One chef's-knife brand gets 31% of its "what should I buy" mentions from 5% of accounts, four times chance prediction. I analyzed Reddit comments from knife subreddits using a fine-tuned GLi NER model to extract brands, models, and steels. The model processes comments from r/knives, r/knifeclub, r/chefknives, r/japaneseknives, r/Fixed Blade Edc, and r/Knife Steels collected by New Knife Day scraper.

Paid posting services like REDCmts ($9.99 per comment, $699.99 for 100), Soar ("aged and manually warmed" accounts), and Bazzly (automated shopping-reply bots) exist and advertise their capabilities. Astroturfing would appear as a small tail of accounts disproportionately mentioning one brand in buying threads, with thin histories, low scores, and knife-subreddit focus. Public data shows concentration but cannot prove intent—devoted fans or employees could mimic the pattern.

The analysis focuses on measurable signals: brand mention concentration in recommendation threads, not hidden motivations.