120 Fun Facts About Reddit

Which two University of Virginia roommates founded Reddit in June 2005?

They were joined by Aaron Swartz that November when his company Infogami merged with the site.

Which startup incubator accepted Reddit's founders into its very first class?

They had pitched Paul Graham a text-message food-ordering app called My Mobile Menu, which flopped, before he suggested 'the front page of the Internet'.

In which programming language did Steve Huffman originally code Reddit?

Aaron Swartz later helped rewrite it in Python using his web.py framework, to the annoyance of the Lisp community.

How did Reddit's founders make the site look busier in its first weeks?

They were embarrassed by how empty the site looked, so they posted under invented names.

What was the name of Aaron Swartz's company that merged with Reddit in 2005-06?

The merged parent was called Not A Bug; Swartz was fired in January 2007 after blogging about the corporate atmosphere.

Which magazine publisher bought Reddit on October 31, 2006?

The reported price was $10-20 million; the site became an independent subsidiary of parent Advance Publications in 2011.

What is the name of the alien mascot in Reddit's logo?

Alexis Ohanian doodled it while bored in a marketing class at UVA and wanted to call it S'new, a play on 'What's new?'.

According to Reddit's 2018 design rules, which of these is Snoo NOT allowed to have?

Snoo's head must always appear blank or neutral, and the mascot is genderless so subreddits can restyle it freely.

The name 'Reddit' is a play on which phrase?

As in 'I read it on Reddit'; user names begin with u/ and community names with r/.

What are Reddit's user-created topic communities officially called?

They were introduced in 2008, three years after launch; comments had arrived in 2005.

What is the status score that Reddit users earn from their posts and comments called?

Some subreddits require a minimum karma and account age before you can post, to keep out bots and spammers.

What do redditors call the anniversary of the day their account was created?

A small slice-of-cake icon appears beside the username for 24 hours.

Which subreddit replaced r/all as the default front page for logged-out visitors in 2017?

r/popular excludes not-safe-for-work communities; r/all originally filtered nothing but has excluded NSFW content since 2021.

After how long are Reddit posts sometimes automatically archived, closing votes and comments?

Front-page rank depends on a post's age, its upvote-to-downvote ratio and its total vote count.

What is Reddit co-founder Steve Huffman's well-known Reddit username?

Other famous redditors include u/Poem_for_your_sprog, who replies in verse, and u/Shitty_Watercolour, who replies with paintings.

What was the ad-free premium membership called before it was renamed Reddit Premium in 2018?

Subscribers get an ad-free site, the exclusive r/lounge subreddit and a personalised 'snoovatar'.

Which digital currency did Reddit begin accepting for Reddit Gold in February 2013?

Years later it launched its own token, Reddit Moons, which crashed more than 90% when it was wound down in 2023.

What was Reddit's 2017 April Fools' experiment where users placed one pixel at a time on a shared canvas?

It was so successful it returned in 2022 and 2023, though the third run was heavily protested during the API dispute.

Reddit's 2015 April Fools' experiment, The Button, could be clicked how many times per user?

It attracted more than a million clicks; since 2013 the site's April Fools pranks have taken the form of massive social experiments.

On which subreddit do 'Ask Me Anything' interviews traditionally take place?

Barack Obama did one while campaigning in 2012, and Bill Gates has done several; Cookie Monster and Borat have appeared in character.

Which sitting US president took part in a Reddit AMA while campaigning for the 2012 election?

Donald Trump also did one while campaigning; Reddit later built a dedicated app for the AMA subreddit in 2014.

RedditGifts began in 2009 with what event, which grew into a Guinness World Record holder?

About 4,500 redditors took part the first year; by 2014 around 200,000 people from 188 countries were involved, including Bill Gates and Snoop Dogg.

Which two pieces of proposed US legislation prompted Reddit's 12-hour blackout on January 18, 2012?

Wikipedia and other sites joined the protest against the Stop Online Piracy and PROTECT IP acts.

Which comedian's October 2010 rally grew partly out of a Reddit campaign called 'Restoring Truthiness'?

User mrsammercer started it after dreaming of a Colbert rally; redditors raised over $100,000 for charity to get his attention.

