Yes, the awards I was thinking of would only show up on someone's profile, not in the discussion.

Edit: thanks for the gold, kind stranger!

That would drive me nuts. Same with people who would edit their comments to freak out and thank everyone for the upvotes like it was an oscar award speech. There was a lot of strange behavior the developed over time. I like the idea of awards as a source of monetization as long as it doesn't influence the conversation. Like what was said elsewhere just a cosmetic change.

I'm proposing it purely for cosmetics, it won't boost your comment or post with default sort.

And users can opt out of seeing any rewards.

It's just a nice fun thing to have, and something small you get for making a donation

post/comment that gets an award will often end up upvoted to the top of a thread

Maybe that's because it's a good comment? Or because Reddit treats it that way in their proprietary algorithm, of which there's no such thing here, and as far as I can tell, is not part of this pitch.

They incentivise least-common-denominator behaviour from commenters who then race to be the first to make the most obvious joke or reply

Why would anyone be farming these meaningless awards?

It doesn't engender good and thoughtful content.

Why would a comment with no good or thoughtful content get an award?