It’s routine for even relatively unsuccessful posts and comments to get 1000+ views. Imagine that many people huddled around you in the real world hearing your take on the Reddit API changes or looking at the dumb meme you made in 5 minutes. That would be something, wouldn’t it? For some reason we don’t think it is just because it’s happening on the internet.
Another thing that nobody could have foreseen is people posting racist/sexist/hateful stuff in general, and then somebody like their employer digging it up later. Bye bye career and reputation. Those people probably deserve it but still.