After which 2013 event did a Reddit sleuthing subreddit wrongly name missing student Sunil Tripathi as a suspect?

General manager Erik Martin apologised for the 'online witch hunts'; Tripathi was later confirmed to have died by suicide before the bombing.

What nickname did the July 2015 moderator blackout over Victoria Taylor's firing get?

Interim CEO Ellen Pao resigned days later, on July 10, and Steve Huffman returned as chief executive.

Who served as Reddit's interim CEO from 2014 until resigning in July 2015?

Under her the site adopted an anti-harassment policy and banned the 150,000-subscriber r/fatpeoplehate.

Why did CEO Yishan Wong say he resigned in 2014?

He also called the job 'stressful and draining'; the user base had grown from 35 million to 174 million during his tenure.

How did Steve Huffman describe the look of Reddit's old design when explaining the 2018 redesign?

Users can still opt out by visiting old.reddit.com, though the dedicated login flow was removed from it in May 2024.

Which third-party app did Reddit buy in October 2014 to become its official iOS app?

It was retired in April 2016 when Reddit: The Official App launched; the 2009 original app was called iReddit.

Which service was Reddit's de facto image host until it launched its own uploader in 2016?

An in-house video uploader followed in 2017, and spoiler tags arrived the same January.

Which subreddit was the main organising ground for the GameStop short squeeze in January 2021?

Weeks later Reddit hired its first CFO, Drew Vollero, fuelling speculation about an IPO.

Which Chinese company's 2019 investment in Reddit prompted a flood of Tiananmen and Winnie the Pooh posts?

Users worried about potential censorship, so they upvoted subjects censored in China.

Which Reddit app did developer Christian Selig shut down in 2023 over new API pricing?

Thousands of subreddits went private from June 12 to 14, 2023, in protest at the end of the free API tier that had existed since 2008.

Where did Reddit begin trading on March 21, 2024, under the ticker RDDT?

The IPO was priced at $34 a share and a $6.4 billion valuation; the stock opened at $47 and closed its first day at $50.44.

Which company's February 2024 deal to license Reddit content for AI training was reportedly worth about $60M a year?

A separate deal gave OpenAI access to the Reddit API in exchange for AI tools for moderators; Reddit Answers followed in December 2024.

Alexis Ohanian resigned from Reddit's board in June 2020 with what request?

Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel was named to the seat; the resignation came in response to the George Floyd protests.

Which travel startup did Steve Huffman co-found after leaving Reddit in 2009?

He recruited Ohanian and Slowe to it, and both he and Ohanian returned to Reddit in 2014-15.

Per Similarweb data for December 2025, roughly what share of Reddit's web traffic came from the United States?

Canada, the UK, Australia and Germany followed, each with under 8%.

How many monthly users did Reddit report having in 2019?

There were more than 138,000 active subreddits out of roughly 1.2 million created.

Reddit's volunteer moderators are estimated to do how much unpaid work every day?

That is worth about $3.4 million a year, or roughly 2.8% of the company's annual revenue.

What did Reddit Chat replace in June 2025?

Private messages had existed since the site's 2005 launch; Reddit Talk was launched in 2021 as a Clubhouse rival.

Reddit's 'Collectible Avatars', launched in July 2022, are backed by which blockchain?

They live in Reddit's digital wallet, the Vault, and The Verge flatly described them as NFTs.

Which company did Reddit acquire in June 2022 to boost its natural-language processing?

The new site's search runs on Lucidworks Fusion, while old.reddit still uses an in-house engine.

In July 2025, Reddit ranked as which most-visited website in the world?

Per Similarweb; Steve Huffman's net worth was estimated at about $1.2 billion in November 2025.

At what age did Steve Huffman begin programming?

He grew up in Warrenton, Virginia, and studied computer science at UVA.

On what date did evidence surface that Reddit admins had edited comments in r/The_Donald?

Huffman admitted altering posts on the pro-Trump subreddit.

Which magazine named Huffman one of the 100 most influential people in AI in 2024?

Hipmunk, his airfare start-up, shut down in 2020.

Which early-stage VC firm did Alexis Ohanian co-found?

He was also a partner at Y Combinator.

