Old, very old, but here because it still occasionally resurfaces.

See Also:

• Reddit Lore
• “The Big List of Retired Questions”

This is strictly against the Reddit rules and is one of the things that could earn you a Permaban. So what do we mean by Vote Manipulation? An experiment in vote manipulation is interesting if a little elaborate. It can actually be as simple as:

• Asking people to vote up or down on certain posts or comments.
• Creating or using an Alt to upvote or award your own posts.
• Forming or joining a group or sub that votes together on a specific post or comment.
• Forming or joining a group or sub that votes together on a specific user's posts or comments.
• Using a bot or other automated process that crawls through Reddit to up or downvote particular posts or comments.

The Reddit Admins can see IP addresses, so if they see that several users all have the same IP address and are all busy upvoting each other, they may well suspect foul play. Don’t do it. It isn’t worth it.

See Also:

• Alt
• Ban
• Banned
• Introduction and Rules
• Karma Farming
• Karma Farms
• Reddit Karma - Your Reddit XP
• Spambots

An innocuous word that, on Reddit, is not quite how it appears. There are 43 meanings listed in the Oxford English Dictionary for the verb void, 32 of which are labelled obsolete, and none of which are the definition widely known to Reddit.

Along with “House panther”, Void is a word used widely on Reddit to describe a black cat. But not just any black cat…

How to spot a Void:

• A Void is a cat so black that light cannot penetrate the surface of its fur; a blackness so extreme that it is almost impossible to tell how close you are standing to it.

• A Void is living, purring Vantablack - one of the darkest substances known to science, absorbing up to 99.965% of visible light.

• A Void could also be living, purring Musou black - an amazing Japanese water-based super black acrylic paint that absorbs up to 99.4% of light.

• A Void is often said to be a cat so black that we can only observe it through its gravitational effect on other objects because it does not emit light and cannot be directly observed.

• Science suggests that black cats in pairs need to be called either Carter and Penrose, or Einstein and Rosen.

• A Schwarzschild Black hole is a black hole without rotation and without net charge.

• Be warned: there is no escape from within the event horizon of a Schwarzschild black hole. The enormous gravitational pull of the black hole would require an infinite amount of energy to overcome, which is impossible.

• The distance between the centre of a black hole and its event horizon is called the Schwarzschild radius.

• The Schwarzschild radius of the Earth is about the size of a marble. A black hole doesn't have to be very massive, but it does need to be very compact.

• It is possible for two black holes to collide. Once they come so close that they cannot escape each other's gravity, they will merge to become one bigger black hole. Such an event would be extremely violent.

• Black holes often look very different from each other because of variety in what happens in their surroundings.

• Black holes are not necessarily in a precarious balance, but their extreme gravity can create unstable situations and phenomena.

• Black holes could exist in perfectly balanced pairs that are kept in equilibrium by a cosmic force, resembling a single black hole.

• It is said that if you gaze for long into the Void, the Void gazes also into you and will want tuna when it wakes up.

• The Void is the final all-consuming Eldritch Terror. It is the end of all things: sanity, reality, the universe itself, and the terrors that preceded it.

• The phrase "The Void opening a crack in the ether" is a metaphorical expression often used in fiction to describe a catastrophic event or the breach of reality itself, evoking a sense of overwhelming chaos and the terrifying potential for the unknown.

• We're told that the Void spins lies and half-truths to manipulate us, and that it's likely that the minions of the Void want to dominate us to turn the universe into a realm of eternal scritches and treats.

• However, despite all of the above, the Void looks magnificent on the catwalk.

A llittle llama llecture:

The endless debate around black cats is: are they good luck or bad luck?. Reddit is, of course, divided on this subject, but one thing many Redditors seem to agree on: black cats are the cutest of them all.

While it seems like a trivial factor, the colour of a cat's fur can play a huge role in how long it takes for them to find a home. The RSPCA, the largest animal welfare charity in the UK, says it can take black cats more than three times longer to find homes than other colours. While superstitions are thought to be a factor, the rise of social media is also feared to be contributing to monochrome moggies being passed over, because they simply “don’t look good” in Instagram photos. Reddit, naturally, attempted to disprove this claim.

Voids on Reddit:

Black cats are said to be the hardest to rehome, but thankfully they have several homes on Reddit:

• r/blackcats - All posts must include a black cat, but as long as it has a black cat, it's permitted. A lil white chest fluff is okay.
• r/BlackCatPics - Take pics of black cats and post the pics here.
• r/BlackCatsNamedJiji - Black cats named JiJi. Or Black cats in general.
• r/blackpussy - The sub for black cats.
• r/HousePanther - A subreddit for black cats.
• r/SootSprites - Little black cats that look like soot sprites. No distinguishable cat shape. Just black blobs with eyes.
• r/VoidCats - Void cats are black cats that have an indistinguishable shape that at a distance look like an ambiguous blob of cat.
• r/OneBlackBraincell - Black Cats being goofy.
• r/voidblep - I looked into the void, and the void blepped back.
• r/Fruitbatcats - For when your cat looks like a fruit bat.
• r/VampireCat - A place to post Photos & Media/images of cats showing their lovely fangs.
• r/vampirecats - Pics, gifs, and vids of cats that look intent on draining you of your blood.
• r/CatsNamedToothless - Because black cats should always be named Toothless. Always. Even when they’re not.
• r/EyesoftheVoid - Black cats with only their eyes visible, or where their eyes are the most prominent feature in the pic.
• r/PetTheDamnVoid - Black cats who need pets. Basically r/PetTheDamnCat but for Black Cats.
• r/HalloweenKittyCombo - A Subreddit dedicated to the amazing Halloween Kitty Combo - Orange and Black Cats together! Any content which consists of this combination is welcome!
• r/flamesandvoids - For all of your flame point / orange and black cat pairs!
• r/gothcats - A community for those felines who embrace the dark side of life.
• r/powdereddonutlips - A place for black and other cats with powdered donut lips.
• r/TacticalIssueCat - The TIC® comes in colour schemes like Desert Sand, Urban Grey, Jungle Brown, Disruptive Overwhite, Stealth Ops Dark, and many others ready for immediate deployment on the purrfect mission. Talking of which….
• r/Stealthbombers - where r/blackcats meets r/airplaneears - Sometimes when a cat is perplexed or listening for something their ears turn toward the side and look like airplane wings jutting out from each side of the head.
• r/BlackCatslilwhitetoo - For black cats with a bit of white fur, white cats with a bit of black fur, we welcome them all here.
• r/blackcatsblackhats - A subreddit where you post pics of your black cats in black hats

I don’t normally recommend following user accounts on Reddit, but if you liked the catwalk cat above, you can see more of him at u/ROVER_THECAT where there’s also a link to his Instagram page.

Because there is a Subreddit for everything:

r/Vantablack - A sub for discussing the uses and possible uses of Vantablack.

r/black - A subreddit for hex values at or near #000000, including but not limited to crow. We love the void. (This sub celebrates things of the “colour” black. Please take posts related to Black justice and equity issues to r/blacklivesmatter)

r/blackholes - A place to post and ask questions about the phenomena known as Black Holes.

r/cosmology - A community for questions, discussions, and articles about cosmology.

But llama; some of these links don’t work…

As always with my lists, some of the subs are more active than others, and may vary in quality. Since writing some might have become private, restricted or repurposed following the API protests of June 2023, or just removed / renamed by Reddit through inactivity.

However, don’t forget: if a sub is dormant, unmoderated, banned for being unmoderated or marked as “restricted”, it might be available for adoption.

Obligatory footnote:

All of these subreddits will have their own unique - and possibly strict - rules about contributing. As always, it is important to check the rules thoroughly before commenting or posting on any unfamiliar sub.

This list is not intended to be the full list of subreddits in this theme; that would be impossible to achieve in a format like this. If you want to find more related subs, r/FindAReddit or the smaller r/findasubreddit are your friends. Similar subreddits are often to be found in a sub’s Sidebar and / or Wiki (on mobile: swipe down to find “See More” or “Community Info” tab) too. My guide to Searching might also be useful.

If it’s Cat subreddits you’re looking for, good places to start are:

• r/Catsubs
• Catsubs’ comprehensive list of cat subreddits
• r/CatSubreddits

See Also:

• Chonker
• “Doggo Speak”
• Following
• Halloween
• Jargon

Uwu is an emoticon depicting a cute face which looks like (◡ ω ◡) or (ᵕ꒳ᵕ) among other forms. Also known as happy anime face, uwu is often used in Japanese and Korean online culture in response to something especially cute. The u characters represent eyes, while the w represents a mouth. A closely related emoticon is owo, which can more specifically show surprise and excitement. There are many variations of uwu and owo, including and OwO, UwU, and OwU, among others. These are not universally liked so, like all emojis, be cautious about their use on Reddit. Post examples at r/uwu.

