Sources: pushshift dump dataset containing text of all posts and comments on r/relationship_advice from subreddit creation up until end of 2024, totalling ~88 GB (5 million posts, 52 million comments)

Tools: Golang code for data cleaning & parsing, Python code & matplotlib for data visualization

Posted by GeorgeDaGreat123

36 comments

  1. nice, what emotional event happened during 2016 to the end of 2016…wait nvm

  2. kinda wild how over time reddit went from “talk it out” to “just leave” )))

  3. **Happy to answer anyone’s questions about methodology.**

    I spent an insane amount of time and money (millions of AI inference requests) just to determine which categories to use in this graph.

    And it took millions more AI inference requests to quality-filter and categorize posts into these categories.

  4. Anyone that takes advice from reddit gets what they deserve.

  5. Focusing on the positives, it’s encouraging to see that setting and respecting boundaries is making its way up.

    Definitely disheartening though to see how much the “cut it” sentiment is prevailing.

    However, we don’t know if the OP intensity has increased over time / more trolling.

    E.g. maybe 15 years ago OPs were more like: my partner doesn’t like going on hikes, I do, what should we do?

    Today maybe it’s more like ” partner installed GPS trackers on my car and personal items, what should I do”?

  6. Some people did an experiment on relationship advice where they made dozens of posts as a woman and then made those same exact posts as a man a few weeks later. Word for word the same exact posts.

    Whenever a woman asked for help it was nothing but empathy and grace. Whenever a man asked for help it was “you’re horrible” and “you don’t deserve her.”

  7. The boundary one is interesting because it kind of reflects how that word and the concept of “setting boundaries” became popularized.

  8. People don’t ask advice on good relationships often. This data is about what a sensible person would expect.

  10. I think part of what creates this affect is people usually are just posting a singular problem with their partner and readers are bad at inferring all the things that must be *good* about the partner for their to be a relationship in the first place.

    So subconsciously you are basically primed to think that “relationship is one bad and zero good” because you aren’t told about anything good. And of course you have no connection to the person being complained about.

  12. This doesn’t take into account that the last few years of posts are increasingly more Ai written and are more akin to novellas than real life. The reason why breakup/divorce increases is because in those melodramas, that is the real solution lol

  14. Student here. Is this achieved via topic modeling?

  15. Will it tell you how many times your photo is shared?
    I bet it’s a lot. This is impressive and I hope somehow you make a shit ton of money.

  16. Anecdotally this is what I see around me. Obviously that doesn’t mean much but it seems as though people are much more likely to just end things rather than work through issues, no matter how minor. Many don’t even want to communicate in general anymore.

  17. As much as the ghost of anti-intellectualism/truth (which is bigger than trump) is part of this;

    I wonder how much is just “my spouse has become maga-tarded” and how much is just people on average becoming less inclined to show understanding or empathy. I sometimes checked that sub as a guilty-pleasure just to read about some of the insane drama people experience… But much like the graph shows, the comment-section nowdays just makes me fucking depressed.

    Like don’t get me wrong, father was an abusive asshole that my mother should’ve never had children with, I know some relationships are fucked: But the amount of people who seem to just be vindictive assholes wanting to ruin every- and any relationship at the slightest disagreement is fucking weird.

    It started to remind me of how incels will see boogymen in every shadow, except here it’s “warningsigns” in every shadow nomatter how benign.

  18. Everyone’s pointing out the rise of End Relationship, but for me, even more concerning than that is the decline of Communicate.

  19. Probably goes hand in hand with the posts and type of questions or advice requested honesty.

  20. Red line is the default response on Reddit when you tell people here that your husband spilled coffee lol

  21. I wonder, is the advice really changing, or are the posts?

    The larger reddit gets, the more posts we get. And it’s the craziest posts that get the most traction, right?

    “My husband sometimes leaves a towel on the floor” isn’t going to get a lot of upvotes. “My husband gambled away our retirement then blamed me for it” is going to get more attention.

    So the bigger reddit gets, the more ‘wild’ posts we get, which are going to draw most of the comments.

    And on those posts, of course they will lead to more ‘break up’ comments compared to “you can work it out” comments.

  23. This is really interesting. I wonder if the uptick in DTMFA is related to engagement? Engagement in 2010 wasn’t nearly as focused on as today, so I wonder if the questions/relationship situations tended to be less juicy. As engagement focused posters and bots have grown, perhaps the frequency of fake questions with crazy/juicy situations has increased to drive engagement? Moving from, “We don’t go out on enough dates since we married, what should I do?” To, “I walked in on my husband having sex with a bear, what should I do???”

  24. Interesting spike in stories where the advice is to breakup right around the time genAI hit the public internet. Which could mean anything

  25. The bots want us to be divided even in our relationships.

    Or reddit is a terribly toxic place and not where you should be seeking meaningful advice.

  26. I can account for why “break-up” is highest but I can’t account for why the 15% change over time.

    Anyone?

  27. While reddit does have a reputation for giving standard advice…

    > hit your lawyer
    >
    > delete your partner
    >
    > call up Facebook
    >
    > break up with the gym

    … as reddit has grown more people have used subs like relationship_advice to play with creative writing and now AI. As the made up stories are likely to be wilder than reality, so to will the responses be wilder.

  29. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I think the reason so many people jump to “end it” is because more and more we are learning that there doesn’t have to be any steps between realizing someone is toxic and removing them from your life. The days of thinking “he’s a good guy, he just made a mistake” or “she’s not always like this” are going away. And that’s a good thing!

  30. Did you write your own code to do this?

    Did you have to write your code to interface with AI?

    How do you even go about getting the AI interface requests?

  31. oo fun, now do a graph of em dash usage over time in posts and comments (although i’d be more interested in that for one of the drama subs like /r/aitah)

  32. I imagine there’s going to be a few things at play here, or more:

    * Self-Selection Pressures. As reddit becomes/became more popular, more people with bad relationships came looking for advice. Posts in that sub are going to select for more people in poor or abusive relationships, many of which are already doomed.
    * Social Media Radicalization. I mean radical, as in very divergent from what’s expected here. Specifically in reference to relationship expectations, tolerance of partners’ flaws, etc. A lot of folks see relationships through the lens of social media, where people post content curated to make themselves look better. You see all the highs but few of the lows, and that warps our perception of what a normal relationship looks like. Sorta like how when police procedurals became popular, a lot of rookie officers thought real policework was the same as on TV.
    * Commonplace AI Agents. Countries, businesses, and individuals can all whip up an AI agent to pilot an account. The purpose for that can be very different (I usually think the reasons are malicious). These AI agents then engage with broader communities to affect their goals. A foreign actor may be making otherwise normal posts to camouflage the propaganda they push. A business may be subtly inserting products/services into conversation *(“That’s too bad that happened to you. My friend broke up with her fiancee and found someone great on Hinge. Maybe try some online dating to get back into the swing of things?”)*. An individual may be building minimum karma requirements or just being a shitposting bad actor. The point is, we don’t really have a way to differentiate the activity between a sincere poster and one that’s not.

  33. I’d be very curious whether this correlates with a demographic change, both age and gender. I suspect there is a significantly higher female percentage than in 2010 but im less sure on age.

  35. Seemed to really start to incline around 2016.

    I wonder what happened around that time that made interpersonal relationships between men and women so tense.

    (/s)

  36. This is what happens when lonely redditors give advice.

    Don’t take advice from the most miserable platform on the internet.

    This shit is basically 4chan now.

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