i did check in a few communities that i was engaging with before, and honestly, it seemed organic, but it was always lurkers/semi-lurkers who don't post and only comment like once every two months. accounts for the delay as well, because they don't check reddit that often (before everything went to shit posts would usually be gathering views for a good 24 hours)

but reddit also started using chatgpt to prop itself up lately (which afaik is against chatgpt's tos, so that's nice for the future lawsuit if they wanna cash in), so idk. that does put a damper on their legitimacy.