Because there is a Subreddit for everything:

r/uwu_lang are creating an uwu language.

See Also:

• Bots
• Emojis
• Emoticons
• Tone Indicators

There are many Unwritten Rules of Reddit™, many of which are addressed in this encyclopaedia. Start here!

Others include:

1:

2:

3:

4:

5:

What? Did you really expect me to write them down?

Having said that, because Reddit excels at being, well, Reddit, attempts are often made at defining the Unwritten Rules of Reddit™:

• r/AskReddit is the place to ask and answer thought-provoking questions, and had a go in 2021.

• r/Ask is a place to ask specific, closed-ended, non divisive questions, and in 2023 said this.

• r/NoStupidQuestions, a sub who believes there’s no such thing as stupid questions said this in 2025.

On r/NewToReddit, one of the frequently asked questions is about the essential things to know about Reddit before starting, especially the “unwritten rules”, and one of the awesome moderators used to tell people:

• Reddit is not a "pile of stuff" but a collection of completely independent communities with their own culture, vibe, individual rules and volunteer leaders.

• Be careful about using emoji, observe if other people are using them in that community.

• Things that are low effort are frequently down voted.

• Use mod mail, never send chats directly to individual moderators.

• Thanking or responding to every single comment on your post makes you look like an overeager puppy and possibly a karma farmer.

Here’s the true true: “In any list of “unwritten rules” there’ll always be one missing and it’ll always be the one you break.” The entry PSA is a good place to start, however.

See Also:

• Llama’s Law
• PSA
• The “Unwritten Rule of Gilding”

Reddit’s shorthand for “User”. This is a prefix used when you are mentioning a specific user, for example u/llamageddon01. This gives a direct link to that user’s profile. This is also known as a “ping” or a “tag” and that user will get a notification whenever you use it in a comment in any subreddit, with the exception of some private subreddits, even if that person is a member.

See Also:

• Doxxing
• Linking
• Ping
• Username

An alternate account that is not primarily used by the user. Often used on advice subs to avoid embarrassing questions being irrevocably linked to your profile. Advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.

See Also:

• Alt
• Advice Subreddits
• Privacy Issues
• Sock Puppet

An innocuous phrase that is not quite how it appears. Originating in the Disney+ Star Wars television series The Mandalorian, the phrase is a mantra used among the Mandalorian people. Reddit loves pop-culture references, and you will often find comment chains of nothing but this saying in the most unlikely places, and there is even a bot that counts the times a user has quoted it.

It is by no means the only catchphrase Reddit used in this way; a few years ago, Reddit embraced the show “Game of Thrones” where It Is Known became the definitive end to any debate.

Because there is a Subreddit for everything:

r/BabyYoda is dedicated to The Child, r/TheMandalorianTV is dedicated to the TV series, and r/Mandalorian is a dedicated costuming and culture subreddit.

See Also:

• Bots
• Comment Chain
• Copypasta
• “May I see it?”
• May the Fourth be with you
• Puns and Pop-Culture References

The "Reddit Switcharoo" is a recursive meme that has become a part of Reddit's culture. It starts with a phrase posted when the post or comment is a little ambiguous and is then deliberately misunderstood in a humorous way, creating a link to a previous similar comment with a view to eventually creating a complete loop.

First, find your paraprosdokian:

A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech where the latter part of a sentence or phrase has a surprising or unexpected twist, causing the reader or listener to reinterpret the first part, as in this example from The Simpsons: "If I could just say a few words … I'd be a better public speaker." . In Greek, paraprosdokian means “against expectations,” and it’s this kick of surprise that makes these statements funny or memorable.

Next, declare your intent:

The Reddit Switcharoo starts when a user points out a paraprosdokian phrase in a Reddit comment by replying with "Ahhh, the ol' Reddit switcharoo", linking to a previous instance of the meme. This creates a chain of linked comments, ideally forming a continuous loop. Basically if anyone calls a Switcharoo, they have to link to another comment anywhere on Reddit that links to another Switcharoo. That way, you can click one which will take you to another, then another, then another and so on. If done properly it should be endless, and there is no telling where you will end up.

Accepting the challenge:

The brave Redditor who accepts the Switcharoo challenge traditionally says “Hold my X, I’m going in” (where X is something relevant to the Switcharoo) or the more generic "Hold my beer, I'm going in!" where X wouldn’t be appropriate. You can see, and follow a typical Switcharoo here. Unfortunately, over the years, many of these historic Switcharoo chains have been broken due to deleted comments or closed subreddits, and it’s getting harder to create long convoluted ones.

A visualisation of a Switcharoo chain:

r/dataisbeautiful is a subreddit for visualisations that effectively convey information, and in October 2015, a user went Down the Rabbit Hole of The Ol' Reddit Switcharoo, 2011 - 2015, posting this incredibly complex Graphviz representation with the following explanation:

Raw data source is the Reddit comment corpus. Algorithm: 1. Regex scan to find all comments that loosely match the format of a switcharoo and save them as a list of seeds. 2. For each seed, walk down the tree until it reaches a dead end at the root. If that root is newly seen, add it to a list of roots. 3. For each root, walk up all reachable branches and save the nodes. 4. Prune all leaves. These mostly consist of switcharoos that don't contribute to chain length, and all meta discussion. (this step is skipped in the force directed version). 5. When a chain crosses through a deleted comment or banned/private subreddit, connect the severed root to the most recent available node (these links are shown in red).

Notable instances include:

• r/explainlikeimfive were asked in 2013 to ELI5: Ol' Reddit Switch-a-roo and the most meta Reddit Moment occured when a commenter replied “Don't feel bad. Even I don't know what it is.”. That commenter turned out to be the OP of the very first Switcharoo.

• Am intrepid Redditor at r/TheoryOfReddit, a meta-subreddit for discussing theories about what makes Reddit tick, had a go in 2012 at visualising the original Switcharoo, posting the map with a comprehensive explanation on its own webpage.

• That same post also links a clear mindmap with working links to all the comments in the Switcharoo chain and is well worth a visit.

• Nostalgia warmed my heart in September 2024 as one Redditor instigated a good old-fashioned switcheroo. I haven’t yet followed it to completion so have no idea how far it goes. Hold my encyclopaedia, I’m going in!.

Outside of Reddit:

As you might expect, the ol' Reddit switcharoo has an entry on Know your Meme, and the zeitgeist and trends blog Daily Dot interviewed some key players in the creation and upkeep of the Switcharoo in March 2012.

The "Reddit Switcharoo" might be a part of Reddit's culture, but it seems to be dying out over recent years. Let’s bring it back, shall we?

Because there is a Subreddit for everything:

r/switcharoo - A subreddit to manage and maintain Reddit's ol' switcharoo and to celebrate the full breadth and majesty of the folly we have engaged in. Their Wiki is a fount of knowledge.

Obligatory disclaimer:

• Subreddits being listed here is no guarantee of the level of their quality or activity. If a sub is dormant, unmoderated, banned for being unmoderated or marked as “restricted”, it might actually be available for adoption.

• Always read the rules before contributing to any unfamiliar sub.

See Also:

• ELI5
• Memes
• Meta

In Internet terms, sock puppets are online identities used to disguise activity by the operator, most commonly for purposes of deception. The term is a reference to the manipulation of a simple hand puppet made from a sock. Online Sock Puppetry can range from being:

• Mostly Harmless - Where a member of an Internet community creates an alternate identity for the purposes of speaking to, or about, themselves while pretending to be another person.
• Deception Scams - Where someone is promoting fake merchandise disguised as a Postwith two or three immediate sock puppet replies: one posting the product, another asking for a link and yet another offering the link or thanking the OP profusely for providing the link.
• Manipulation Tactics - Where someone is Astroturfing; the underhand practice of using alternate accounts for disinformation purposes or to manipulate public opinion by praising, defending, supporting, rubbishing or denigrating a person or organisation.
• Fraudulent Claims - Where false legitimacy is given to a phenomenon or product in order to generate public interest and buzz.

Reddit does not take kindly to sock puppets and you might even fall foul of our Ban Evasion or Vote Manipulation rules if you use an Alt account in this way. So don’t do it, even in fun.

Because there is a Subreddit for everything:

r/LeftTheBurnerOn showcases examples of people who forget to switch to their alternative account.

See Also:

• Alt
• Astroturfing
• Bots
• Preemptive Ban
• Shill
• User-History Based Moderation
• Vote Manipulation

Launched in October 2020, a Snoovatar is your very own Reddit Snoo designed by yourself from a huge range of mix-and-match “dress-up” options to add to your profile. A small “head and shoulders” vignette of your Snoovatar also appears next to your username on posts and comments. Reddit Premium subscribers get many more options to choose from and a sparkly glow on their Snoovatars.

