll admit, this sub-reddit is also a guilty pleasure of mine but I can't help but think many of them are just fan fiction written for upboats, you do get a few good ones where the OP has uploaded some evidence etc.

 

[Ningen]

I wasn't aware that r/AmITheAsshole was filled with Kiwis.

 

[CherryBlossomTree]

It's honestly about time this subreddit got it's own lolcow thread. This subreddit is the fucking definition of a Reddit circlejerk.

 

[Mongo0o]

It's honestly about time this subreddit got it's own lolcow thread. This subreddit is the fucking definition of a Reddit circlejerk.

r/childfree will always be the worst, r/movies second probably, and this one in third.

 

[Megaroad 2012]

Larry David the Subreddit.

 

[Mexican_Wizard_711]

Here's one, a mother has two kids (son and daughter), she is more proud of her son than daughter due to the former having taken better life choices than the latter.

r/AmItheAsshole - AITA for saying I'm more proud of my son than I am my daughter?

298 votes and 415 comments so far on Reddit

www.reddit.com

Pretty minor, but I just thought commenters were acting like Mr. Enter spergs

 

[Shield Breaker]

The three year old one sounds fake, TBH. Even the day after, if my kid was missing three hours, I wouldn't be making a post calling it a little adventure. I'd call it the time I almost lost my kid. I also wouldn't be asking if the neighbors a bitch. I would know. Maybe I'm just weird, though.

Certainly looks promising though.

 

[Ningen]

I have the free time so I decided to do some digging.
According to subredditstats.com these are the most common words used in AITA.

Seems innocent enough, right? Not quite, let's dive deeper into it.

r/raisedbynarcissists and its sister subs like r/raisedbyborderlines or r/raisedby[INSERT PERSONALITY DISORDER HERE] are extremely hostile shitholes whose userbase is, oh the irony, very likely to be narcissist themselves.
From my experience lurking Plebbit I can tell you that there is a lot of drama surrounding this sub just one google search should provide you enough drama and butthurt to make your mouth drool.
Let's look further.

r/relationship_advice while not as bad as r/raisedbynarcissists is still a shithole, most people here, ratter than asking for advice are asking for validation from others and, on the surface, karmawhoring runs rampant, while deep down predatory behavior and stalking is quite common. Afterall, we live in the day and age when your information and data are a currency, and just like it happens with any currency it can extorted, this leads me to my next point:

Plebbitors, just like your average SocJus college kiddo, prefeer style over substance.
It's quite funny that the same place that encourages people to drop every slur and everything remotely deem offensive will verbally lynch you if you happen to show your weaknesses in front of them.

As side note, considering how this subreddit is filled with antinatalists from r/childfree it should come as no surprise to you that these are among the most commonly used words

Why? Because trans people have a long long history of supporting eugenics and antinatalism themselves:

Chris Korda - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Church of Euthanasia - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

New eugenics - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

So yeah, let me call Richard Dawkins' "Super Uncle Theory" a huge piece of horseshit.

Let's take a moment to appreciate the massive amount of family-related drama in our first image: failed marriages, second marriages, single mothers, abuse, neglect and mentally ill parents with mentally ill sons. No surprise that "roommate" is a common word too, people being able to stand living with these redditors for too long is completely beyond me.
And now, as sadder side note, there is also this relevant word:

I ignore if they are talking about deaf kids, low-functioning autistic kids or a mix of both but considering how stupid these plebbitors are this is extremely tragic for both kinds of disabled kids.
Those deaf kids are probably end up feral and those autistic kids are probably end up like Chris Chan or the fucking Joker due to being neglected and isolated.

Why so cringey redditors?

 

[Cosmos]

I realized I forgot to include one of my favorite AITA posts, an increasingly rare occasion where a true asshole shows up.

r/AmItheAsshole - AITA for using money we "earmarked" for our 6 month old's college fund to buy back the exact 1972 Ford Bronco I owned as a teenager?

28,054 votes and 6,357 comments so far on Reddit

www.reddit.com

So how to begin with this...I realize that on paper I am totally the asshole but when you dig deeper into my motivations I'm hoping its more of a grey area that anything else and maybe even I did the right thing.

