If you stay away from default subreddits, and pick subreddits that you're interested in, it's often a very good community. There are a lot of smaller subreddits devoted to specific issues or questions, philosophies, thoughtful politics or ways of living.

I originally joined reddit because it was a safe space for women- no avatars denoting sexual orientation or preference, interesting conversation.

And reddit's still pretty much like that for me. I've put in my years moderating large and controversial subreddits, and now I pick and choose what I want to participate in. I've made good friends on reddit, done some good, and if nothing else, reddit's good for stupid shit- favourite video, most annoying trait in a partner, etc, etc.

Reddit's kind of whatever you make of it. Depending on what subreddits you participate in, it's horribly misogynist, sexist, favours whatever political party in your area that you don't believe in, and is absolutely idiotic on every level. It's also dangerous (on many levels), a time-waster, an echo chamber, and a stupid way to try and make your life 'count'. Yeah, Cecil the Lion died, kids with cancer got toys, /IamA got another celebrity. I like reddit because it's always there when I'm bored, and because occasionally I connect with people, in a useful way. Either as friends or lovers or parents or children or food providers or people on a budget or readers or historians who are horrified or informative about something or other.

Reddit is pretty much whatever you want it to be. I'm still a bit baffled that anyone thinks that reddit's 'important' in any way- it's just the flavour of the moment in terms of the number of users. The same way that the well, metafilter, Fark, Facebook, Orkut, Twitter, Slashdot, Digg, 4chan etc were.

I like reddit because I can pick and choose what I want to participate in, and because it's fun sometimes.