Right? I'm so sick of this weird paranoia reddit has with advertising too. It is like they've forgotten what internet culture is like? This is popular on the internet. Reddit is a way for people to get their works out. It may be advertising yes, but like you've said so is broadcasting to your group of friends what movies you've seen, games you've played, music you've heard. It's all a form of advertising.

"But YYssuu, if something is good enough to sustain itself on word of mouth, then it deserves the publicity!" Yeah.. no Billy, no one gives a shit if you liked Hotel Artemis. Advertising is necessary, getting the word out about something in a widespread manner is the only way to inform people it exists, ok? Does this mean we need Yoda on bananas or Iron Man on power tools? No! There is excessive advertising. But someone getting popular on the internet and having their name spread has literally been the name of the game since like 2002. It's not anymore advertising than yet another fucking person on /r/movies talking about Christopher Nolan being the best director in history. I'm out.