How ‘snarks’ range from hating on the way someone eats their breakfast, to calling Child Protective Services to try and get their children taken away.
A snark subreddit is a community group on Reddit where users post and comment critically about something or someone— typically a public figure, but sometimes whole industries or niches.
They’re called “snarks” after the mocking, sarcastic tone of their comments, and their style of community is not limited to Reddit.
Similar spaces and groups exist on Discord servers and dedicated gossip sites like Tattle.life.
Unlike most forum-based social platforms, where biting or overly harsh comments on popular topics are usually buried under ‘downvotes’, on snark subreddits those same comments are front and centre, frequently racking up hundreds of upvotes (likes) and support.
Replies can spiral quickly, often becoming harsher than the original post. This speaks to the counter culture movement of snarks— something that many wear with pride.
Popular Snark Subreddits
Not all snarks are easy to spot amongst fan-led subreddits.
You might stumble across a post in r/travisandtaylor showing Taylor Swift dancing happily— then see a jarring caption:
“This is just so embarrassing. She has no respect for others and the caption in the video is so unhinged.
Scroll down and you’ll find a highly-upvoted comment:
“She loves to stand up when everybody is sitting down, obviously to have all the attention on herself… I’m still waiting for someone to yell ‘BTCH SIT THE F** DOWN!!!’”
The r/travisandtaylor banner states “THIS IS A SNARK SUB” on repeat, which sits at the top of their community, alongside a warning in their subreddit rules that states “…fan behaviour will incur bans…”.
Image: A screenshot of Taylor Swift’s main snark subreddit, r/travisandtaylor. Credit: Reddit
Famous influencer Mikayla Nogueira has a snark subreddit dedicated to her that is simply her name, r/MikaylaNogueira, with a similar warning “This is not a fan page”.
Their banner shows screenshots of unflattering moments of Nogueira, alongside glammed selfies.
Image: A screenshot of Mikayla Nogueira’s snark subreddit banner. Credit: Reddit
Posts on the subreddit seem weight-obsessed, with the current top 3 posts being about her size, and what she eats.
Image: A screenshot of two posts from Mikayla Nogueira’s snark subreddit. Credit: Reddit
Snark subreddits are easy to stumble across, and can be suggested to any user.
r/LAinfluencersnark is a Popular Snark That Recently Made Headlines
r/LAinfluencersnark recently posted their response to a The Cut article “Meet the Redditors Who Spend Hours Snarking on Influencers”.
The mods made an announcement post titled “The Future”, writing to the community:
Image: A screenshot from the recent mod post on r/LAinfluencersnark. Credit: Reddit
“Earlier this year, The Cut published a scathing piece on LA Influencer Snark, painting our members as bitter, parasocial, and envious of the glossy influencer world. It’s a lazy take that ignores the lines we draw between deserved criticism and cruelty.
The narrative won’t define the next era of LA Influencer Snark. In the coming weeks, we’ll be rolling out changes that reflect who we are and who we want to be. Stay tuned.”
A quick search of the subreddit left me surprised.
There was a post about an influencer’s pregnancy announcement, with commenters worried for her safety and well-being. The concern stemmed from the fear that the baby’s father was a previous partner, who was allegedly abusive towards the influencer.
Another post criticised that Sydney Sweeney American Eagle AD, which had the comments locked— meaning users weren’t able to continue the conversation. Comment sections on Reddit are often locked when they get out of hand.
Image: Hero image from Sydney Sweeney’s American Eagle AD. Credit: American Eagle
The existing comments stayed, with a range of opinions.
The consensus criticised the AD as tone-deaf, expressed exhaustion at the saturation of Sweeney ADs, and noted the constant sexualisation of her in them.
At a glance, the subreddit might look like cultural commentary, or the natural evolution of a celebrity gossip column.
Scrolling shortly down in the thread, murkier waters approach. Users start hypothesising Sweeney’s “need for validation” and critical comments about her appearance are unmissable.
