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AdmiralAkbar1 t1_ixxur4x wrote

Literally? It's when a bunch of guys stand in a circle and give a handjob to the guy next to them, jerking everyone off.

Metaphorically? It's a more vernacular way to describe a place where everyone pats each other's backs about how right they are, but there's no real insightful discussion or debate—the rhetorical equivalent of jerking each other off. It can also be called a "hugbox" or "echo chamber."

It's often used on reddit to describe subreddits where there's one overwhelmingly popular opinion, and any disagreement with that opinion is despised. For example, if someone says "/r/gaming is one big anti-EA circlejerk," they're saying that any post that's critical of EA, even if it's lame or unoriginal, gets upvoted, while any post that suggests EA isn't all that bad will get a bunch of downvotes.

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explainlikeimfive-ModTeam t1_ixxuuft wrote

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usrevenge t1_ixxuznd wrote

Uh like an actual circle jerk?

It's when a group of people form a circle and masturbate. This also includes when a group of people form a circle and jerk the other person usually to their right.

Circle jerking on reddit is usually the phenomena where reddit comments will breed reddit comments agreeing if it isn't countered quickly enough. You see this a lot in terms of fanboyism or random hatred

Example is how everyone on reddit is hostile to Fortnite, ea games, and Activision. Going so far as to make stuff up about these games and companies.

The circle jerk there is how everyone joins in and beats the dead horse.

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