49 Everyday Discoveries That Turned Out To Be Surprisingly Interesting

Redditor Cowbeller1, one of the moderators at r/mildlyinteresting gave us a glance into how some of the most popular posts on the subreddit gain their fame. "A lot of it has to do with luck," they said that fortune plays an important role in photos going viral.

"Maybe you come across something interesting in your day-to-day life and remember to take a picture, maybe you're just lucky enough that something is interesting to the community. No real rhyme or reason aside from that," they shared their opinion.

As for the future, the subreddit plans to do what it does best: remain a stable and unchanging source of entertainment, as well as a cornerstone of Reddit "We will just continue doing the same thing. We've found that being boringly consistent is the best way to remain fair to the community. There haven't been any major changes in a while," moderator Cowbeller1 said.

Photographer Dominic shared that over the past year he's expanded his network and gotten to know even more professional photographers. "Seeing the amount of time and planning some of them do is astounding," he praised his peers. "One such person I know made a 48 hour round trip (driving) to photograph a specific location recently."

According to the photographer, whether a professional relies more on their intuition or plans everything out with regard to the composition of a photo depends on each individual's style of photography. "But for the most part, planning is everything. This means different things to different people, but planning is important. Being instinctive comes down to an individual preference, I suppose, and is a different facet to the plan of attack," Dominic shared that thinking things through is vital to success.

As for whether or not a photo will be successful, Dominic is open that even the greatest professionals can't say for certain if a project will get the popularity it deserves. "We've all taken photos that we know are aesthetically sound, but they don't get the feedback we feel they deserve. Then, we'll take a photo that we like, but think is just another 'good, not great' photo, and it takes social media by storm. I've seen it happen," he said.

"Unfortunately, some of this has to do with algorithms, time of day being posted, and paid ads," the photographer explained that in the modern world, we have to be aware of the technical aspects that come with sharing photos online.

"A quality photo will not always get the praise it deserves. It's the truth of art. At the end of the day, one has to like their own work that they're putting out there. If others like it too, that's just an added bonus. Photographing what you want is extremely important to not lose artistic integrity and drive and it's also equally as difficult to tune out the noise," Dominic said.

The r/mildlyinteresting subreddit celebrated a whopping 9 years of activity this February and there’s no stopping the community from growing larger and larger still. However much it expands, the moderators are doing what they can to make sure it doesn’t change too much. “We've been working hard to keep it that way,” redditor RedSquaree, one of the moderators of r/mildlyinteresting, told me in an earlier interview.

"The mildly interesting feel of the subreddit is maintained probably due to its rule about titles which weeds out all clickbait which is common in other subreddits. On our side, submissions have massively increased and the moderation team has been forced to expand," moderator RedSquaree earlier told Bored Panda that the mod team is very active and interested in maintaining the high quality of the content.

Rule-breaking isn’t tolerated and transgressors are quickly sanctioned. “We're removing more rule-breaking content than ever before; often the content is OC [original content] and can be resubmitted which is great,” RedSquaree explained the ins and outs of how the community and the mods interact.

“There haven't been any massive changes in how we do things recently, although over the past few years we have used bots to automate a lot of our moderation practices. We haven't changed the rules in years despite some temptations caused by fads. In my honest opinion, it has been for the best. The sub feels pretty much the way it always has."

RedSquaree earlier explained to us how the inspiration to create r/mildlyinteresting first came about back in 2012. The mod told Bored Panda how one thread led user Doginabathtub to create the community but who has been "missing in action for years, and left the mod team years after becoming inactive as a moderator,” RedSquaree explained.

"So, I suppose Woggietree named the sub he did not found! A few years ago we were featured in a h3h3 Productions video (linked in our sidebar) which was a great compliment and is perhaps a good marker of success,” the mod said.

The main draw of the community is the original content. Only original photos can be posted, nothing else! It’s OC or the high road. “Our content is generated by our community and given that titles cannot be clickbait, there is a unique feeling of people seeing something mildly interesting, whipping their phone out of their pocket, capturing, and posting,” the mod shared how proud they are of their fellow redditors.

“The community feels very interactive (the content creators are all here) and laid back. This is probably why our comments sections are almost always nice and relaxed and, themselves, mildly interesting,” the mod said.

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