Which tennis champion is Alexis Ohanian married to?

They live in Florida with daughters Olympia and Adira.

Ohanian's grandparents fled which historical event before settling in the United States?

They came from Bitlis and Kharput.

What was the title of Ohanian's 2013 book?

It reached fourth on the Wall Street Journal's business hardcover list.

Which 'uncorporation' selling geeky merchandise for charity did Ohanian launch in 2007?

Its proceeds go to charity.

Which web feed format did Aaron Swartz help develop as a teenager?

He also helped define the syntax of Markdown.

Which Python framework created by Swartz was used when Reddit was rewritten from Lisp?

His blog post 'Rewriting Reddit' explained the switch.

Swartz was arrested in 2011 for downloading academic articles from which service at MIT?

He connected a computer to the MIT network in an unlocked closet.

Which advocacy group did Swartz co-found in 2010, known for fighting SOPA?

He left Reddit in 2007.

Ellen Pao became known in 2012 for suing which VC firm for gender discrimination?

She later co-founded the nonprofit Project Include.

Which type of content did Reddit ban under Ellen Pao, with other sites following?

Her tenure also saw controversial subreddits banned for harassment.

Yishan Wong belonged to which famous group of early employees before Reddit?

He then joined Facebook as a director of engineering in 2005.

Between which years was Yishan Wong Reddit's CEO?

Ohanian became executive chairman after Wong resigned.

Which Reddit co-founder holds a Harvard physics PhD and became its CTO in 2017?

He returned to Reddit in 2017 after working at Hipmunk.

For roughly how much did Huffman and Ohanian sell Reddit to Condé Nast in 2006?

The team then moved to San Francisco.

In 2011 Reddit became an independent subsidiary of which Condé Nast parent company?

Advance still held a majority stake as of April 2018.

Which Y Combinator founder coined the phrase 'the front page of the Internet' for Reddit?

It came up during a brainstorming session for another startup pitch.

Which community manager, hired in 2008, became Reddit's general manager in 2011?

He championed giving moderators as much control as possible.

Snoo, the mascot in Reddit's logo, is described as what kind of creature?

A rebrand ahead of the 2024 IPO updated the mascot.

At what share price did Reddit's IPO open on March 20, 2024?

That gave a valuation of $6.4 billion.

What was Reddit's valuation after its $410 million funding round in August 2021?

It went public less than three years later.

Which AI company got API access to train models in exchange for moderator tools?

Google separately licensed Reddit content in 2024.

Reddit Talk, announced in April 2021, was designed to compete with which app?

It let moderators start audio rooms.

What replaced Reddit's coins and awards system in 2023?

Users could once gift silver, gold and platinum coins.

Which subdomain kept serving the legacy desktop design after the 2018 redesign?

The 2018 redesign left the old site untouched at old.reddit.com.

In Similarweb's December 2025 data, which country was second to the US in Reddit traffic?

Canada supplied 7.01 percent, just ahead of the UK's 6.97.

Which country's social media ban for children did Reddit sue to overturn in December 2025?

Reddit called Australia one of its biggest markets.

Roughly how much did redditors raise for Haiti earthquake relief?

They also raised over $100,000 for the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.

What tagline does r/wallstreetbets use to describe itself?

Its members often refer to themselves as 'apes'.

Who founded r/wallstreetbets in January 2012?

He was 30 at the time.

In WallStreetBets slang, what does 'tendies' mean?

'Diamond hands' means holding a stock adamantly.

Under what Reddit username did Keith Gill, aka Roaring Kitty, post his GameStop bets?

His position was worth $48 million by January 27, 2021.

What was GameStop's all-time intraday high on January 28, 2021?

That was nearly 190 times its low of $2.57 nine months earlier.

Which app-based brokerage famously halted GameStop buying on January 28, 2021?

It cited an inability to post enough collateral at clearing houses.

Which hedge fund's short position was mocked in a Chernobyl-themed WSB video in 2020?

The video compared the fund blowing up to a nuclear reactor.

Roughly how many pixels were placed during the 2017 r/place experiment?

Josh Wardle conceived the experiment; over 90,000 users were watching when it ended.

How many colours were in the 2017 r/place palette?

