Your post is based on two, somewhat terrible, assumptions.

That "the average redditor" doesn't have an opinion of their own.

And that opinions common within a group must come from within the group.

You seem to further support these assertions with the essentially unrelated fact that reddit's collective opinions can, in some cases, follow a predictable pattern.

Reddit is, as we all know, a shit-hits-the-fan collection of user submitted content. What rises or falls is, indeed, predominately based on the voting masses' opinion of the headline - ToR has by and large concluded that voters and commenters are mainly two separate types of user.

However, the voting there is based more on potential than fact - the Dragon Game sounded like it could be pretty cool. The Rampart AMA could have been really awesome if it was actually a Woody Harrelson AMA as initially promised.

This is best exemplified by the many scientific and news articles where a headline gets highly upvoted and the top comment is a solid refutation of the link content. The title is upvoted because it sounds really cool, but the voting public doesn't check the comments for contradictory opinions.

This, too, is why posts can tank when a counter-post does well - the same people that upvoted the post originally see the response post pointing out where the other was wrong, and go back and fix their vote accordingly.

In pulling this particular behaviour as your example, you're ignoring the many posts where this doesn't occur. The vast majority of things that make the front page don't spark giant controversy or drama. They float, everyone laughs, and then they sink a little later on.

Posts that generate controversy oft as not do so not because of social engineering or reddit's love of strife and mayhem, but because the original post was upvoted based on false or incomplete information. The Jeep thing is a great example: if the post had been based on good information, if what OP claimed happened had really happened, controversy wouldn't have occurred - we'd all have sat back and gone "huh, yeah, that was pretty shitty" and no shit would have stormed.

Equally, what you're blaming on the reddit's vacuous lack of opinion and nefarious all-hating anti-memes is more the success of posts intended to convince the community of something. Specifically, that "Hey, this needs a second look with more information."

The community isn't fuelling some sort of deep dark tornado of hate. Momentum swings rapidly, and this can swing positively as much as negatively - remember how a dude asked for $5K to build a secure wall around an african orphanage, and we gave them $60K instead? That's hardly "negative feedback". The opininon on the Rampart AMA was, as I said, largely inspired by the potential were he to have participated in the way AMA expects. And its rapid drop took place when it became apparent that he wasn't coming to play in a genuine way, but just wanted to hijack local format to pimp his movie.

The community would have been cooler had he been open from the start about what he was up to. Instead, the community felt misled and used, and I dunno about you, but I'm rarely happy feeling that way. We weren't conditioned to dislike Woody because suddenly hating Woody is so cool right now, but as more and more information pulled forward supporing "not cool, man," opinion swung that way.

If you disagree with this, let me ask you a question--have you ever listened to Nickelback or Katy Perry? Have you watched Carlos Mencia, Dane Cook, or Jeff Dunham perform? Have you seen The Big Bang Theory (well, this has sort of gone out of Vogue as reddit has become more popular), Whitney, or The Cleveland Show? How many of them that you haven't seen do you have a negative opinion toward, simply because reddit (or whatever your primary social group is) has told you it's bad?

So this and the conclusions you attempt to draw from it is really the most problematic portion of this - everything prior might as well have been window-dressing and waffle words.

I have listened to both above musicians, and seen youtube or listened to performances by the comedians.

Nickleback saw regular rotation on my local classic rock station back home. I spent most of my teenage years listening to that station. I don't hate Nickleback - but I certainly know their music is as generic as "rock" comes and a lot of it sounds the same. I like Katy Perry - less so her music - but what I've seen of her on Reddit says she's a pretty ok gal, and does her music quite well. It's just ... generic bubblegum pop, and that's not really my sound.

As for Dane? Well, he's been shown to be a blatant hack, and I don't find his shit funny. I thought it was fucking hilarious when I was sixteen, but I'm proud to say I've grown up since then. Dick jokes and "hey, I'm an asshole!" get old after a while, but his material doesn't seem to have changed.

Carlos Mencia just feels racist a lot of the time. I've never bought the "well, I'm a visible minority, so I can make fun of visible minorities!" and I've always been struck that were he a white dude, his act would be recieved totally differently. I see Russell Peters in a similar light.

All three above comedians take a marked lowbrow cast. Lots of yelling, and lots of "simple" humour - steriotypes, farts, and offensive-ness.

Contrast that to more Hive-liked comedians like Carlin or Hedberg, who are more mature in their humour and their delivery.

I don't particularly like Carlin, either, though I respect him and his published opinions far more than the above.

My girlfriend loves BBT. I don't like social comedy in general, so I find the whole "people bad at being people" schtick done to death by other sitcoms I also don't like - and haven't found anything to redeem that about BBT in the episodes I've watched with her. In fairness, I also don't particuarly like Always Sunny, Arrested Development, Community, or HIMYM, either, all of which the Hivemind seem to love.

As for Twilight, I'm a little amused you included it. It is the worst example you could have brought up.Herp, derp, apparently not. Twilight, though: an extreme example of where my point should be going. Most of reddit has read large portions of the book, if only through posts mocking it. Additionally, most of us have read literary criticism of both technical writing and content and theme, and when the example pages on reddit and the word of literary experts both bring about similar conclusions of "Wow, this is a terribly-written Mary Sue vampire drama laced with Mormon ideology.", I don't think you can call it an uninformed opinion.

I think that what you're assuming is reddit converting the uncaring is more a product of similar assessment characteristics and self selection. If I don't like comedians whose act is predicated on "hope you're not easily offended, lol" or racial stereotypes, Mencia or Cook are pretty obviously out. If I don't like "juvenile" humour, same problem. Equally, if I find myself a fan of higher-brow comedy, it would be safe to say that seeing BBT as just "Friends" with a slightly better vocabulary wouldn't be particularly unwarranted (my general dislike of social comedy notwithstanding), the other shows Hivemind does like bear such criticism slightly better - each of those strays a little more from "standard sitcom" fare.

Reddit core Hivemind (remembering that there are still people on reddit who like all of the above, individually and as a whole) has very similar opinions in the "rest of the world" grand scheme of things, still a very diverse variation amongst the package. Not everyone shares wholly in the whole stereotype "Hivemind" opinion, and I would go so far as to wager that the vast bulk of users find more they disagree with in terms of hivemind opinions than that they agree with. However, each of the many opinions such an entity holds are simply the most common opinion from within the masses on that particular topic.

Continued in reply, because I rambled too.