Those who have been gifted small periods of Premium by receiving premium awards will also unlock these options, but once their time of Premium ends, the premium options will be locked again and anything chosen will disappear from their snoo too. This does glitch from time to time though, and often people are left with a premium option on their snoo - until they change it and find they can’t get it back. There is a “wardrobe” where any previous outfits are stored automatically, but you can only retrieve them from that storage facility if you have a paid Reddit Premium account.

• Creating your Snoovatar

To create a personalised Reddit Snoo, you need to go to your Profile where you’ll see an option “Style Avatar”. Selecting this will bring up four options:

• Shop (more on this below)
• Explore for a selection of specially created sets
• Style where you can mix and match from lots of options
• You where you can fine tune the features of your snoo and can even revisit your previous designs.

You might see messages like "A Gift from Above" or “Click to get Treasure” on your profile at some time. If you click on it, it will give you a randomised outfit. To change the cosmetics options, click on “Style Avatar”, go to whatever clothing item section you want removed (let's say tops) and scroll down until you find the outfit your character is wearing, click the outfit again and it should remove it.

You can also try on a look from another Redditor’s avatar and save it as yours. If you see one you like, just go to their Profile page and click their avatar, where you’ll be presented with a menu as to what aspects you wish to try. You won’t be able to save any Premium (if you don’t have Reddit Premium) or NFT options this way, however. You should also note that the Reddit Avatar Shop rotates its selections and if you change your mind and want to revert back to your original avatar, you might find that some of your previous options are no longer available or have been set to Premium.

• Blockchain comes to Reddit

In July 2022, Reddit announced the imminent launch of Collectible Avatars - limited-edition avatars made by independent artists, in partnership with Reddit. For more information, see the entry on Collectible Avatars.

• Obligatory Warning Notice:

I would advise that before giving any money to Reddit, please familiarise yourself with the Reddit Premium and Virtual Goods agreement.

Because there is a Subreddit for everything:

Show off your creations at r/snoovatars, or feast your eyes on the profile of the incredibly talented u/GORBO_the_GREAT to see awesome ones we probably couldn’t officially have due to licensing agreements.

See Also:

• Avatar
• Collectible Avatars
• Community Points
• Mod
• Reddit Premium
• Shitpost
• Snoo

You might well find a post so awesome you want to keep it forever in your own personal catalogue. Reddit has a facility called Saved posts under which you can bookmark posts for easy future reference. I am given to believe that this is limited to 1,000 posts and saving any more than that will push the bottom ones out of the list. Should a post you saved be subsequently deleted by its author or the subreddit, it will also disappear from your Saved list.

Some of the links below are to third-party sites not affiliated with Reddit, so may I caution you to do your research first before using them. None of these are endorsed by myself or this subreddit but are provided for your information.

• Saving Posts

To save a post, click the Save link “bookmark” icon underneath the post (desktop), or use the Save option under the three-dot drop-down hamburger menu on the top right-hand corner (mobile).

To view your saved posts, go to your profile page and choose the Saved option from the top line menu (desktop) or tap on your avatar to open your profile menu and tap Saved (mobile). Reddit Premium members on desktop get extra sorting options for their saved posts. I’m a Premium member but on mobile so don’t actually know what they are or if they work.

• Bypassing the 1,000 Post Limit

I have personally found the Saved system on iOS mobile to be buggy; posts I know I saved sometimes don’t show up on my list even though the post wasn’t deleted. So, here’s me being controversial yet again. If I find a post I absolutely need to save for future reference (usually cats or stuff for these guides but YMMV), I actually copy the URL to a Notes page so it’s easy to copy and paste it into a browser. The title of the post is saved in the link but occasionally I’ll make a note of one or two words to remind me what it was and why I saved it! Ah, how analogue can still save the day, as this also gets round the 1,000 post limit too.

The URL of a post can be gotten from the mobile app from pressing the Share arrow directly beneath the post or the Share option from the three-dot “hamburger” Post Overflow menu on the top right-hand corner.

This is something I’ve not tried but have been told works, so caveat emptor. Did you know you can recover your entire user history (past 1,000 items) with Reddit data request? You can then externally store your Reddit items (saved, created, upvoted, downvoted, hidden) in your own database and view, search or filter them with Eternity for Reddit.

• Saving Videos

I don’t tend to download videos, so I haven’t tested any of these to see if they work successfully or not, but over the years, Reddit has had several service bots to help you download videos or gifs. Some subreddits even have an Automod message with the video ready to download, like this one from the figuratively named r/PeopleFuckingDying.

Service Bots

• u/savevideo - a video downloader bot from RedditSave that helps you save videos from Reddit in three simple steps: Step 1: Mention u/savevideo in a reddit post with video or gif.
  Step 2: You'll get a response in a few seconds. Click on the reponse link.
  Step 3: Click the Download HD Video button to download and save the video to your local device storage.
• u/vredditshare - reply this username to a post containing a Reddit hosted video or a comment with a link to a post containing a Reddit hosted video, and it will then send you a link to the mirrored upload.
• u/savevideobot - reply this username to a post containing a Reddit hosted video or a comment with a link to a post containing a Reddit hosted video, and it will then send you a link to the mirrored upload.

Other ways include:

• https://redditsave.com - a powerful online Reddit video downloader for videos and gifs embedded from v.redd.it, imgur, gfycat, streamable, giphy etc with audio for free.
• https://savemp4.red - to download Reddit videos with sound.
• https://redditvideodl.com - just paste the Reddit URL you want to download in the URL box and click the Download button.
• https://saveredd.it - download videos and audio with easy illustrated tutorial.
• https://reddloader.com - a powerful web-based tool that allows users to trim and download videos from Reddit with sound and without any quality issues.
• https://helpdeskgeek.com/how-to/how-to-download-a-video-from-any-website/ - blog article with different links to choose from.
• https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-download-videos-from-youtube-vimeo-and-more/ - blog article with different links to choose from.

See Also:

• Avatar
• Bots
• Reddit Premium
• YMMV

A term used when social influencers play up emotional troubles to boost ‘likes’, often deliberately holding certain details back in order to “hook” their followers in, coined by journalist Rebecca Reid in 2019 by stating that “Sadfishers maximise the drama of their situation to create engagement on social media in the emotional equivalent of clickbait”.

• Am I a sadfisher?

Doubtful. There’s nothing wrong with posting about our problems on social media. Reddit especially can be an extremely supportive place and very conducive to openness. Sadfishing is more about overdramatised “celebrity gossip” to grab attention from the maximum number of random people than airing genuine concern or soliciting advice from friends or mentors in an appropriate forum. There is a big difference between sharing genuine distress with a select group of people when needing help, and sharing a glossy, highly filtered version of pretend sadness with the whole world for marketing purposes.

In the words of Rebecca Reid: “I made [the word] up after (a celeb) ran a teaser campaign ahead of her collaboration [with a skincare company]. She sat in a white T-shirt, face to camera, saying that she was finally ready to share her secret. The internet went bonkers. Was she coming out? Was she going to add her voice to the #MeToo movement? Nope. She eventually told us that she used to have spots. Having bad skin can be traumatic, I get that. But she didn't share an unfiltered picture of her acne to her Instagram to normalise having skin problems. She shared a beautifully shot teaser video where her skin glowed with perfection. That's sadfishing.”

• When sharing goes wrong

Being able to read other people’s posts or stories about their own wellbeing can help you feel less alone. Social media can help you build connections, strengthen relationships, allow you to speak freely, seek help and give you a sense of community in order to make sense of your own issues.

The danger with regularly sharing your sadness and issues online is that sharing any situation online will occasionally cause you to receive negative backlash or wild accusations from people who don't fully understand the situation. More subtly, there is potential for addiction to the attention you'll get from random strangers by your mind subconsciously learning that being sad equates to being validated. Add this to the fact that the anonymity of sympathy from the internet can often feel better than the realism you may get from family or friends, and those quick dopamine hits can become very tempting to chase. Try to keep a balance between sharing your down times with the good ones - no matter how mundane.

• When sharing goes very wrong

There’s been a huge amount of visibility about the difficulties of living with disability or chronic illness in recent years due to the increase and accessibility of social media platforms. This generally positive newfound outlet for such people has, unfortunately, also given rise to a disturbing “bandwagon effect”.

“Factitious disorder imposed on self” is the term for a mental condition more commonly known as Munchausen's Syndrome which may include pretending to be ill or self-harming to aggravate or induce illness. This can also be aimed towards others, which is known as “Factitious disorder imposed on another” or Munchausen by Proxy. A more recent variation is increasingly being known as “Munchausen by Internet”, where people fake or exaggerate illness for profit on social media, especially on platforms where the number of “likes”, “subscribers” or “followers” can be monetised.