When I was a teenager my dad bought me a classic 1972 Ford Bronco. It was my true passion and I don't recall a memory from high school that somehow doesn't involve that truck. Plus my dad and I would spend hours and hours working on it together and we went through that especially father/son rough patch when I was teenager it was always that Bronco that brought us back together. I made a huge mistake and sold the truck when I turned 19 and my dad died of a heart attack two months later so while not logical, I've always felt a karmic connection between the two events.

We had a baby in early February. she is our first and the light of my life. My wife is doing well but she's back at work and she's realized that she hates all the day cares we've tried and really wants to be a stay at home mom and plus she's still very hormonal from delivery, lack of sleep and breastfeeding so she's having a rough time and is angry a lot. I guess I need to say this.

Two weeks ago I was driving through our town's warehouse district and saw a Bronco that was pretty beat up but resembled mine. I stopped just for nostalgias sake and the owner came out and let me take a look inside. My dad and I had glued a wheat penny under the dash as sort of security measure so I just sort of checked and goddamned if it wasn't MY BRONCO!

I asked him if he'd ever consider selling it, he said actually someone was on I-25 as we spoke from Colorado to buy it for $21000. I freaked out and asked him if I could buy it right then and there for $23000. He said if I could come up with the cash, yes. I had been procrastinating setting up a 529 so I had $12000 in savings that my wife's parents had given us, I maxed out my credit card to Venmo and my mom bought down a check for $4000 and I fucking drove away in my old car. It was like a dream come true. Like a literal dream come true. It needs a lot of work I can't afford right now but it's mine. Like in my driveway mine. Again. I can't even describe what a joy this is.

My wife and her parents are furious with me. They feel I was deceptive, that a "real" man would have sacrificed anything and everything so my wife could go stay at home with his kids and that's setting aside that they gave us the money for a college fund. My point is my daughter is only 6 months old, we have 18 years to set up a college fund of her. But this Bronco means everything to me and if I wouldn't have acted it would have been gone forever. Now it can be that same connection between me and my kids. To me it's the literal meaning of happiness.

Like I said on paper--asshole...whole story--grey area. How do you guys see it?

Edit: had no idea this would go so one way. I guess I messed up. I talked with my mom and she is basically going to buy the bronco from me in order to refill the college fund and pay off the credit card. The $4k will be a gift and she’s going to give me whatever I need to restore it. She’s always been awesome to me and she’s rather the money be spent now than wait for me and my sisters inheritance. Sorry to get everyone so mad at me, I was thinking with my emotions and acted badly

edit2: are the “mommy bailed you out” comments really necessary ? I found a solution and it’s coming from me and my sisters inheritance so it’s not like I’m not paying for it on my own eventually.

Edit 3: my inbox is so buried I have no idea what those icons are that are where gold used to be. Does anyone know what those are ?

Edit4: I’m getting a 403 error whenever I try to respond, not sure what that means but I’m still reading because honestly I’m afraid to go home even with the great news I know my wife is going to be upset for one reason or another

Edit5: does anyone know what 403 error means? I messaged the moderators but they must be busy /u/SnausageFest [+5] since you’re a mod, do you know? I can’t respond to any posts and get the “status 403” whenever I try. Thanks!

Edit in the morning: I couldn’t figure out why I was getting so many private’s but I guess this must be locked now. I didn’t tell my wife that my mom bailed me out and lied and Said I found a buyer for the bronco. I’ll figure out how to cross that bridge when I get there but my wife was so relieved that I “had come to your senses” I don’t want to disappoint her. It’s going to take all my lying skills to pull this one off over the next few years.

Tl;dr- Dude spends his infant daughter's 12k college fund/funds that could have been used to help his wife be a stay-at-home mother (which was given to them by his in-laws, btw) and maxes out his credit cards (without consulting his wife) on a shitty 1972 Ford Bronco. But it's totally justified, because it's the shitty 1972 Ford Bronco his dad bought for him when he was a teenager and he eventually sold. And the shitty 1972 Ford Bronco is so beat-up it's going to need thousands of more dollars poured into it to make it acceptable. When his wife and in-laws found out they reamed the shit out of him for being so reckless. But it's okay, because OP's mommy bailed him out by buying the shitty Ford Bronco from him and giving him enough money to refill the college fund and pay off his credit card debt. Oh, except OP didn't actually tell his wife about that, he lied and said he sold it to someone else.

The comments are not kind to OP:

This is my favorite line that most of the commentators seemed to overlook:

he said actually someone was on I-25 as we spoke from Colorado to buy it for $21000. I freaked out and asked him if I could buy it right then and there for $23000.

