The art of roasting has become quite a commodity these days with television shows, online videos and even Reddit threads racking up hundreds of thousands of views for content featuring insults and dark shade. In my own group of friends, I’m usually the roastee and almost never the roaster. I find it quite endearing when someone tries to roast me, because darling, I know I’m perfection anyway. So, when I was asked to post a selfie to the r/RoastMe subreddit, I jumped at the opportunity! The funniest part is this isn’t even my first time posting to this subreddit. The first is from 2016 and the second from 2019. I mean I’ve changed a fair amount in three years, but how much I’ve changed? That’s up to the roasters.

In determining the differences between the two I found the first experience a tad tamer than the second. This could be due to the subreddit’s following getting larger, more robust and a little edgier, or just because I look worse in the second photo. We’ll start with the 2016 post as it isn’t as spicy as 2019.

Okay, the first image was my own fault. It was silly of my eighteen-year-old self to even entertain the idea that I looked good in the old snapchat dog filter. They were simpler times when YouTube’s content creation system wasn’t going down the shitter, Vine was still around for me to make an ass of myself on, and my sister hadn’t reached puberty yet. Life was good. Yes, I will take these roasts and work on them because I may be a bitch but I’m not a 0.1 out of 10, hunty.

There seem to be a few people who don’t believe that I have friends apart from my mum – which is kind of true because my mum is one of my best friends. Point one to me roasters (I think). I must look very lonely which is also very true. I’m finding out so much about myself, it is really a self-conceptualising experience being voluntarily roasted like this.

Okay, now onto the 2019 roasts! These ones are a little spicier and quite true in my own opinion, I love how deep people get in these!

A few of these roasts must be in sync because it seems as though I am akin to Justin Timberlake, which is a strange read because that man is walking sex. Bye bye bye Redditors; I’ll take that roast as a compliment. I assume it must be due to the blonde-ish tipped hair, my stunning jawline and perfect brows, or it might just be that I exude sex like my brother JT. I’ll let you decide.

Some of these people must be quite nosey to roast my nostrils this way, I’ll have you know it comes in handy for when I need to turn a page in a novel and my hands are full. A downside is that I whack it everywhere and people can always tell that I’m Greek from my shnoz.

The best roast, in my opinion, was the one below. The initial roast was alright, but the replies had me laughing for way too long. How would I describe this experiment? Suspithus.

In an era where there is a plethora of online trolls, cyberbullies and keyboard warriors it is quite strange to find a forum where people will willingly allow themselves to be made fun of, or roasted. We see these types of comments on the news as though some kind of epidemic is sweeping around the world, that people can’t just live happily ever after and be lovely to each other. This thread may be an escape from the politically correct world we reside in now where everything is taken a little too seriously. On this forum, people can laugh at themselves instead of others. Users can freely insult people with no repercussions. I guess it’s a lot like consenting to be roasted, whereas I usually consent to be spit roasted (ha ha funny joke).

While on the subreddit I also found myself roasting other people and I have no idea why. Who would’ve thought I would take joy in reading strangers for filth and absolutely writhing in the pleasure? It’s actually quite addictive – does that make me a bad person? It does make me think about the people behind the screen and what their reaction would be to my comment. I try to be objective and funny rather than try to ruin their lives and send hateful comments, but is there really any difference? It seems to me that this platform of roasting people collates heavily to how I post on my other social media like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Compared to these ‘tame’ platforms, I usually post some weird stuff on Reddit so I’m not usually fussed on how my anonymous account comes off. At the end of the day, I guess the r/RoastMe subreddit is all in good fun and great for some banter.

I would recommend this roast experience to anyone who is bored, has high self-esteem, or just want a good laugh, because that’s honestly what this subreddit is about. It lets you see yourself from a satirical perspective which is what comedy and humour are all about, or at least what my kind of humour is about.

If you would like to have a look at all the roasts from my Reddit posts, you can access them here and here.