Reddit Drama

A Brief Explainer of Why the MakeupAddiction Subreddit Temporarily Shut Down

Here's what we know about the last few days of Reddit beauty-community drama.
A woman's hand holds a makeup company with a broken mirror
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If you love makeup and Reddit, there's a good chance you've heard of the subreddit MakeupAddiction; perhaps you're even one of its more than one million members. But just in case you didn't stop in for a visit this week, you might have missed some major drama — including a temporary shutdown — stemming from a leadership crisis that rivals the White House.

Insider reports that the turmoil began last weekend when a user with the handle anne-of-avonlea was questioned by another user for claiming someone else's selfie as their own. But while anne-of-avonlea was understandably banned by the moderators, the sleuth that called her out — a user with the handle kbuoy who tells Insider that her name is Katy — was also temporarily banned over the nonexistent rule of not "digging through a user's post history."

After trying to appeal the moderators' ban in vain, Katy took to another subreddit — called muacirclejerk and reportedly in existence for the sole purpose of mocking MakeupAddition — to complain, adding edits to note that one of the moderators, ComingUpMilhouse, attempted to justify the ban by posting unsubstantiated accusations of name-calling, impersonating moderators, using antisocial language, misrepresenting a temporary ban as a permanent ban, and sending abusive private messages to the moderators. Other users came to Katy's defense, at which point the drama leaked over to yet another subreddit, called SubredditDrama that's dedicated to — wait for it — subreddit drama.

Still with me? Good, because this is where things get especially ridiculous.

On Sunday, a user with the handle BooleanBlush posted an "open letter" in MakeupAddiction attempting to start a discussion about reasonable rules and moderation — which the moderators locked, thus preventing any discussion. But it appears to have inspired them to post a now-deleted epic on Monday trying to explain their side of the controversy.

According to Insider, shortly after that post all of the moderators banned themselves for a week. But because no new posts can go up in the subreddit without moderators that essentially means banning everyone.

In a post by "Mods Accountability," moderator fairydustandunicorns said, "a lot has happened this week and the mods are going to ban themselves for a time due to some bad handling in the sub on our part. Unfortunately, that means we cannot allow posts or comments." It goes on to say that they will be accepting new moderator applications when they reopen the subreddit, which remained viewable.

"Hundreds of thousands of people are involved in that community, and a handful of people decided to shut it down because they couldn't be mature and apologize for what was originally a relatively small mistake," Katy told Insider. "Instead, they deflected and blamed, and ultimately decided that they care more about their power than the community that they are supposed to be supporting."

It appears that the weeklong hiatus was cut short, because users are back to posting their makeup looks and product-recommendation requests. However, a pinned post from moderator G3m addresses some of the week's zaniness, including accusations of "monetary involvement," though it's unclear what that means. "There’s a LOT happening behind the scenes, so I just ask you guys to bear with us while we create a new team," G3m writes. "You’ll be involved each step of the way and my inbox is always open should you have any suggestions."

I don't have any suggestions. Just a headache.

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