He fell for the oldest trick in the fucking book, lmao. What a wild coincidence that someone else was on their way to buy that crappy old car for 21k!

 

[Shield Breaker]

I realized I forgot to include one of my favorite AITA posts, an increasingly rare occasion where a true asshole shows up.

r/AmItheAsshole - AITA for using money we "earmarked" for our 6 month old's college fund to buy back the exact 1972 Ford Bronco I owned as a teenager?

28,054 votes and 6,357 comments so far on Reddit

www.reddit.com

Tl;dr- Dude spends his infant daughter's 12k college fund/funds that could have been used to help his wife be a stay-at-home mother (which was given to them by his in-laws, btw) and maxes out his credit cards (without consulting his wife) on a shitty 1972 Ford Bronco. But it's totally justified, because it's the shitty 1972 Ford Bronco his dad bought for him when he was a teenager and he eventually sold. And the shitty 1972 Ford Bronco is so beat-up it's going to need thousands of more dollars poured into it to make it acceptable. When his wife and in-laws found out they reamed the shit out of him for being so reckless. But it's okay, because OP's mommy bailed him out by buying the shitty Ford Bronco from him and giving him enough money to refill the college fund and pay off his credit card debt. Oh, except OP didn't actually tell his wife about that, he lied and said he sold it to someone else.

The comments are not kind to OP:

View attachment 1093180View attachment 1093181View attachment 1093183View attachment 1093184View attachment 1093185

This is my favorite line that most of the commentators seemed to overlook:



He fell for the oldest trick in the fucking book, lmao. What a wild coincidence that someone else was on their way to buy that crappy old car for 21k!

I don’t know if I should rate it winner for the response or horror for the asshole.

 

[Sourceress]

Here's one, a mother has two kids (son and daughter), she is more proud of her son than daughter due to the former having taken better life choices than the latter.

r/AmItheAsshole - AITA for saying I'm more proud of my son than I am my daughter?

298 votes and 415 comments so far on Reddit

www.reddit.com

Pretty minor, but I just thought commenters were acting like Mr. Enter spergs

The number of people on that post who just could not understand why anyone in the world would think being a successful businessperson with a good relationship and real career and family prospects is considered more worthy of respect than choosing to be a drug-addicted stripper "party girl" was just... astonishing. I love watching the SJW/libfem "sex work is work!!11" crowd tie themselves in circles trying to make stripping and prostitution sound like they're every bit as safe, sensible and successful as being a banker or a lawyer. Somehow they just can't ever hack it.

Anyway, browsing AITA is a huge time-waster hobby of mine so this thread is my new favorite place on the Farms. Cheers!

 

[FireGod365]

r/childfree will always be the worst, r/movies second probably, and this one in third.

What makes r/movies second worst?

 

[The Last Stand]

I realized I forgot to include one of my favorite AITA posts, an increasingly rare occasion where a true asshole shows up.

r/AmItheAsshole - AITA for using money we "earmarked" for our 6 month old's college fund to buy back the exact 1972 Ford Bronco I owned as a teenager?

28,054 votes and 6,357 comments so far on Reddit

www.reddit.com

Tl;dr- Dude spends his infant daughter's 12k college fund/funds that could have been used to help his wife be a stay-at-home mother (which was given to them by his in-laws, btw) and maxes out his credit cards (without consulting his wife) on a shitty 1972 Ford Bronco. But it's totally justified, because it's the shitty 1972 Ford Bronco his dad bought for him when he was a teenager and he eventually sold. And the shitty 1972 Ford Bronco is so beat-up it's going to need thousands of more dollars poured into it to make it acceptable. When his wife and in-laws found out they reamed the shit out of him for being so reckless. But it's okay, because OP's mommy bailed him out by buying the shitty Ford Bronco from him and giving him enough money to refill the college fund and pay off his credit card debt. Oh, except OP didn't actually tell his wife about that, he lied and said he sold it to someone else.

The comments are not kind to OP:

View attachment 1093180View attachment 1093181View attachment 1093183View attachment 1093184View attachment 1093185

This is my favorite line that most of the commentators seemed to overlook:



He fell for the oldest trick in the fucking book, lmao. What a wild coincidence that someone else was on their way to buy that crappy old car for 21k!

There's being an asshole, and there's being a piece of shit. That guy managed to surpass asshole.