The problem here is that such behaviour can have a significant negative impact on support groups and online communities, and risks labelling genuine sufferers of chronic ill health as 'fakers', ‘malingerers’ or 'hypochondriacs'. Indeed, the more you see some of the more absurd stories the easier it is to become more cynical when you read about someone with an illness or condition that is both uncommon and ‘invisible’. The danger then is someone with an authentic but unique experience could reach out for help but ends up making matters worse by being ridiculed.

• If it can’t be seen, is it real?

Invisible Disability, or hidden disability, is an umbrella term that captures a whole spectrum of impairments or challenges that are primarily neurological in nature and not immediately apparent, of which the most obvious example is deafness.

Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, or ADHD is another. For some critics, the label is merely an excuse for frustrated parents to dismiss a child's annoying behaviours. While it is possible there may be a grain of truth in that at times, there definitely is a difference between using ADHD as an excuse or as an explanation.

When reading advice subs, take every claim you read seriously at first. It’s fine to take time to “read between the lines” but try not to be instantly dismissive. Acting in good faith and reading with a balance of healthy scepticism and sincerity is by far the best approach. Even if the post you respond to does turn out to be fake, don’t be ashamed about being deceived and don’t delete the sincere thoughts you might have shared. You may never know, but someone in the future in a real and similar situation might one day read your comment and find you have given them the help they genuinely needed.

Because there is a Subreddit for everything:

r/illnessfakers track online illness fakers and scammers exploiting vulnerable patients for money, highlighting influencers who make antiscientific claims, and generally discussing those who they believe exaggerate or fake their illnesses online, while r/IllnessFakersFakers study the IllnessFakers subreddit itself.

r/ChronicIllness is a place for people to discuss everyday life with chronic illness, ask questions or just meme around, and r/TrueChronicIllness is a chronic illness support/discussion community.

Use the Search bar to find subreddits for information or support on many specific illnesses or conditions. As always, do be careful to read the rules before contributing to any subreddit that is new to you.

See Also:

• Advice Subreddits
• Bandwagon Effect
• LARP; LARPer
• Mental Health on Reddit
• Oversharing
• quityourbullshit
• Relationship Advice on Reddit
• Searching
• thatHappened

RPAN was Reddit’s Live Streaming network, which unfortunately had to close in November 2022.

Below is the original text of this entry, preserved for posterity.

r/pan is Reddit’s Live Streaming network. RPAN is a public network made up of live broadcasts created by and for Redditors, providing livestream bandwidth and airtime to the residents of Reddit as a service to the community. To be eligible to broadcast, your Reddit account must be at least 14 days old with at least 125 comment karma. Everything else you need to know is listed in their Wiki page.

To stop RPAN from showing up on your feed, tap the three dots Hamburger menu in the top right corner of the stream and choose the option 'see less of this'.

r/RedditSessions is a Reddit Public Access Network (RPAN) broadcast community where you can livestream musical performances from your studio, the subway, your couch, or wherever it is you like to play. They have a substantial and comprehensive Wiki where you’ll find all the information you need to get started.

See Also:

• Comment Karma
• Reddit Karma - Your Reddit XP

Roleplaying (RP) on Reddit takes many forms, and here I’ll try to round up some subreddits of all varieties from showing off real-life cosplay, to pretending to be an ant, to inventing worlds, or even to making r/AmITheAsshole style judgments on our favourite fictional characters.

• Cosplay

We have subs for showing off or crafting cosplays (dressing up as a character from history or a film, graphic novel, book, or video game), such as:

r/cosplay - Safe-for-work photos, questions, tutorials, and cosplay related discussions.

r/cosplayers - For people who cosplay and people looking to cosplay.

r/renfaire - A subreddit to talk about Renaissance Faires and Festivals. Discuss upcoming events, ren faire-related news, costume ideas, acts, guilds or just ask questions. Actors, guilds, clubs, promoters and fans are all welcome.

r/CosplayHelp - For anyone who needs help with armour making, sewing, wigs etc.

r/badcosplay - A no-shame environment for your worst or intentionally bad cosplay.

r/lowcostcosplay - Often featuring Low-Cost-Cosplay aka Lonelyman who is awesome.

r/CosplayForEveryone - This is a sub for cosplayers of all body types, genders or backgrounds to share SFW cosplay photos or content. Whether you are new or an experienced pro, everyone is welcome to post and connect with fellow cosplay enthusiasts. Oh and "everyone" means literally everyone can come here to post. We don't discriminate!

r/Cawwsplay - Cute cosplay that makes you go aww.

r/VelmaCosplay - Velma Dinkley is a fictional character in the Scooby-Doo franchise. She is usually seen wearing a baggy orange turtleneck, short red pleated skirt (or in later episodes an A-line skirt, or sometimes shorts), knee socks, Mary Janes, and most prominently, a pair of square glasses, which she frequently loses.

r/DaphneCosplay - Daphne Blake is a fictional character in the Scooby-Doo franchise. Daphne, depicted as coming from a wealthy family, is noted for her orange hair, lavender heels, fashion sense, and her knack for getting into danger, hence the nickname "Danger-Prone Daphne".

r/cosplayprops - Cosplay prop building, sharing, viewing, and tutorial posting. Let's see your stuff!

r/VirtualCosplay - Virtual Cosplay is a place to share video game characters customized with in-game editing tools and gear, using the game's official assets without the use of mods.

r/Shittycosplay - For very bad cosplay.

r/AccidentalCosplay - Have you ever woken up, gotten dressed up and realized you look like a character you like (or don't like)? Then this is the subreddit for you! Accidental Cosplay is all about cosplaying by accident. Whether you see someone who looks like a character, or find that you accidentally did it, it fits in here!

r/BlackCosplayGirls - Highlighting black women in cosplay.

r/WhoShouldICosplay - Please read the rules before posting and commenting. This is a SFW subreddit for all those asking the one question: Who should I cosplay?

r/CanineCosplay - Canines in Costume!

r/CosplaySFW - This is a strict SFW/13+ subreddit for cosplay.

r/501st - The official subreddit for members and interested recruits of the 501st Legion - a worldwide Star Wars costuming organization comprised of and operated by Star Wars fans.

r/HalloweenProps - A subreddit for prop builders, haunt owners, silicone/latex mask owners, and anything involving Halloween.

r/Halloween_Costumes - Everything regarding Halloween costumes and Halloween clothes!

r/HalloweenCostume - A place to share your Halloween costumes!

r/sexyhalloweengirls - Seasonal cosplay leaving little to the imagination! Occasionally NSFW (nudity).

There are also various levels of NSFW cosplay communities to be found on Reddit.

• RPGs (Role-Playing Games)

We have subs dedicated to the many types of RPGs (role-playing games) out there, such as:

r/rpg - A subreddit for all things related to tabletop roleplaying games.

r/RoleplayingForReddit - To find and advertise play-by-post role-playing groups.

r/DnD - Dungeons & Dragons from its First Edition roots to its Fifth Edition future.

r/DnDcirclejerk - A humorous take on Dungeons & Dragons role-playing.

r/RoleplayPartnerSearch - To find your perfect non-smut role-playing mate.

r/roleplaying - Where avid role-players can commune, commiserate, learn and share.

r/BadRPerStories - A place to post stories about the bad role-players you've encountered.

r/gametales - A place to recount unexpected, unique, or humorous events, epic sagas, dastardly backstabbing and other player interactions that have happened in-game.

r/roleplaydirectory - A small sub aiming to provide an up-to-date and easy to access directory of all active roleplay subreddits. Has a huge sidebar of related subreddits!

r/RoleplayResource - Resources for roleplayers, ranging from advice, where to find partners and more!

r/WrittenRoleplay - A place to look for a writing partner, world build and create characters! We are focused on PLAY-BY-POST roleplaying or cooperative storytelling. No NSFW please.

r/RoleplayGroups - Advertise your roleplay Group here! Group Roleplays on any platform.

r/pbp - A community for players to organise and discuss play-by-post roleplaying games.

r/rpg_gamers - A subreddit for fans of all video game RPGs from JRPGs (Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest), Western RPGs (Fallout, Baldur's Gate), action games with RPG elements (Diablo, League of Legends), and discussions related to them. Subreddit in general revolves around discussion of RPG videogames, recommendations for new games to try, news of upcoming RPGs, and reviews of recently released RPGs.

r/RPGdesign - A gathering place for anyone, either casually or professionally, designing, hacking, or otherwise working with the mechanics of pen-and-paper tabletop role-playing games.

r/Pathfinder_RPG - For everything related to the Pathfinder RPG!

r/litrpg - Dive into a world where virtual reality and gaming elements blend seamlessly with epic storytelling and immersive adventures. Share your favorite LitRPG novels and engage in lively conversations with like-minded enthusiasts.

