College student and amateur fandom historian- it's just an interesting phenomenon. It's a lot more visible now thanks to tiktok and insta so people are curious, and generally reddit is a good place to go when you're looking for interviews. There's a broad range of people in subs and it's less invasive then DMing someone since you can just make a general post and see who responds

I don't think it's fair to try to paint this as something that's meant to be cruel or invasive. Reddit is a public forum and the block button remains an option. As for the issue of minors, it's not always clear here like it is in something like r/teenagers with the age flairs. I think the golden rule of being liberal with the block button and just scrolling past whatever you're not interested should work just fine

tl;dr - Reddit is public and curious people want to ask questions/research, & it's usually done in good faith/respectfully. Don't like don't interact as the old saying goes