Kathy Bates Is Reading Your 'Matlock' Reddit Comments

I was a late adapter to Reddit. By “late adapter,” I mean “I finally downloaded the app because it was the only way I could open Reddit links people sent me.” I assumed that Reddit was just a giant comment board/thread. Despite using it somewhat more regularly than before, my assumption still (mostly) stands. My attempts to navigate it have been unsuccessful, and I usually end up back on Wikipedia, which is where I spend most of my time online. None of this is a slam on Reddit, either. It’s me admitting that I don’t have a very firm grasp on a website 76-year-old Kathy Bates uses with ease.

Plenty of older people use the internet successfully. Bates is not alone in her ability to navigate the World Wide Web and its various apps. But my parents are only five years younger than her, and one of them almost gave their banking information to a fake Google representative who reached out to them through their AOL account. The idea that someone older than them is not only using the internet efficiently but is using a site that I have found almost impenetrable is a failing I will discuss with my “therapist” (yelling at myself in the bathroom mirror) next week.

Bates, who is having the time of her life starring in a reboot of Matlock, sat for Deadline’s TV Contenders event and revealed her Reddit proficiency to a shocked crowd. “There was a comment on the Reddit board about last week’s episode,” Bates announced to gasps (which makes me feel less bad). “I’m not allowed to read Instagram or Reddit because I could see a gazillion wonderful things, then I’ll see one negative thing, and that’s what I’ll pick up on. Although I hear that it’s very human, so it makes me feel better.” Not only is Kathy Bates better at Reddit than me, but she understands how alluring negative comments about her can be. F***.

She isn’t the only one on the Matlock set who is surfing Reddit. The Misery actress also pointed out that showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman had looked up reactions to the show. “There was [a comment] that she read about a woman who was on a jury, and last week’s episode had to do with the woman who had been on a jury and who was bullied so much that she ended up caving when the man really was innocent and had been in prison for 21 years,” Bates explained. “This woman on the Reddit board said it really hit her hard because she had the same experience of being on a jury like that. So as a result of that, when she goes in to be called for jury duty, she explains this, and they don’t take her.”

So much Reddit talk in an article about a show about an elderly lawyer! But that’s the level of excellence Kathy Bates brings to her projects. Not only is she perusing Reddit, but she’s doing it while posting Be Reals with her homies. Her Roblox skills are matched only by her ability to ride a Steve in Minecraft. Skibbidy toilet was created by Kathy Bates.

Do all those things go together? I dunno. But my aching knees and denim vest I wear over a Hawaiian shirt which sits atop a pair of cargo pants the pockets of which hold Elmo bars and the occasional sippy cup say yes.