Bread Stapled to Trees
In 2017, a new sub-Reddit, “Bread Stapled to Trees” (often abbreviated to BST) emerged from the primordial stew of internet absurdity. Content consisted of (as expected) bread stapled to trees. Within half a year, the community (or, perhaps, network?) had ballooned to a whopping 79,400 subscribers; it currently sits at a count of 234,708. A post from three hours ago of a lovely Italian on pine has already accrued over a thousand upvotes. Although such sub-Reddits are often discounted in the analysis of social networks, Kim Cousins of Curtin University notes that the reason why BST is so well-populated and active is that its participants feel a sense of belonging and purpose (stapling bread to trees). That connectedness, she purports, is due to the increased importance of weak ties in virtual networks.
Reddit’s anonymity fosters an environment that makes it simple to connect with others with similar interests without much investment in interaction. Moreover, these weak ties can easily grow into strong ties because of the lower threshold for interaction; this leads to a more connected community. Moreover, the moderators of the sub-Reddit make the network more structurally balanced, as they can prune users that are negative or off-topic. While Cousins does note that physical networks cannot be entirely replaced by virtual ones, she makes a convincing case for their use as a supplement to the real world.