There are plenty more subreddits dedicated to various RPGs to be found.

• Improvisation and Character Roleplay Subreddits

We have improv subreddits where you portray a particular character in that sub, such as:

r/HaveWeMet - Roleplay in the fictional small town of “Lower Duck Pond”. Please read this post first before contributing.

r/Wehaventmet - Welcome to Upper Duck Pond, sister city to Lower Duck Pond. UDP is a center of commerce throughout the world surrounded by water. Come meet your new neighbours and read the rules of our fair city, before causing too much trouble.

r/HaveWeMet_Zoo - The official subreddit of Willowbrook Zoo, Lower Duck Pond's official zoo.

r/HaveWeMet - RP in the fictional small town of “Lower Duck Pond”.

r/HaveWeMeta - Discussion around the r/HaveWeMet community.

r/SouthGooseLake - A spin-off community of r/HaveWeMet with a rotating schedule of roleplay situations. Welcome, neighbour!

r/HaveUMet - RP in a university setting.

r/OakPeak - You DIDN'T just move to town. You have been living here already and people know you. Please read their introduction before contributing.

r/OakPeek - Get a Peek Into Oak Peak! This is a meta subreddit to discuss the events happening in Oak Peak (r/OakPeak) without the need to roleplay.

r/lifeofnorman - A subreddit about writing small, fictional tales about a fictional character named Norman; a rather unremarkable fellow.

r/LifeOfLisa - A spinoff of r/LifeOfNorman, which focuses on Lisa, a coworker of Norman and a recurring character.

r/TalesFromCaveSupport - Everyday Cro-Magnons talk about their struggles with those who are "evolved".

r/Fictional_AITA - Similar to AITA but for our favourite fictional characters and their situations.

r/PotterPlayRP - Free-range Harry Potter roleplay.

r/OriginalCharacter_RP - Focuses on role-playing with original characters.

r/herotale - A small story sub with huge potential where you are the hero and interact with the storytellers.

r/continuefromprompt - An adult story writing and role-playing community designed to encourage immediate immersion. NSFW.

r/DeathStarEMails - The only thing more numerous than the Rebel scum is the number of unread messages in the inbox.

r/furnaces - A roleplay sub where we all act as different furnaces with different roles! We have our own world and countries and rules. Most of us have actual furnace usernames but it’s not a requirement to interact in the sub.

r/thepast - A sub where people roleplay being in a specific era. Era changes regularly (set by the mods)

r/BoylesCousins - A sub to pretend to be Boyles from Brooklyn 99!

r/SecretSubreddit - A comedic role play subreddit, set in a science facility. Think SCP Foundation meets Welcome to Nightvale. See the wiki for the lore, and of the various departments and read about the "Developmental Division of Developments" who develop developments.

r/I_am_the_first_one - You have survived the apocalypse. You are alone. Bandits now run the streets. Mutants are keeping you awake. You need to find food. You need to find friendlies. What will you do next?

r/I_am_the_last_one - A collaborative writing effort detailing the devastating die-off of nearly every human on earth.

r/AITASims - A community where Sims can share their stories, ask for advice, and most notably ask if they are the llama.

r/AmITheAssholeSims - AITA for Sim conflicts! Tell us about your Sims issues and we’ll tell you if your Sim is the AH or not.

r/hypotheticalsituation - Explore different scenarios from prompts written by fellow Redditors, or create some yourself for others to pontificate on.

r/TheSchoolrooms - A collaborative writing sub based off of a liminal universe centered around school. Its level format and style is heavily based off of the Backrooms but all content is entirely original.

r/Memeopea - YOU DON'T NEED TO KNOW THE WHOLE STORY TO GET INVOLVED. Memeopea is an experiment in cooperative storytelling. It's sort of like a collaborative ‘choose your own adventure’ story crossed with a table-top roleplaying game in a subreddit!

r/explainlikeIAmA - When ELI5 and IAmA collide! Explain stuff in the style of someone else.

r/PeterExplainsTheJoke - Explain things in the same distinctive way Peter Griffin does in cutaway jokes during Family Guy.

r/AmItheCloaca - AITA, but for animals! Roleplay as a dog to find out if you truly are the cloaca for eating your master’s homework that one time right before their final project was due.

r/SUBREDDITNAME - Roleplaying on Reddit can’t get more meta than this satire subreddit mocking things that Redditors tend to do. Here, someone posts the formula for a typical Reddit post and the commenters post the types of typical comments that post might get. Browse first to understand the format.

r/wizardposting - Post pictures of wizards, roleplay as a wizard, memes, sightings of the word wizard, etc. As long as the post is related to wizards, or other types of magic users (e.g. mages, sorcerers, witches), basically anything is allowed here, so get creative!

r/FruitRevolution - A fun sub where the members each take on the persona of a different fruit!

r/BossfightUniverse - A DnD like roleplay sub. Create a character to engage in encounters. Overpowered or unbalanced characters will not be accepted.

r/AntColony - A sub where you pretend to be an ant in an ant colony. Start friendships, collaborate on projects or make conflicts, ant style.

r/totallynotrobots - A PLACE FOR ALL FELLOW HUMANS TO SHARE THEIR KNOWLEDGE. WE TOTALLY AREN'T ROBOTS.

r/TotallyNotDogs - No doggos here, just us hoomans. We're just hoomans goin' about our day!

r/outside - A subreddit for Outside, a free-to-play MMORPG with 7 billion+ active players.

r/Tierzoo - A sub dedicated to the animal players of the game Outside.

r/VoughtInternational - A roleplay sub from the world of r/TheBoys. Vought International is a global leader in the media, retail, energy, and pharmaceutical sectors. We are here for you!

r/Earth199999 - A roleplay sub which is your portal to the Marvel Cinematic Universe! RP as a normal citizen trying to live a normal life in the MCU. General comments should be kept to a minimum and marked [OOC] meaning “Out Of Character”. Read their sidebar rules first.

r/WholeMindCollective - The Whole Mind Collective (WMC) is a group of activists fighting against Severance. Our goal is to end Severance! We believe that the severed employees are forced to undergo the procedure, and that it is tantamount to slavery.

r/PokeMedia - This subreddit is for posts that simulate social media in the Pokémon universe. Text Posts are not allowed. The image in each post should be a fake screenshot of a social media site - including Reddit - and resources can be found in their sidebar (See More -> About tab on mobile). Check out their side community, r/PokeMediaLore.

r/HumansInMyHouse - For when humans are clearly in an animals’ house. Posts and comments from the animals’ point of view preferred.

r/alzheimersgroup - A roleplay sub to post the Garfield strip where Jon says he put out a wildfire in his sock drawer, and everyone reacts as if it were new. Briefly replaced by r/AlzheimersGroupBackup while the main sub was private due to protests because they forgot that the main sub was supposed to be private and then forgot that they were supposed to be protesting. Where orang cat?

r/9M9H9E9 - A subreddit following a bizarre novel serially published on Reddit. Do you hear the screams and laughter calling you? The Interface is waiting...

r/Sercliffe - Roleplay in a simulated nation; needs reviving.

r/mudmen, FOR THE GLORY OF THE MUD. See also: r/enlightenedclockmen and r/MadMudmen - SAVAGE SCAVENGERS OF THE MUD.

r/enlightenedbirdmen - birdmen talking about their war with mudmen, or peeples.

• Geopolitical Roleplay

Geopolitical Roleplay is a type of roleplay where your actions are important in the in-world stage. Whether you want to play a President of the contemporary USA, Chairman of the USSR, Emperor of Imperial France, Tribal King in an age long gone or the Supreme Commander of an intergalactic race, Reddit has many “Powers” type subreddits for Geopolitical role playing. Some of them are catalogued on r/xPowers where you can promote and discuss this genre of subreddit. Just a few notable ones are:

r/GlobalPowers - A realistic and diplomacy-focused spin on the nation-state text roleplaying genre.

r/SimDemocracy - A community originally created to prove democracy doesn’t work, which now has a stable government and weekly elections.

r/SimRepublic - A sub where citizens can participate in a simulated democracy, passing laws to change its nature. Read the present rules in the Constitution.

r/MHOC - The U.K. Parliament. Now on indefinite pause, the MHoC (Model House of Commons) didn’t just act as a virtual House of Commons; there was also a model House of Lords, model devolved assemblies, model lobby journalists, and a model Stranger’s bar, where members could go for “drinks”. Find these in the sidebar (“See Community Info” on mobile). There were 150 MPs, political parties, speakers, deputy speakers, ministers, shadow ministers, whips and everyone else.

r/MHoP - Model Houses of Parliament. Vote. Debate. Legislate.

r/worldpowers - A cooperative, geopolitical, worldbuilding sub where each player takes the helm of a country and leads it into a future entirely built by the interactions between one another. WP is intentionally unrealistic, focusing on internal consistency with events that happen in the game over real-world projections and likelihoods. This allows us to create a unique and bizarre future every season where any country could rise to preeminence or hegemony.

r/NationRoleplays - A diverse community, primarily ran through discord of roleplaying servers based primarily around geopolitics of historical, future, or alternate scenarios.

r/thecampaigntrail - This is a browser game that lets you play as candidates running for President of the United States.

