Reddit (/ˈrɛdɪt/, stylized in its logo as reddit) is an American social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website. Registered members submit content to the site such as links, text posts, and images, which are then voted up or down by other members. Posts are organized by subject into user-created boards called "subreddits", which cover a variety of topics including news, science, movies, video games, music, books, fitness, food, and image-sharing. Submissions with more up-votes appear towards the top of their subreddit and, if they receive enough up-votes, ultimately on the site's front page. Despite strict rules prohibiting harassment, Reddit's administrators spend considerable resources on moderating the site.[4]
As of July 2019, Reddit is ranking as the No. 5 most visited website in U.S. and No. 13 in the world, according to Alexa Internet, with 55% of its user base coming from the United States, followed by the United Kingdom at 7.4% and copyright at 5.8%.[5]
Reddit was founded by University of Virginia roommates Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian in 2005. Condé Nast Publications acquired the site in October 2006. In 2011, Reddit became an independent subsidiary of Condé Nast's parent company, Advance Publications.[6] In October 2014, Reddit raised $50 million in a funding round led by Sam Altman and including investors Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Ron Conway, Snoop Dogg, and Jared Leto.[7] Their investment valued the company at $500 million then.[8][9] In July 2017, Reddit raised $200 million for a $1.8 billion valuation, with Advance Publications remaining the majority stakeholder.[10] In February 2019, a $300 million funding round led by Tencent brought the company's valuation to $3 billion. [11]
Reddit is a website comprising user-generated content—including photos, videos, links, and text-based posts—and discussions of this content in what is essentially a bulletin board system.[12][13] The name "Reddit" is a play-on-words with the phrase "read it", i.e., "I read it on Reddit."[14][15] As of 2018, there are approximately 330 million Reddit users, called "redditors".[16] The site's content is divided into categories or communities known on-site as "subreddits", of which there are more than 138,000 active communities.[17]
As a network of communities, Reddit's core content consists of posts from its users.[12][13] Users can comment on others' posts to continue the conversation.[12] A key feature to Reddit is that users can cast positive or negative votes, called upvotes and downvotes, for each post and comment on the site.[12] The number of upvotes or downvotes determines the posts' visibility on the site, so the most popular content is displayed to the most people.[12] Users can also earn "karma" for their posts and comments, which reflects the user's standing within the community and their contributions to Reddit.[12]
The most popular posts from the site's numerous subreddits are visible on the front page to those who browse the site without an account.[17][18] By default for those users, the front page will display the subreddit r/popular, featuring top-ranked posts across all of Reddit, excluding not-safe-for-work communities and others that are most commonly filtered out by users (even if they are safe for work).[19][20] The subreddit r/all does not filter topics.[21] Registered users who subscribe to subreddits see the top content from the subreddits to which they subscribe on their personal front pages.[17][18]
Front-page rank—for both the general front page and for individual subreddits—is determined by a combination of factors, including the age of the submission, positive ("upvoted") to negative ("downvoted") feedback ratio, and the total vote-count.[22]
Users and moderators
As of 2018 there were about 330 million Reddit users, called "redditors".[16] Registering an account with Reddit is free and does not require an email address.[23][24] In addition to commenting and voting, registered users can also create their own subreddit on a topic of their choosing.[25] In Reddit style, usernames begin with "u/". For example, noteworthy redditors include u/Poem_for_your_sprog, who responds to messages across Reddit in verse,[26] and u/Shitty_Watercolour, who posts paintings in response to posts.[27]
Subreddits are overseen by moderators, Reddit users who earn the title by creating a subreddit or being promoted by a current moderator.[17] These moderators are volunteers who manage their communities, set and enforce community-specific rules, remove posts and comments that violate these rules, and generally work to keep discussions in their subreddit on topic.[17][28][29] Admins, by contrast, are paid to work for Reddit.[28]
Subreddits
File:American Chemical Society - What Chemists Do - Nathan Allen.webmPlay media
Nathan Allen speaks about the r/science community to the American Chemical Society
Discussions on Reddit are organized into user-created areas of interest called "subreddits". There are about 138,000 active subreddits among a total of 1.2 million, as of July 2018.[30][31] Subreddit names begin with "r/". For instance, r/science is a community devoted to discussing scientific topics and r/television is a community devoted to discussing TV shows. Meanwhile, r/popular features top-ranked posts across all of Reddit, excluding not-safe-for-work communities and others that are most commonly filtered out by users (even if they are safe for work).[19][20] The subreddit r/all does not filter topics.[21]
In a 2014 interview with Memeburn, Erik Martin, then general manager of Reddit, remarked that their "approach is to give the community moderators or curators as much control as possible so that they can shape and cultivate the type of communities they want".[32] Subreddits often use themed variants of Reddit's alien mascot, Snoo, in the visual styling of their communities.[33]