Speaking as a close friend of the OP, I can assure you he was not trying to karma whore. Honestly, people, I know you all want to jump at the chance to defend your precious karma collections, but all this self-righteous blathering is putting me over the edge.

Blimey, it's just a fucking website. Can you cash in your karma for money? Popularity? Anything in the secular world? No. It was just a friendly challenge among two friends, which I can guarantee, neither of them expected it to be on the front page. This is r/trees, for Pete's sake. Everybody is so quick to defend this subreddit's kindness and sanctity until one person breaks your precious conduct code (mistakenly, I might add, if you took the four seconds to read his reply on touchedagirl's top-rated comment), then out pours needless insults and put-downs.

I didn't downvote you but people like you disgust me and make me lose faith not only in trees but in reddit as a whole. If I gave two shits about downvotes, I wouldn't even be posting this in the first place, because I know all you other drama freaks are just going to drown me out with yours.

edit: Proof that I am who I claim to be. That's me on the left. http://imgur.com/8vj65