Reddit is one of the internet's most popular online forums where everyone can find any kind of topic they're interested in.
If you can imagine it, Reddit probably has a subreddit or a forum for that.
Here are some facts about the popular online forum you may or may not know:
It Faked Its First Users
When starting an online blog or website, it's natural to see that no one will visit it at first since nobody knows about it. To do that, you'll have to rely on word of mouth and your online presence.
Although Reddit may or may not have done that, it is confirmed that its first users were fake, according to Make Use Of's article.
Apparently, Reddit's first users were its administrations submitting content under different names to create activity and online traffic.
Comments Were Not a Thing at First
Content-sharing sites or forums always have a comment section for people to leave messages to the original poster. It's how online forums work, after all.
People leave their thoughts, criticisms (constructive or otherwise), and messages to the original poster of a specific post.
However, when Reddit first started, it didn't have a comment section to speak of, with the feature taking six months to arrive on the website.
It Is the Tenth Most Used Social Networking Site in the United States
Reddit is a far cry from what it was on June 23, 2005. Thanks to the website's many new features, updates, and mobile app, it is now the tenth most-used social networking site in the US, with 18% of adults in the US saying they are Reddit users, per Pew Research Center's study in 2021.
People From the US Are Using Reddit the Most
A post from r/dataisbeautful made on September 4 showed that the US makes up 51.5% of the websites' traffic, with the UK following at 8.4% and Canada being at 8.3%. With the website being the tenth most used social networking site, it is no wonder that the statistic reached that high in 2021.
It Has More than 2.8 Million Subreddits
As previously mentioned, Reddit's various subreddits are only limited to what you can imagine, which is to say, the possibilities are endless. To be specific, Reddit manages more than 2.8 million subreddits or communities, according to Reddit Metrics.
Subreddits are where users get together to talk about the stuff that corresponds to the subreddit's title. These communities make the website's backbone and the main cause why Reddit is popular and successful.
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Reddit Users Spend Around Ten And a Half Minutes on the Website
With more than 2.8 million subreddits, it's not unheard of to spend hours on the popular online forum, but according to Similarweb, the average Reddit user typically spends 10 minutes and 23 seconds on the website per visit, which consists of visiting just over eight different pages.
Celebrities and Politicians Have Used Reddit for AMAs
An Ask Me Anything or AMA is a form of an open forum where people can ask anything to someone, regardless of the venue. Reddit just so happens to be one of, if not the most popular platform for celebrities and politicians to do so.
In fact, we've previously covered AMAs of some of the most prominent people in the world, along with Bill Gates' latest AMA. Aside from them, politicians, like former President Barack Obama, have also gone on record on Reddit's r/IAmA to host their AMAs.
Barack Obama's AMA Is The Highest-Rated Reddit Post of All Time
You may have already noticed that AMAs are of many ways celebrities and politicians use to engage with their fans or supporters, as the case may be.
One of the people who understood how effective AMAs are in connecting to the average joe is Barack Obama, whose AMA gained around 216,000 upvotes and 23,000 comments, making it one of the largest posts on the subreddit of all time.
Reddit Influenced the Stock Market and Won Against Hedge Funds
This event is a more recent one - it happened in January 2021. Gamestop, the popular video game retailer, saw its stock dipping due to hedge funds betting that it would go bankrupt and close. However, Reddit users from r/walstreetbets gathered together and bought Gamestop's stock, rescuing the company from bankruptcy while putting the hedge funds at risk of bankruptcy themselves.
One of the hedge funds that betted against Gamestop, Melvin Capital, was recently reported to have shut down and is preparing to liquidate its assets and return the money to its investors, per Engadget.
Reddit's r/AskReddit Subreddit Is the Website's Most Subscribed to Subreddit
Being an online forum gives people the freedom to talk about almost anything under the sun and even outside the Earth. This is particularly true with Reddit, whose r/AskReddit subreddit has around 8.85 million subscribers to date, per The Geek Page.
The subreddit allows people to ask about the topics they are curious about, whatever they may be. These inquiries usually involve relationships, life advice, and even horror stories.
Related Article: The Best Reddit AMAs of Celebrities in the Tech Industry
