This Online Group Shares Hilariously Bad Movie Plot Explanations And Here’re 35 Of The Worst Ones

"What makes this subreddit different than most other subs is that it's a game," the mods of r/ExplainAFilmPlotBadly told Bore Panda. "There's very little in the ways of discussion and until recently there were only some basic rules. So for much of the last 4+ years, the subreddit basically ran itself. Users subscribe but over time it seems that some people just come and go. They play the game, get their fill, sometimes phase-out and come back."

That didn't lead to a ton of growth. As of this article, r/ExplainAFilmPlotBadly has 46.8k members. But it is still active. In fact, you could say it sees more action every day than some subreddits that are twice as big. The most important thing, the mods believe, is the continued enjoyment it has provided.

However, recently there's been somewhat of a shift. "The lead mod, /u/drmonix was teaching himself python and decided it would be fun to launch a bot that awarded points not only for correctly solving a clue (the posts in the sub are referred to as clues) but also having submitted a clue that got solved. This sparked some new interest and as a result, he needed to bring on another mod to help things along."

"After some discussion, we revamped the rules to keep the game fresh. Every few posts were about Star Wars or Endgame and the clues were long becoming stale. So we banned them."

The bold move paid off. Super popular subjects that come up too often are too easily recognized and removing them made the game a little spicier. "This change was widely lauded by the users thankfully."

The mods think the sub remains relevant because movies and shows simply go on forever. "They are a cultural glue that spans the world. So users from all walks of life and from any country with an Internet connection can participate and see if they can guess the answer to the latest unsolved clues."

Add the points system to that and you begin to build a longer-term community. Plus, since the game involves guessing and answering and very little discussion there's little to no friction between the members, the moderators said.