I have mentioned in the blog how much I have grown fond of Reddit. The community has taught me from great life lessons (just like this one) down to the simple stuff of motivating me more to learn the piano, among others. The users in it always had interesting inputs and very intellectual opinions among a wide range of subjects in there (of course the trolls are there too! (.=^・ェ・^=)). Reddit indeed is the front page of the internet. Most articles that I read on other websites (like those that become viral in Facebook) actually originated from Reddit. So you know where to go to get the news first, right? :)
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One of the best discoveries that I found in this site is this activity which they call redditgifts. It's exactly like the Secret Santa thing that we do every Christmas, but for this one the participants are from all over the world and are all total strangers. Sounds like fun right, but sounds scary too.
I was Skeptical First.
Who wouldn't? With the culture that we have today (especially online), why would I give my real name and address to someone that I don't know? Also, would they really send me a gift? Will someone I do not know spend his personal money and actually make an effort of shipping that gift to me, who is a total stranger to him/her?
Honestly when I first learned about this redditgifts thing, I got really excited. This would be the first time I would ever join a thing like this online. I gave it the benefit of the doubt. Okay I will try one exchange, and if I don't get any gift then screw this. And so I signed up (on the last day of registration) for the Christmas Exchange 2014 and waited for things to unfold.
Happiness is Priceless
Just when I thought everyone was just after the materialistic satisfaction of this activity, I was so dead wrong. The excitement of waiting for the matching to be done and the actual process of selecting a gift for your match is just priceless. I couldn't really explain it but what I can say is that I honestly understand why redditgifting can be addicting.
My exchanges were fairly normal but upon looking at the gallery of the gifts that people have posted restored my faith in humanity. The secret santas (the gifters) sent out gifts that left their giftees mindblown. This massive secret santa activity online was spreading lots of noise of happiness and positive vibes around the globe that even high-profile personalities have joined the fun. There are also a lot of heart-touching stories among these gift exchanges that left me all teary-eyed.
... and there are the shafters too.
"Shafter" is what they call a user who signed up for redditgifts but did not really send out a gift for his match. We'll never know if those people are really selfish trolls that just join the exchanges just to get something for themselves (from their secret santa match) or if something just happened that unfortunately hindered them from getting a gift for their match. I have been to three gift exchanges and I was shafted once. However redditgifts has been clever enough to do a work-around on this sh*t that happen on the exchanges through a rematching.
I really enjoyed my experience with the exchanges that I have joined so far. It was very mindblowing to realize that someone in Canada, London, and Sweden have received my gift and that I was able to make them happy!
Redditgifts, stay awesome! I hope the community that will join future exchanges would always be composed of good people who just want to share the blessings that they have to others. :D
~o~
By the way, shout-outs to Johnny Air Padala because they were the means of how I got my gifts for the two exchanges that I joined (the first one was with our local post office and it was a sh*tty experience with an ending of not being able to get my gift). :D
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