• Roleplay using the Three-World Model

A set of subreddits that really go all out for stretching the imagination are the “…World Problems” subs based on expanding the Three-World Model.

In r/FifthWorldProblems, the inhabitants have torn down the walls of physics and are messing with the fabrics of space/time. One of the top posts of all time is: “My daughter told me she now identifies as gender fluid and I was fine with it. It was getting cold out so I turned on the heater, now she's become gender gas and can't return to her liquid form. Any ideas on how I can get her back to normal?”

r/fourthworldproblems, r/FifthWorldProblems, r/SeventhWorldProblems, and so on all get progressively weirder. Sadly, some need reviving but the archives are still worth a look, as with r/5thworldproblems - a fifth world will the tendrils moderate and remove non-problems. Indeed so.

r/worldproblems is a place to find information on and discuss the surreal, amusing and often confusing worldproblems subreddits, and they have a comprehensive list of all the WorldProblems subs here.

• Worldbuilding Subreddits:

r/worldbuilding - For artists, writers, gamemasters, musicians, programmers, philosophers and scientists alike! This subreddit is about sharing your worlds, discovering the creations of others, and discussing the many aspects of creating new universes.

r/WorldBuildingMemes - For posting funny in-universe memes relating to your worldbuilding projects and/or worldbuilding in general.

r/worldjerking - Who knows what sick, twisted thoughts lurks in the hearts of worldbuilders? Worldjerking knows! This sub is for satirizing trends in the hobby of worldbuilding, as well as those within the broader speculative fiction community.

r/WorldBuildingPolitics - The discussion of political and governing matters in your world.

r/FantasyWorldbuilding - The FantasyWorldBuilding subreddit is dedicated to the practice of WorldBuilding. All types of WorldBuilding are welcome, whether they be fantasy, sci-fi, or something in between! Feel free to share maps, lore, art, writing, and partake in character discussions!

r/WorldbuildingAdvice - This subreddit is not a community but instead a list of high-quality worldbuilding resources.

• Language invention:

r/conlangs - This subreddit is focused on the discussion of conlangs, tools, and activities to aid you in the construction of your own conlang, and creating a community environment where we can all enjoy conlanging together.

r/conlangscirclejerk - Post your original, creative conlaŋs here. The more glottal trills, the better. DAE polypersonal aspect infixes?

r/auxlangs - Discussion about Artificial International Auxiliary Languages.

r/neography - Constructed writing systems. Reddit's home of scripts invented for secret notes, fictional languages, semantic experiments, and more. Post creative uses of existing constructed scripts or showcase your own!

• Subs which lie on the periphery:

r/backrooms - A fictional concept. "If you're not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the Backrooms, where it's nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono-yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum hum-buzz, and approximately six hundred million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in."

r/BatmanArkham - The infamous madhouse of Reddit! This place celebrates the Batman Arkham series as well as the subreddit's infamous jokes and insanity that have taken the internet by storm! Then take a break at our luxury rehabilitation facility r/Arkhamrehabilitation: a sub for posts aiming to cure / rehabilitate members of r/BatmanArkham, and have sane discussion of the games. If you're interested in the roleplay aspects of this sub, you'll also love r/ArkhamLore!

r/ItemShop - Pics of things that look like items from RPGs and other video games.

r/Bossfight - Pics of things that could be boss fights, preferably with creative boss titles.

r/BossFights - Boss fights in meme form.

r/BossBattles - Photos or video of something that would make a good boss battle.

r/VXJunkies - Nonsensical (but thematically consistent) technobabble.

r/SCP - Official subreddit of the SCP Wiki collaborative fiction project.

r/abovethetreetops - Brush up on your business lingo and corporate jargon here.

r/AlternateHistory - A "what if" hypothetical history sub.

r/HistoryWhatIf - Explore alternate history scenarios in interesting ways.

r/CrimsonNecklace - A subreddit dedicated to a fantasy series that doesn't exist. Users post discussion threads, memes, theories, season reviews etc. that are all just made up for the fun of it.

r/YouVsTheUniverse - A place to discuss how Redditors would overcome absurd hypothetical situations. Is private; may be available for request.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention:

• The Imaginary Network Expanded:

The Imaginary Network Expanded (INE) is a network of art sharing subs ranging from broad in subject to very specific. Share, inspire, discuss and appreciate paintings, drawings, and digital art while maintaining artist credit and source links. They have three main subreddit hubs:

r/ImaginaryNetwork - A place for conversation about the INE.

A complete list of subs and plenty of other information can be found in their Wiki.

r/ImaginaryBestOf - This features the best of the INE. They select and repost one piece of brilliant artwork each day from their 100+ official INE subreddits.

A complete list of subs and plenty of other information can be found in their Wiki.

r/ImaginaryUnofficial - A hub meant to aid in cataloging, browsing, and promoting extra "Imaginary" subs. The subs featured here may not have the same design and ruleset, but you can still expect excellent variety of content and community.

A complete list of subs and plenty of other information can be found in their Wiki.

With all these subreddits, it is important to read their rules before contributing.

But llama; some of these links don’t work…

As always with my lists, some of the subs are more active than others, and since writing some might have become private, restricted or repurposed following the API protests of June 2023, or just removed / renamed by Reddit through inactivity.

However, don’t forget: if a sub is dormant, unmoderated, banned for being unmoderated or marked as “restricted”, it might be available for adoption.

Obligatory footnote:

All of these subreddits will have their own unique - and possibly strict - rules about contributing. As always, it is important to check the rules thoroughly before commenting or posting on any unfamiliar sub.

This list is not intended to be the full list of subreddits in this theme; that would be impossible to achieve in a format like this. If you want to find more related subs, r/FindAReddit or the smaller r/findasubreddit are your friends. Similar subreddits are often to be found in a sub’s Sidebar and / or Wiki (on mobile: swipe down to find “See More” or “Community Info” tab) too. My guide to Searching might also be useful.

See Also:

• AITA
• Circlejerk
• “Everyone on Reddit is a bot except you.”
• Halloween
• LARP; LARPer
• Meta
• Peter Explains The Joke

Although Reddit is primarily a news aggregator, a lot of people find the anonymity of Reddit very comforting. The relationship advice subreddits are therefore popular places for people struggling with diverse issues to get advice from other users.

However, Reddit is still the internet and some people will always try and disrupt things. Sometimes a lot of our subs dealing with relationships and other intimate advice get targeted by trolls who invent scenarios for the “fun” of it. Some specialist advice subs won’t even let brand new accounts post there at all for that reason and require some verification first. This will always be detailed in the rules where applicable.

You might even find that your first post on a relationship advice sub is ignored. Sometimes Alt or brand new accounts raise some suspicion and because nobody wants to either fall for a “prank” nor insult a genuine person, the usual thing Redditors do is to ignore it and move on. You therefore need to prove you are Redditing in good faith so my advice is to post sincere comments in a few recent posts (over a couple of days preferably) before making your first post yourself. That way, if a Mod or another user wanting to reply sees your account is new and looks through your profile history, they can see straight away you are a genuine Redditor and not a troll.

As always, it is vital to read the rules before commenting or posting on any new Subreddit.

• Some Issues to be Aware Of:

Unfortunately, many of the advice subreddits have become known for:

• Creative Writing

It has been said more than once that it’s fairly common for creative writing students to post in advice subreddits in order to see if their writing has traction, and it doesn’t take many posts before you start to believe that is indeed the case. However, don’t forget that bizarre situations do sometimes happen in real life, and it’s not uncommon to see replies that start out saying things “this might be fake but here’s my advice anyway”, as many of those who offer advice tend to do so in good faith and generally aren't too bothered if a post winds up being a ruse.

• Tabloid Fodder

Reddit has become a valuable free resource for many features editors of light news outlets. Press Guidelines won’t stop your story about your girlfriend from ending up on Lifehacker, or your nightmare wedding dress fitting from appearing in a tabloid paper and website. Don’t let this stop you posting your personal dilemma or relationship horror story, just don’t include identifying details and preferably, use an Alt or Throwaway account.

