The Reddit online community – all you need to know about the platform, popular topics and memes, features, and controversies.
- The Reddit website is an online community .
- One of the most important functions is the sharing of blog posts in the so-called subreddits.
- Frequent controversies arise from prohibited content such as hate speech.
New York – On October 31, 2006, the US-American Condé Nast Verlag took over the online community Reddit . Just a year earlier, Steve Huffman , Alexis Ohanian and Aaron Swartz had founded the platform. They met as roommates in a shared apartment when they were studying at the University of Virginia in the United States. The name Reddit is a play on words: “I read it on Reddit” (translated: “I read it on Reddit”). The mascot – recognizable in the browser tab by a white alien head with an orange circle – is called Snoo . This pseudonym is derived from “Snew”, which is short for “what’s new” in English.
Reddit: what is it?
The Reddit website is a social news aggregator. This is a website on which users share a wide variety of posts: for example, memes , links to articles, videos, photos or surveys. The registered users of the online community like to call themselves Redditors . Other users decide how interesting or irrelevant they find the respective blog post – by choosing the post either up or down:
- If a post receives many upvotes (positive reactions), it moves up the list accordingly.
- Conversely, less popular posts decrease in the ranking and quickly disappear from view.
Reddit’s ranking algorithm takes other criteria into account, such as the date of publication and the number of comments left. Newer posts therefore appear higher in the list than older ones. For many users, it’s about ranking their blog posts as high as possible and thus staying longer in the visible news feed.
This is for one thing for Reddit users: Reddit video downloader.
Reddit: The most important features of the online community
Registered users have the opportunity to publish new blog posts on the Reddit online community . To do this, they either select one of the existing subreddits or create a new sub-community. Reddit is basically a forum that consists of a large number of sub-forums. Regardless of the subreddit in which the new post appears, it will appear on the start page for everyone to see if there is feedback. To prevent this, it is possible to post private contributions. A private blog post is only visible to Redditors who belong to the respective subreddit.
Content can be shared on a wide variety of topics – such as politics, finance, technology and the latest news. A blog post contains either self-created content or links to existing websites on the Internet. There is also the function to subscribe to subreddits: The contributions from these sub-forums then appear directly on the Reddit start page and are immediately visible to the user. In order to be able to use the functions of Reddit – such as commenting and sharing – registration is required. However, the content is also accessible to unregistered Internet users. The website also offers paid memberships (Reddit Premium) with advertising-free display.
Reddit: which topics are popular?
Reddit describes itself as the “front page of the internet” – the homepage of the internet. The slogan is no coincidence: The users of the US online community exchange ideas on all topics that concern the world at the moment. So it is not surprising that posts on political topics, game consoles, sports and animals can often be found on the platform.
Most of the “upvotes” received Rick Astley – a British singer who landed many hits in the charts between 1987 and 1993. One of his most famous tracks is “Take Me to Your Heart”. He published a nostalgic photo of himself from the 80s, which over 406,000 users voted for the top. In second place was a meme called “A short story” that appeared in the r / memes subreddit. It pokes fun at a “Flatearther”. This is to be understood as a person who regards the earth as a disk.
Reddit and Memes: These images are shared by Redditors
Memes are created through pictures (sometimes also videos) and are usually provided with a short text. This creates a combination of a meaningful motif with suitable words that convey a certain message. Most memes are meant to be funny and depict, for example, typical everyday situations in an ironic way. Many of them can be found on Reddit in this sub-forum: / r / Memes the original since 2008. While some memes only gain popularity for a short time, others appear always with new content. Widespread motifs are:
- “Doge” (dog of the Japanese Shiba breed)
- “Trollface” and “Yao Ming Face” (“Bitch-Please” face)
- “This is Bill / Be like Bill”
The online community loves funny posts and therefore the creative images can be seen everywhere. Sometimes the posts criticize certain topics – instead of direct discussion, the aim is to allow yourself to joke with the addressee. Reddit of course has its own Instagram profile, where the funniest memes appear on a regular basis.
Reddit: What is “AMA”?
The abbreviation AMA stands for “Ask Me Anything”. Translated it means something like: Ask me anything. Under this Reddit , users organize a question and answer session with the online community – mostly people from public life, such as actors, celebrities or politicians. If several people open a question and answer session together, the term for it is AUA (“Ask Us Anything”).
Due to the sometimes huge amount of contributions, moderators usually support an AMA or AUA. They filter the questions and delete posts that violate the Reddiquette (rules for posting posts). In principle, however, there are no regulations as to which questions are allowed or not desired. The interviewed person decides for himself whether to answer questions or not to address certain topics .
Barack Obama hosted one of the most popular AMAs . On August 29, 2012, he spoke to the Redditors for half an hour and temporarily paralyzed the website due to the great interest. The then President of the United States of America reached out to the community on the occasion of his election campaign and received over 13,000 comments.
Reddit under fire – controversy and bans
In an online community like Reddit , criticism is inevitable . A frequent problem are posts whose content is marginal or even violates the law. It wasn’t until June 2020 that the site had to block a large number of subreddits:
- One of the sub-forums affected was a group called “The_Donald”, in which mainly supporters of Donald Trump exchange ideas.
- In addition, the politically left-wing sub-forum called “Chapo Trap House” was targeted.
Controversies also arise from certain topics with dangerous content, such as “watchpeopledie” (“watch people die”). Internet users with a German IP address have no longer been able to access the relevant Reddits since August 2015. The Federal Inspectorate for Media Harmful to Young People was subsequently engaged.
In principle, the platform is available to users from all over the world. Reddit is based in San Francisco, California . On the start page you have the option of selecting a specific country or displaying all of the content. However, most of the contributions are in English.
