Even if you don’t use it, you’ve probably heard of Reddit. Matter of fact, you’ve probably also heard it referred to as the “front page of the Internet”. Reddit was founded almost 12 years ago and since then has grown to become one of the most popular websites in the world.
The site currently boasts over 540 million monthly visitors and ranks as the sixth most-visited site in the world and the fourth most-visited site in the United States.
That’s great, you may say.
But just what is Reddit?
After all, one look at its front page and you can tell it doesn’t look like most traditional websites.
Here’s everything you need to know to understand this uber-popular site.
Reddit: A Bulletin Board System
At its most basic Reddit is a sharing website. But it’s not for sharing files. Instead, Reddit users share interesting links, images, and posts. A shared link could be to literally anything on the Internet, from a major news site to your grandmother’s cooking blog.
As for shared images, again, the sky’s the limit. This can include vacation photos to memes to, yes, porn–really weird porn.
Finally, many times people don’t share links or images. Instead, they share stories or other information they write in a post. Again, the sky's the limit as users can literally write anything they want, from movie reviews to their darkest secrets to tips on how to build your own microwave oven.
Reddit: Subreddits
You now already know Reddit works as a bulletin board system, but if that system were just one page of posts one after the other, it would be hard to find related links and posts based on topic. That’s where subreddits come in.
A subreddit is essentially a board within a board. Subreddits are places where people can share their link, images, or posts related to a certain topic. Users can then choose to follow certain subreddits according to their interests.
Subreddits can be very generic, like subreddits for movies, science, books, news, working out, etc. Or subreddits can be very, very niche–like subreddits for people who like to Photoshop arms onto birds.
A subreddit URL typically looks like this (using the bird example above): https://www.reddit.com/r/birdswitharms/. When discussing a subreddit it typical people use shorthand for it. For example, r/birdswitharms is the shorthand for the above-mentioned subreddit.
Reddit: Up And Down Voting
The last major beginner’s thing you need to know about Reddit is that users can vote on any post–and they can either upvote or downvote it. Upvoting means you like the post or finds it interesting or useful in some way. Downvoting means you don’t like the post.
Posts with more upvotes move up towards the top of subreddits, which make them more visible to readers. If a post in a subreddit gets enough upvotes, it can even appear on the front page of Reddit no matter what subreddit it is from. If this happens, the post is guaranteed to be read by millions of people around the world.
It’s the Reddit homepage that is the reason Reddit is often referred to as the “front page of the Internet”. Once a post lands up here, traditional and other media outlets often pick up many of the stories, giving the post a chance to be seen by people who normally would never read Reddit.
by michaelg via Featured Articles
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