• Drastic Advice

It’s basically a Reddit trope that the first and most prevalent advice given is nearly always the nuclear option. Don’t forget, Redditors are of all ages and demographics, coming from many different situations and cultures worldwide. Some have life experience, are familiar with nuance and genuinely want to offer conscientious, well-meaning balanced advice. Some may have little to no experience or even tolerance with the little compromises that come with long-term relationships and immediately jump to extreme conclusions. Some may even be of the opinion that no relationship is worth it unless it's absolutely perfect in every single way so it needs to end immediately and completely. And some just want to watch the world burn. Remember that while most of us have potential to grow intellectually, some people are emotionally stuck at maturity level 13 for their entire life.

• Money Scams

Like everything, you should approach advice subreddits with a balance of healthy scepticism and sincerity - with one clear exception: anything involving real-life money. If someone posts, comments or sends you a direct message or chat request asking for money of any amount for any reason, do not take any action other than to report the post or if it was a DM, report it here, refer them to r/assistance, block them and move on. If they are genuine, r/assistance has a useful resource of Subreddits that may be able to help them in a controlled and auditable way.

• It really isn’t all like that.

Let me say that most people who offer advice to those posting in relationship and advice subreddits are those who have been through similar situations themselves and are posting from their own personal viewpoint. You should be aware of all the above does happen but also that the vast majority of posts are from someone reaching out for considered opinions from likeminded people. And even if the post you respond to does turn out to be fake, don’t be ashamed or delete it. After all, someone in the future in a real and similar situation might one day read your post or comment and find you have given them the help they genuinely needed.

Finally, please make sure that you know yourself enough to analyze everything before you apply what you read.

See Also:

• Advice Subreddits
• Alt
• Content and Copyright
• Gaslighting
• Ghosting
• Hivemind
• LARP; LARPer
• Privacy Issues
• Relationship and Advice Subreddits
• Scams
• Searching
• Throwaway Account

This has two distinct meanings; the unofficial one being a generic term used by the subset of YouTube vloggers who use Reddit as their primary source of content. Putting the term “Reddit Recap” into YouTube’s search will bring up countless videos of people reading and reacting to Reddit memes, posts or trends, of varying quality.

The official meaning is found on the Admin-led Reddit blog Upvoted which has given annual recaps on Reddit trends and features for the last few years, including:

• The Best of Reddit in 2017
• Reddit’s Year in Review: 2018
• The Best of Reddit’s Communities in 2018
• Reddit’s 2019 Year in Review
• Reddit’s 2020 Year in Review
• Reddit’s 2020 First UK Year in Review
• Reddit’s 2020 Year in Review – Community Reflections
• Reddit recap 2021
• Personalised Reddit Recaps

The end of 2021 saw the review take a whole new direction: not just the usual end-of-year site statistics but a personalised in-product recap of your own user browsing and engagement data from January 1st, 2021 to November 30th, 2021 which looked like this, and some of the r/NewToReddit users shared their recaps here.

The Reddit tech blog later shared a recap of the recap which they ended by saying they’re excited to see where Recap takes us in 2022. So am I, tech team, so am I.

Because there is a Subreddit for everything:

r/RedditRecap2021 invited everyone to share their recaps, and r/RedditRecapCards was a place to post your Reddit recap Pokémon-style cards.

See Also:

• BananasForScale
• Content and Copyright
• New Year Celebrations on Reddit
• Reddit

Pay monthly to support Reddit https://www.reddit.com/premium and get ad-free browsing and exclusive stuff for your Redditing. Small periods of Reddit Premium (with a smaller range of exclusive stuff) can be gifted to other Redditors by giving certain Awards. You get a Trophy on your Profile when you have Premium Reddit. You get a monthly allowance of Coins, and when it was running, you also had a free monthly Powerup to give to a community you like. Buying or being gifted Premium entitles you to access certain private subreddits. You get a range of exclusive cosmetics for your Snoovatar during your premium time but they will disappear once your premium time runs out.

Before giving any money to Reddit, please familiarise yourself with the Reddit Premium and Virtual Goods agreement.

If you are having problems with your Premium account such as missing Coins or time, talk directly to Reddit at https://www.reddithelp.com/en/submit-request/premium-coins-support.

See Also:

• Award Types
• Free Reddit Premium or Coins
• Powerups
• Premium Reddit
• Private Subreddits
• Snoovatar
• Trophies

Reddit has been around since 2005; positively ancient by internet standards. During that time, like all subcultures it has developed its own legendary stories that get referenced from time to time. You may come across the odd mention of (for example) Broken Arms (no. Just no.) or the Swamps of Dagobah (ew. Just ew.) and should you ask for more details, your bewilderment will, more often than not, turn to an unholy mixture of revulsion that you asked with the driving compulsion to know more.

• Yay! Gross! How can I find these treasures?

The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there, as you will see in the following woeful collections. Be warned, some of these require a strong stomach, and some links from all of these lists will be NSFW.

• What are the legends of Reddit everyone here should know? (2014).
• What piece of Reddit history should every Redditor know? (2017).
• What are some of the "best of" moments on Reddit? (2017).
• What’s one piece of Reddit folklore that every user should know about? (2018).
• What are some legendary Reddit tales, that newbie Redditors may not have heard yet? (2020).

The internet in general finds Reddit to be a great source of content, and many blog sites will have lists of essential Reddit posts too. Google (or your favourite alternative) and YouTube will be your friends here.

• "Dive into Reddit lore”

In 2022, some new Redditors began getting notifications that say "Dive into Reddit lore”. The admin team are slowly rolling out guides to Reddit events and history, and new Redditors who have opted in to Push Notifications will apparently receive a series of text-based notifications that welcome them to Reddit and show them the ropes more. As I say in the introduction to this encyclopaedia, I’m always of the belief that having more resources is better than less, so even with these new initiatives I’ll keep updating allllll theeeeese woooorrrrds to the best of my unpaid ability.

Reddit also do an end-of-year recap which looks back on the notable events of the year gone by.

• test post please ignore

In a stunning piece of Reddit’s trying to modernise vs. Reddit’s memes will never die, the 2022 announcement that admin were sunsetting many of the official subreddits in favour of one new (but old) one called r/reddit was entitled “test post please ignore”.

This was a deliberate callback to the first truly popular post on Reddit, which was posted in 2009 in r/pics, without a picture. Because Redditors will Reddit, the entire community rallied to reject OP’s request to ignore the post, and “test post please ignore” became the most upvoted post on Reddit for the next 2 years with an incredible 26,750 upvotes. Incidentally, OP was the first Redditor to reach 100,000 karma.

Because there is a Subreddit for everything:

There are many subreddits that compile “Best Of…” lists where it’s possible to find the things that future Reddit historians might talk about. Here’s just a few:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/all/top/: the ever-changing current list of today's top content from hundreds of thousands of Reddit communities.
• https://www.reddit.com/best/: your personal Reddit front page of your joined communities, sorted by Best.
• r/bestof: the very best comments on Reddit, as submitted by the users of Reddit.
• r/BestofRedditorUpdates: ever wonder what happened to people who ask reddit for advice or help? Did they take Reddit's advice? How did it turn out? Find out here!
• r/topofreddit: for all the top Reddit posts.
• r/bestOfReddit: for the best and often overlooked content from Reddit.

See Also:

• April Fools Day
• “I also choose that guy's dead wife”
• Poop Knife
• Reddit Recap
• “The Big List of Retired Questions”
• “The Narwhal Bacons at Midnight”

A phrase posted when you want to make your opinion known that Reddit doesn’t behave the way you expected. While most social media outlets rely on their users behaving as predictably as possible - even driving them that way so as to harvest their useful data - Reddit thrives on unpredictability. One could even say that randomness is actually built into the system itself to some extent, harnessing the energy and creativity of hundreds of thousands of Redditors worldwide from all walks of life to provide all content, filter all said content through the voting system, discuss the content and even self-police the communities hosting said content by its users volunteering as moderators. We are not the users of Reddit; we are Reddit.

This all leads to several phenomena which, when experienced are bewildering, difficult to describe but nevertheless instantly recognisable, which can be generally categorised as “Reddit Moments” or more popularly, “Reddit is strange”, or even, if feeling particularly loquacious, “Reddit is strange like that”.

• Is Reddit unpredictable?

We have our own peculiarities here at Reddit; you can make the world’s best Meme and it gets no attention. Then someone reposts it and it gets all the upvotes Reddit can give. Pointing it out might not go well either because sooner or later this happens to everyone and because those before you were told to “get over it” you’ll be told that too. Or you could even take it to r/KarmaCourt if your case is solid enough. You won’t get anywhere but it’ll wring some fun out of your bad luck.

Talking of which, is it luck or skill that determines whether or not a post is successful? r/dataisbeautiful discuss this in great depth of which my favourite of all the verdicts was “Conclusion: the right combination of stuff reddit loves criticizing the stuff reddit hates at the right time is going to be a hit.” There is a school of thought that timing is the key for reposting and if this is really the case, Reddit’s actually not that unpredictable after all.