Hope that OJ car was worth it.

 

[Dirty Jerz]

R/AITA suffers the same problem that r/relationships suffers from.

The commenters being mostly women.

 

[Jolyne THICCujoh]

I used to post "DRUMPH BAD!" threads on AITA back in I think 2015 - 2016 when I needed quick karma for posting requirements on other subs. For trolling, of course. Ah, sweet youth!

"For trolling, of course."

(Fiddles with 37 LGBT pins and "not my president" shirt)

 

[T0oCoolFool]

I remember when it was a decent sub. Now I read it when I need to pass time. It's kind of fun to see if I can guess the comment section before I read it. Sometimes there is a rare comment of sanity that gets upvoted, but that's uncommon.

This reddit thread you shared is an example of a post without enough information to give a fair judgement:

AITA For making my girlfriend homeless after she yelled at my little brother?

I'm 25(M) and have lived with my girlfriend for the last few months. I pay rent and all bills because a few months ago she was kicked out of her parents home (that's a story for another time), although she also does have a job (she is horrible with her money and has no savings).


So a few weeks ago my little brother (10) moved in with me, and my grandparents said they were going to move overseas and could not take him - my parents passed a few years ago, and when they passed I was still in college and hence couldn't take him in, even though I loved him very much (still obviously do). When I got my own place, I felt it would be selfish to uproot his new home, so just left him with my grandparents. However, I visited him almost every day whilst he was living there.


When I informed my girlfriend of my little brother moving in, she was very angry, although she eventually calmed down and accepted it - probably because she realised she could do nothing about it.


My girlfriend has been quite aggressive to my little brother. My little brother is very shy and has anxiety issues, and often has panic attacks. Therefore, the day before he came I told my girlfriend to be welcoming and make him feel wanted on her part.


However, the last few weeks have been very concerning. She has been very aggressive with my brother. Yesterday, when he accidentally spilt his drink on MY lap, she yelled at him and called him worthless. He started crying and kept apologising to her, whilst hugging me and hiding his head in shame.


I told her that she could no longer live with me given how she treated my brother. I was aware that by making her leave, that she would be homeless. However, my brother comes first.


AITA for making her homeless without giving her time to sort out other arrangements?


EDIT#1: This is NOT a breakup post; I'm asking whether I'm an asshole for kicking someone out and making them homeless without notice because of her treatment of my brother.

This low information and biased as hell post is why AITA feels more like a place to smell your own farts. If this sub functioned in the way that it was meant to, people would be asking for more information.

We have no idea how long OP and his girlfriend have been dating or what their living situation is like.

Maybe OP has a tiny home and the girlfriend is rightfully upset because she knows there isn't going to be enough room for all of them to live comfortably.

Maybe she's mad because she feels like she will be stuck babysitting and cleaning up after the kid because OP is a lazy POS.

Maybe OP's brother is really hard to deal with (OP even says he has panic attacks) and she doesn't want to deal with his emotional and mental issues.

Maybe OP's girlfriend doesn't feel like a valued partner. Maybe OP never compromises with her and then to top it off he tells her to STFU and be welcoming to his brother.

Oh well, at least there are a few top voted comments calling OP's story fake.

 

[breadandcircuses]

23 large for a beat up, 50 year old bronco.

Who thinks that's a good deal? He could've avoided a lot of grief and just offered a thousand bucks, cash. And even then, that's too much money!

 

[vdnb6]

Oh thank god, finally a thread for this Subreddit. There was a thread on there a few weeks ago that really bothered me: https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAssh...ta_for_telling_my_friend_she_got_an_std_from/ (https://archive.md/lkTgN)

The gist is that the OP has little sexual experience (absolutely nothing wrong with that), and while at dinner with someone that they considered a close friend, the friend used them as entertainment, repeatedly mocking their sex life in front of a group of (presumably) strangers and ignoring requests to stop. OP got annoyed and defended themself by bringing up their friend's STD, and she freaked out and left the restaurant. The situation sucks but it was a classic case of someone who can dish it out but can't take it. The comments are full of people who are angry at the OP for slut shaming, because no one can fathom that being dogpiled and shamed by a group of people at an outing for a lifestyle that works for them is worse than making a heated comment in self-defense. And in typical Reddit fashion, people are telling the OP that they hope the friend immediately cuts them out of her life for being toxic.