Redditors were understandably displeased by the reveal that one of their favorite celebrities had been upvoting his own posts, especially as there was really no need. Unidan was a karma machine. His posts always drew attention, away even from more experienced biologists on the site. As one /r/subredditdrama contributor noted, the fandom around Unidan was tiring:
…the worst was when we started to get people posting in AskScience requesting only answers from Unidan. god help us. There’s hundreds of experienced PhDs in AskScience and Unidan’s still just a grad student and people were actually asking him to answer, and telling people who actually knew more about the topic to shut up! (everyotherredditor, 2014)
Responses to Unidan’s machinations were mixed. The clear majority was displeased. Contributions on reddit made through his new account were downvoted, as it seemed he’d burned through the goodwill of the reddit community. At the same time, his original statement about the affair (listed above) was awarded Reddit Gold eight times, suggesting that some stalwart Unidan fans would stand by their celebrity regardless of his misdeeds.