Reddit Unknown Facts

Co founded by Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman on the 23rd of June 2005, Reddit is today one of the most widely used websites in the world. While you may be an avid Reddit user, there is so much still to be discovered about the platform. Here is taking a look at some unknown facts about Reddit:

1. “Dear Fellow Geeks: WTF?”

While free speech is a part of the constitution, it isn’t looked at the right way on Reddit. In the year 2013, looking at the rampant use of sexual language on Reddit, founder Alexis Ohanian wrote an open letter to all his employees asking them to reduce the use of sexual innuendos and language on Reddit. The title of his letter was, you guessed it right, “Dear Fellow Geeks: WTF?” Way to drive the point home!

2. Slip and miss

While it is a known fact Reddit created fake profiles to promote its platform in the beginning, it wasn’t known its users did the same. Unidan, one of the most popular users on Reddit, was caught with not one, but 5 accounts on which he would post and promote his content. Extremely popular for his science based reddits and for the way he explained scientific phenomena, Unidan was on the way to acquire celebrity status. That is, till he was caught and his system came crashing down. Talk about a bad fall!

3. The first person to apologize for memes on the internet

In July 2017, when a Reddit user posted a video of Donald Trump wrestling Vince McMahon with CNN’s logo placed on McMahon’s head, he created a massive media storm. The storm became ten times bigger when Donald Trump himself tweeted the video and it became viral! An investigative journalist with CNN started digging into the matter and when the user was made public, the unexpected happened. He apologised online for a meme! This has quite literally never happened on Reddit and was a first of its kind, for sure.

4. Want to get roasted? Then use Reddit

Taking roasting to an all new level, Reddit lets people (also masochists) use the subreddit r/roastme. This subreddit lets masochists post pictures of themselves with a picture saying roast me and voila! You get a roast board all for yourself. If you’re in the mood to roast a totally random stranger, then this is where you should go.

5. Almost no money spent on advertising

Reddit is perhaps the only company in the world to get so big without spending much money on advertising. The only money Reddit spent on advertising was when they got stickers made. The team spent $ 500, as of 2012, on making and distributing the stickers, with literally no money spent on anything else! Talk about good word of mouth publicity!

6. “Today I don’t feel like doing anything”

We all have those days when we want to do absolutely nothing. Employees at Reddit were no different. Procrastination is their middle name. One employee took things so far, he employed people from China to do his actual work and spent hours surfing through Reddit instead! Such a stroke of genius!

7. What came first?

Just like the chicken or the egg situation, people wondered about whether the Reddit name came first or the logo. Worry no more because we have the answer for you. For Reddit, the logo came first! Called Snoo, the Reddit mascot is a genderless blob with no fingers. Alexis Ohanian first drew it while as a student at the University of Virginia. So popular is Snoo, Reddit has urged several subreddits to add their own personal touch to Snoo! Why worry when you have art?

Popularly known as the front page of the internet, Reddit definitely has a lot going. If you think we missed out on any other facts about Reddit, comment and let us know!