I like to learn, share, and help. I write and teach about popular culture, digital communication, and online communities. Presently, my focus is on online advice forums, especially on Reddit as u/reagle-research.
My newest book, Dear Reddit, Am I the Asshole? Our New Era of Advice (2027), argues that Reddit has transformed the advice genre: the experiences and expertise of thousands of pseudonymous commenters exceed those of traditional columnists and train the AI advisers that will reshape Reddit, the internet, and us.
I’ve written and contributed to a handful of other books. For example, Hacking Life: Systematized Living and its Discontents (2019) was an inaugural book in MIT Press‘s Strong Ideas series. I especially enjoyed contributing the 2021 reissue of H.G. Wells’ World Brain, where I conclude that if “Wells was too sane to understand the modern world,” as George Orwell wrote, “he did foresee elements of a future one.” That is, “Wells anticipated Wikipedia, yet we are still without a World Brain.”
I also write about online pop-culture (“infocide” and “FOMO”) and have a handful of papers related to geek feminism. (“Geek Policing: Fake Geek Girls and Contested Attention” is my favorite.)
I am an Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Northeastern University. I’ve also had the pleasure of being a fellow (in 1998 and 2010) at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard. During its life, I was honored to serve as an advisor to the Ada Initiative (“supporting women in open technology and culture”).
A long time ago I was a Computer Science student at UMBC. I then moved to Cambridge and completed the Masters program in Technology and Policy at MIT. After a brief time as a consultant in New York City, I returned to the MIT Lab for Computer Science as a policy analyst and W3C/IETF Working Group chair and editor. After almost a decade in Cambridge, I left for New York again to articulate and contextualize my experience with new media and collaborative communities at NYU’s Department of Media, Communication, and Culture. I concluded my graduate studies at NYU with a doctoral dissertation on the history and collaborative culture of Wikipedia. I’ve been able to speak about my work with popular media, including Bloomberg Businessweek and The New York Times.
In addition to the publications in my curriculum vitae, you can also read my research blog. If you are bored, you could check out my even older work including student projects from MIT and UMBC, and twenty years’ worth of photos and writing on the Web.
I live in Cambridge; when I travel, I like to visit waterfalls and vegan restaurants. I’m a geek, no doubt, and enjoy walking, biking, baking, photography, and haiku. Much of the walking and biking is with my partner, Nora, and the dogs we’ve had the pleasure to know.
Copyright (1997-2026) Joseph Reagle