One snarker wrote “She has always been ugly, make an [Only Fans] already to scrounge up the little cash you can before your “natural” breasts get saggy and nobody cares about you anymore, also she needs veneers i have said this before.”
The Cut article lists a few jilted users, who opened up about the disparity they felt between influencers’ online lives and the reality for many working professionals.
I personally struggled to accept any commentary about the state of feminism and modern sex-first advertising when it was mixed with degenerate, unmoderated (and often encouraged) attacks on how a woman, in this case Sweeney, looks.
When Snarkers go For The Children
How bad does it get beyond criticising someone’s appearance?
Well, really bad.
Previous snarks (snark subreddits) like r/Trishyland, which targeted self-confessed controversial public figure Trisha Paytas, were taken down by Reddit because they caused emotional distress.
Paytas stated that the obsession and criticism went beyond her online life, including her young (at the time unborn) child, and even targeted her extended family and friends.
Read: A famous internet ‘troll’ faces frightening harassment as she’s about to give birth By: Kat Tenbarge
Snark Hate Doesn’t Stay Online
A Subpoena for a snark subreddit was recently approved after countless public requests for Reddit to remove the community r/h3snark. The subreddit focuses on Ethan and Hila Klein, their podcast crew, and extended to Hila’s fashion line and employees.
Image: A screenshot of the H3 podcast where Klein recalls the CPS visit. Credit: YouTube
The Kleins shared that Child Protection Services (CPS) was called on their children, and they’d also received two human skulls in the mail in recent months.
Klein explained that his home address, the podcast studio’s address, and other identifying imagery are frequently shared online via r/H3snark and snark-adjacent Discord servers.
Snarkers that have used Discord servers to further harass the H3 community have often been found to use sock-puppet accounts (where many accounts are controlled by one person), and Ethan Klein has theorised that many snark subreddit posters are also using sock-puppet accounts to fuel specific rumours via multiple posts.
Could it be that many snarks are fuelled by a few bad actors creating multiple threads that encourage harmful narratives or hate, and pollute any reasonable public commentary on pop culture?
When the Kleins’ youngest child developed a potential stomach bug, a false and exaggerated narrative spread across the Snark subreddit, Discord servers, and Twitch streams— eventually prompting a CPS report and visit.
This report and visit were ruled completely unjustified and dismissed— but not before causing great distress to the family.
The Kleins aren’t alone— snarks are obsessed with children and parenting— even dedicating specific flairs (topic labels) to the subject.
In fact, false reports to public services aren’t new.
Ashley Louise James recently shared that while she was pregnant with her daughter, anonymous trolls on a gossip website reported her to social services, claiming she was mistreating her children.
On Tattle.life, a website many consider snark-adjacent, her floor plans, address, and the childcare centre where her children attended were leaked.
Ashley shared in a recent post “Gossiping about celebrities isn’t new, but this is different, this is a site where people can defame, harass, stalk, and attack women without consequences.”
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I glanced at Tattle.life and saw a “Families” section where users pick apart parenting styles. One click away from there led me to influview.com, which allows users to anonymously “review” influencers.
One review read “Disgusting vapid selfish woman who’s opinion of herself is overinflated much like her daughters stomach”. The reviewer rated the influencer 1 star (go figure).
Tattle.Life Claims to Constructively Criticise Influencers
Like many snarks, Tattle is focused on hating the influencer and pop culture industry, but stands as its own thread-based website.
Describing its community as “…a commentary website on public business social media accounts. We allow commentary and critiques of people that choose to monetise their personal life as a business and release it into the public domain.”
Further claiming “We have a zero-tolerance policy to any content that is abusive, hateful or harmful and a team of moderators online 24/7 to remove any content that breaks our strict rules, often in minutes.”
A common issue with self or community-moderated sites like Tattle is that, even though they claim to have a zero-tolerance policy, enforcement often requires motivated users to report said comments.
When there’s a community of people that are comfortable with the topics or comments often mentioned on snark-esque corners of the internet, many comments and threads go unmoderated.