The 2022 canvas grew to 2000 by 2000 pixels with 32 colours.

On what date was r/place repeated in 2023?

The 2017 and 2022 editions both ran on April Fools' Day.

Roughly how many subscribers did r/The_Donald reach before its 2020 ban?

It was quarantined in June 2019 and banned in June 2020.

What is the slogan of r/antiwork?

It began in 2013 as a forum for post-left anarchist anti-work ideology.

Which Fox News host interviewed an r/antiwork moderator in 2022, prompting a shutdown?

Moderator Doreen Ford gave the widely criticised interview.

r/antiwork promoted fake job applications to which company during a 2021 strike?

Kellogg had planned to replace 1,400 striking workers.

What debate prompted photographer Marc Beaulac to create r/AmItheAsshole in 2013?

Its members are dubbed 'potential assholes'.

In which month and year was r/IAmA founded?

It has become one of Reddit's most popular communities.

Which Holocaust survivor is listed among notable r/IAmA participants?

Bill Gates has done multiple AMAs.

Which Dow Chemical chemist pioneered scientist AMAs as an r/science moderator?

r/science had over 33 million members as of 2024.

What must r/nosleep readers pretend about every story?

The rule keeps the immersive horror tone; the subreddit spawned The NoSleep Podcast.

On what date was r/nosleep created?

It has over 18 million members.

Roughly how many members had r/AskReddit reached by December 2024?

It was the most popular subreddit as of July 2015.

Which competitor lost much of its audience to Reddit after a botched 2010 redesign?

Kevin Rose and Alexis Ohanian relaunched Digg in 2025.

Which four people founded Y Combinator in 2005?

YC also operates Hacker News.

Which tech discussion site does Y Combinator operate?

YC has launched more than 5,000 companies.

How long was the countdown timer in Reddit's 2015 experiment The Button?

It finally reached zero on 5 June 2015.

Under what username did Josh Wardle create The Button?

More than a million accounts clicked it.

On what date did the Apollo app shut down?

It had nearly 5 million lifetime installs.

Apollo's developer Christian Selig had previously interned at which company?

Apollo launched on 23 October 2017 after a long beta.

Which university student founded Imgur as a side project in 2009?

He was studying computer science at Ohio University.

Reddit's API had been free since which year before the 2023 pricing change?

Moderators protested from June 12 to 14, 2023.

Which comedian did r/pics and r/aww vote to post about only, after the 2023 blackout?

It was an alternative form of protest after subreddits reopened.

Which Gawker journalist unmasked the moderator behind u/violentacrez?

The exposé sparked debate on the ethics of outing anonymous users.

Which subreddit was among five banned on June 10, 2015, under an anti-harassment policy?

Some users migrated to the Reddit-like site Voat.

Which Reddit-like site did some banned users migrate to in 2015?

Fat-shaming forums nevertheless continued to exist on Reddit.

Which subreddit was created the day after the 2013 Boston bombing to identify culprits?

Reddit later publicly apologised for enabling open speculation.

Sunil Tripathi was a student at which university when he went missing in March 2013?

He had been missing a month before the bombing he was wrongly linked to.

Roughly how many private celebrity photos leaked in 2014's 'Celebgate', spread via Reddit?

They were first posted on 4chan.

Which Idaho-based company's crowdfunded 'smart highway' panels went viral in 2014?

Scott and Julie Brusaw founded it in 2006 in Sandpoint.

Which two founders returned to Reddit leadership after five years away, in 2014 and 2015?

Ohanian became executive chairman; Huffman returned as CEO in July 2015.

Which two things did Huffman launch after rejoining as CEO, besides A/B testing?

He also improved the mobile website.

Which two subreddits are cited as examples quarantined for offensive content?

Quarantines require users to click an opt-in button.

Which Reddit co-founder was chief scientist at Hipmunk before returning in 2017?

His Harvard PhD thesis was on cooling and trapping a rubidium beam.

Which co-founder of Digg partnered with Alexis Ohanian to relaunch it in 2025?

The open beta shut down two months after its January 2026 launch.

Ellen Pao co-founded which diversity nonprofit in 2016?

She has been vocal about Silicon Valley hiring practices.