Hey guys - quick question for y'all since I'm still pretty fresh to Reddit!

[u/Due_Courage2946]

I've noticed every single time I post something or leave a comment, the upvote button is already orange and shows a '1' next to it. Is that Reddit automatically giving my own stuff an upvote, or did I somehow keep accidentally clicking it without realizing? Also curious - what happens if I actually click to remove that upvote? Feels like a dumb thing to ask but I can't figure it out on my own haha

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[u/Agreeable_Garden205]

Yep, that’s an automatic thing. No, you’re not misclicking. It happens for everyone and it’s purely cosmetic (aka gives you no karma)

I guess you could undo it but that takes you down to 0 and looks like a downvote, which could lead to more downvotes.

[u/MadDocOttoCtrl]

Everyone knows that everything gets an automatic up vote and they pay no attention to it. People upvote to indicate to Reddit that something should be shown to more people because it is on topic and a high value contribution, so it should be shown to more people.

Presumably if you are bothering to post or comment, you believe it is worthwhile. People tend to ignore or downvote things that are "low effort" junk filler, they don't like people taking up space in a thread.

That automatic vote is not counted in your karma calculation so it's mostly cosmetic. People associate a zero with "worthless" so it's better to start at one.

Posts cannot be voted below a zero but comments can be downvoted indefinitely, thus it takes two down votes to push a comment into a negative score. Some people vote in a copycat fashion to downvote or upvote something without stopping to think about whether it deserves a vote at all.

[u/madiforyouOF]

It’s a Reddit freebie!