Read: Couple awarded £300k in damages after suing gossip website
But more recently, stricter moderation seems to have come into place after media attention, as influencers fight back against the harassment.
When preparing for this write up, I browsed Tattle to find some common ground. Do most users find influencing dystopian and irritating? If so, I see that as a valid point of view, even though I don’t personally agree— it’s easy to see how an industry this unregulated could upset many.
Scrolling through, it felt eerie to read the first popular thread labeled “Families”. But again, as someone who feels nauseated by exploitative family blogging, I wondered whether there might be fair, valid criticism?
My mind darted to how similar communities had perpetuated a CPS report on the Kleins and calls to Trisha Paytas’ future child’s local schools.
I scrolled past many profile pictures that are obviously unflattering images of public figures and influencers— then one caught my eye.
A commenter, whose display picture was Kevin from the office holding Chilli, shared that [paraphrasing] Tattle’s targeting, especially of influencers (sometimes referred to as “influenzas” on the site), is a fantastic example of internalised misogyny, and that sites like Reddit and Facebook often have worse content— stressing that the criticism stems from Tattle being a gossip site largely used by women.
Largely used by women, sure, but recently uncovered to have been founded and fuelled by a man, Sebastian Henry Bond.
It might genuinely be easier to take on board what users are sharing and try to come to a consensus— if any near-reasonable comment wasn’t quickly met by cruelty or another unflattering image of an influencer.
Clearly, discussion isn’t a focus. People want to vent, snark and complain— and maybe some of that could be ok, if it didn’t bubble up so many harmful words and actions.
“Influencers who complain about tattle are terrified of responsibility” Another writes.
Read: Influencer-led beauty brands are facing public scrutiny and growing pains
So yes, the largely unregulated snark pages have their issues, but this isn’t a new concept. Often, large influencers and their audiences help keep others in check, quickly pointing out discrepancies.
Most influencer criticism falls on a specific “type”, too: pretty, successful women who have built communities— a theme that becomes glaringly obvious when scrolling through the forum.
Where Snarkers Find Community
Another click on the site sent me to a thread titled “Perimenopause Modes Part #3.”
Cute cat profile pictures and stills of pop culture moments, alongside plain profile pictures of the first letter of someone’s username appeared next to comments sharing personal chronic health challenges.
I read empathetic and kind comments offering comfort about personal experiences with Endometriosis and difficult periods. Users would also encourage each other to learn self-advocacy.
I paused.
Although in a general off-topic section, it definitely helped me see another side of users and perhaps what Tattle might offer when you step back from the “influenza” gossip.
There are also threads on Sex and the City and Love Island, which wouldn’t feel out of place— even as content created by an influencer.
Their general section includes off-topic, current events, TV, film and media — which feels humanising and juxtaposed with some of the more personality-focused threads in the public figure gossip section.
At their core, Tattle and many snarks claim to be fuelled by and for constructive criticism of influencer marketing.
Although these boundaries are often breached, there are users who are in it for the community and connection, rather than mere dislike of a person.
But my question is, if the core values of the community are based on hating and criticising a person, how can it ever be genuinely ok?
Australian Influencers Are Getting Snarked Too
Snarking isn’t just limited to US or UK creators— Aussie influencers are very much in the firing line, too.
Australia’s Indy Clinton is no stranger to snarkers or online hate pods. Her daily life, from what she eats for lunch to her vlogs— is scrutinised. Nothing is off-limits, or too mundane to speak about.
Image: Clinton celebrates receiving a report from her private investigator. Credit: Instagram
Clinton turned to a private investigator to identify those behind the relentless harassment, which she celebrated in a recent post.
Clinton spoke to The Daily Telegraph about the ordeal, sharing “Some of the defamatory things which have been said about me in recent years are extremely distressing,”
“Lives are being taken… For me – a few months ago, what I endured was life or death.” She spoke candidly about the weight of the harassment.
Clinton is right, lives are being taken.
Public figures often bear the brunt of pop culture discourse, with the worst blooming in snarks.
In recent months, fiery online discussions about Love Island stars lead the production company to request a stop to the bullying and harassment— with the show having been linked to suicides in the past.