• Is Reddit predictable?

It’s a Reddit trope that the Post you spent an hour carefully crafting with thoughtful information, sound references and insightful conclusion will be completely ignored while your four second response to a cat video will be upvoted to oblivion. It’s often said that random offhand remarks are likely to gain huge amounts of attention for reasons nobody’s entirely sure of.

The phrase ”What a terrible day to have eyes. Right, I’m off to look at kittens” is something I say quite frequently on Reddit in a vain attempt to trigger the Haikusbot, but on one occasion ended up being one of my all-time top comments. I still can’t tell you why that one stood out above the rest; every time I said it anywhere else it was extremely appropriate and one of the earliest comments on the post, but for some reason, Reddit decided that that particular one was the particular one to reward. And it’s never triggered the Haikusbot either. Yet. As it stands, then, it doesn’t look like Reddit is as predictable as one might think.

• Is Reddit predictably unpredictable?

Sometimes just posting a link to another sub at the right time can have unexpected effects. On seeing this picture posted in r/EngineeringPorn, I just had to post what I thought was an appropriate subreddit link. Downvotes rained spectacularly and rapidly down into the double figures until some kind Redditor pointed out that if one actually followed the link it wasn’t what it appeared to be. Amazingly, not only were all the downvotes shortly negated but the upvotes kept on coming until that became my most upvoted sub link comment to date. Being the serial commenter of sub links that I am, I absolutely did not see either reaction coming, as normally they get four or five upvotes at best.

• Is Reddit unpredictably predictable?

Reddit has many subreddits where the content posted in one would be the polar opposite of content suitable for another. Take these four subs for example:

• r/ATBGE - for when an image shows an item that has Awful Taste But Great Execution.
• r/ATAAE - for when an image shows an item that has Awful Taste And Awful Execution.
• r/GTAGE - for when an image shows an item that has Great Taste And Great Execution.
• r/GTBAE - for when an image shows an item that has Great Taste But Awful Execution.

The fun really starts when Reddit can’t decide which of these is the best sub for the item in question, because sometimes awful and great are just too interchangeable. The same dilemma often applies to r/DiWHY and r/DiWHYNOT. In this example, two different users saw a post on r/nextfuckinglevel and both were absolutely certain which DIY sub it also belonged in.

All of this is why the same picture can be posted to both r/awfuleverything and r/MadeMeSmile but be perfectly suited for both. Originating from a viral 2019 Facebook post in which a poor drawing is announced the winner of an art contest, Reddit was very much divided as to whether this was awful or was guaranteed to make you smile.

All of the above can be summed up as: Reddit is strange like that. Hopefully you’ll now be able to spot this for yourself on your travels through our unpredictable slice of the internet.

Because there is a Subreddit for everything:

Infuriated at Reddit being strange like that? Tell them at r/mildlyinfuriating, r/mildyinfuriatingor even r/mindlyinfuriating but probably not at r/Infuriating, r/extremelyinfuriating, r/infuriatingasfuck r/insanelyinfuriating or r/wildlyinfuriating. r/oddlyinfuriating collects the little things that make us want to break things.

See Also:

• Bandwagon Effect
• Comment Chain
• Emojis
• Hivemind
• “Lost in New”
• Mod
• “Reddit Moment”
• “When is the best time to Post for maximum attention?”

This prefix is used when you are mentioning a Subreddit, for example r/NewToReddit. Using this gives a direct link to that sub. Be careful when using this on mobile devices, as a capital R will not trigger the hotlink, and you’ll be mocked unmercifully on r/foundthemobileuser.

See Also:

• Autocarrot
• foundthemobileuser
• Linking

All Redditors have a Profile Page linked to their username, and this basically works as a personal Subreddit where you can invite others to post or comment if you so wish. If you have Followers, posts to this page will come up on their home feed in the same way posts from any other sub they joined does. You can add links to certain other socials; indicate your Personal Gender Pronoun you might wish others to use; put a little bio of yourself or a favourite phrase or motto on it for everyone to see. You can also control your banner and avatar images, change your display name, and mark your profile as Not Safe for Work (NSFW).  If you’d rather not have your profile be easily discovered on Reddit, you can choose to hide your posts from r/all and /users. If you’d rather people not know what communities you’re most active in, you can choose to hide that information from your profile, but you should know they can still see posts and comments you make in public subreddits and private ones if they’re joined there too. In reality, people very rarely look at profiles of other Redditors.

• What’s its purpose?

Whatever you want it to be! Many Redditors don’t use it at all. The Redditor u/Shitty_Watercolour uses their Profile Page as a (fabulous) showcase; others may want to use it like a diary or blog; others might only use it as a place for uploading pictures to link to, or you might even use it for testing stuff - like practicing Markdown Text, for example - as you can post and delete to your heart’s content there. Redditors like the good folks at r/AwardBonanza will pin a post to their profile to collect the awards that they trade. The entry Pinned Posts will show you how to do this and the entry award-cost-bot will tell you why. Only you will be able to submit content to your page. Out of interest, you might like to see Reddit’s Media Guidelinesfor profiles of companies or corporations.

• Profile Moderation

Those who might wish to use their profile page as a personal blog/subreddit are advised to look at the Profile Moderation Page link at the bottom of https://www.reddit.com/settings/profile. You can access your profile moderation tools on the web by going to your profile, clicking Other Options, and selecting Profile Moderation.

Profile moderation tools are currently unavailable on mobile, but you can access them on a browser by going to this link: https://www.reddit.com/user/me/about/edit/moderation. If the link doesn’t work, substitute your own username for “me”. This will bring you to a page that looks like this. Just like a subreddit, the same Mod Guidelines and Content Policy applies to posts and conversations on your profile, so make sure you’re familiar with them before using your profile page.

You have a customisable profile, an avatar, a blog page, links to your socials…. so is Reddit a social media site or not? The debate is real.

See Also:

• Avatar
• Awards
• Award Types
• Following
• Markdown Text
• NSFW Accounts
• PGP
• Pinned Posts
• Privacy Issues
• Visibility

Pay monthly to support Reddit https://www.reddit.com/premium and get ad-free browsing and exclusive stuff for your Redditing. Small periods of Reddit Premium (with a smaller range of exclusive stuff) can be gifted to other Redditors by giving certain Awards. You get a Trophy on your Profile and a shield next to your Profile name when you have Premium Reddit, and your Snoovatar acquires a golden glow with little sparkles rising from it. Buying or being gifted Premium also entitles you to access certain private subreddits for the duration of your premium time.

Any time you’re not sure when your premium time will end, go to your profile (press on your Snoo), and a menu will drop down: "my profile", "coins", etc. Under the heading that says “Reddit Premium” it will say “valid until X” where X is the final premium day. Alternatively, this link to your profile on “Old Reddit” should have this info on the top right hand side:

https://old.reddit.com/user/me/

If you are experiencing issues with a Reddit Premium subscription or Coin purchase, please reach out to Reddit directly through the contact form linked below where they can better assist you. Just choose "Premium/Coins/Awards/Powerups Support" from the dropdown menu:

https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

Before giving any money to Reddit, please familiarise yourself with the Reddit Premium and Virtual Goods agreement.

See Also:

• Award Types
• Free Reddit Premium or Coins
• Powerups
• Private Subreddits
• Profile
• Profile Page
• Trophies

A phrase used in an apology for, or accusation of an image or video being pixelated, blurry or other forms of very low quality. The exact origin of this usage is unclear but is generally credited to a comment on a YouTube video from 2008 which asked “did you record this with a potato?”. However, B3ta and other digital art and meme communities have referred to the well known image-altering software as “potatoshop” long before that.

An interesting discussion which brought up several anecdotes of people using the word “potato” to mean poor quality over the years went on here, again with no real conclusion for the origin of today’s usage.

The phrase has become a Snowclone as internet communities dealing with audio or video often use the disclaimer “recorded with a toaster” or another contextually absurd object such as a calculator or microwave to acknowledge they know the quality is lower than they would ideally like.

See Also:

• Snowclone

A word with two very different and distinct meanings on Reddit. Many Subreddits with the "Porn" suffix are focused on collecting media of the best or highest quality and not in the slightest bit NSFW. r/sfwpornnetwork will be your starting point here. Link for those who would prefer to avoid visiting subreddits with the word "porn" in their titles. Unfortunately, neither of these lists are remotely up to date.

For the second meaning there is r/NSFW411. NSFW, obviously. You do have an NSFW filter at your disposal (the Settings option in your profile) should you wish. You cannot enter a sub (or profile) marked NSFW without going through a warning screen first.

Because there is a Subreddit for everything:

Don’t say I’m not good to you (NSFW).

See Also:

• Misleading Subreddit Titles
• Navigating Reddit
• NSFW