Read: How Love Island Became a TV Reality of Sex, Fame, and Sometimes Tragedy
Brittany Saunders of Fayt Weighed in
Brittany Saunders, founder of Australian Fashion brand Fayt, commented on a post that landed in her DMs.
“Last week, an anonymous Reddit user named @faytlabel , @lullabyclub & @lskd as THE WORST brands when it comes to marketing and having a little cult following.”
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The criticism of brands, especially influencer-led brands, tends to stem from parasocial resentment, but can often devolve into something else.
Is There a Way Back For Snarkers?
Some ex-snarkers, as highlighted in a Shameless Media Instagram post, express feelings of anxiety concern and even personal growth in the face of potential legal repercussions.
The commenter admitted they’d posted almost daily on a particular influencer’s snark thread. Four years on, they express regret, saying “I am not this same person anymore”.
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Ironically, there have been many Scooby-Doo-like unmaskings of online “haters”, with one notable snark-esque commenter being the very influencer’s own mother-in-law.
Australian creator Veronica B recently released a single “Touch Grass” to mock the criticism she faces online. In a video, she commented “You know what’s the craziest part of all? Most of the people who hate on you- they follow you- they follow you. They’re watching your every move.”
Lots of classic “haters” and snarkers can be avid followers of the creators — even paying for access to exclusive content behind paywalls.
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Can Snark Subreddits be Taken Down?
Many subreddits have been taken down, including notable snarks like r/Trishyland and r/Hasanpiker, due to the rampant harassment and doxxing.
Other snarks that break the same rules remain active— like r/H3snark.
Reddit’s rule #1 clearly states: “Remember the human.”, and that “Communities and users that incite violence or that promote hate based on identity or vulnerability will be banned.”
Rule #3 states: “Respect the privacy of others. Instigating harassment, for example by revealing someone’s personal or confidential information, is not allowed…”
The Responsibility is on Reddit First, And The Moderators Second.
Regardless of your view on Tattle and snark subreddits, it’s quite clear that bad actors often encourage actions that escalate into dangerous situations.
Pressuring these communities to better self-regulate and for moderators to strictly enforce rules is essential. Yet, it can feel like a losing battle. Moderators are often subreddit founders and the most passionate members of a community.
A pinned mod post reveals a clear anti-influencer stance by the moderators, who may still be held legally accountable for the damage they encourage.
Ultimately, it should be Reddit’s job to moderate strongly and remove Snark subreddits, at the very least to adhere to their own site rules and terms of service.
Sites like Tattle are their own entity and more complicated. But the recent legal proceedings are encouraging, and I hope that Tattle can evolve into a less acidic, more pop-culture-focused space that doesn’t cause the pain it has for so many families.
Final Thoughts
It’s hard to find the right middle ground: criticise a creator, or become an equally rabid fan blind to any wrongs? But then again, everyday content audiences might not relate with either extreme the snarkers and stans (i.e., super fans)
For every fair critique you see on a snark subreddit, there are five more comments that are nit-picky, bizarre, over-the-top— or wildly parasocial— just a thumb’s scroll away.
Finding the line between genuine criticism and hate can get tricky, especially in poorly moderated spaces— or spaces that encourage and celebrate this kind of speech.
The problem is, snark subreddits rarely offer truly constructive feedback— and are left grossly unmoderated to the detriment of their targets and users.
More often, they become a home for the over-involved, leading to real-life consequences for both sides. Creators and influencers seek legal action to protect themselves and their families, while snarkers often breach the online barrier into legally-liable harassment.
There should be fair and legal public criticism of public figures, even when uncomfortable, but it’s been shown and hopefully illuminated in this article that dedicated hate spaces aren’t sustainable, and allow bad actors to ruin any hope of constructive commentary.
What do you think of snark subreddits?
How should public figures be held accountable for real issues, but not get caught up in online hate?
Note: This is an opinion piece from the author, and does not necessarily align with White Rabbit Social’s beliefs.
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