Wow. Here we are, ten years later.
Here’s how Reddit looked minutes after Steve and Alexis flipped the switch in a small rented apartment in Medford, Massachusetts, ten years ago. And after Steve promptly downvoted Alexis’ first post. That’s right, the first ever submission to Reddit was downvoted.
To be specific, here we are after:
- 10 years, 0 months, 0 days
- (ok, fine, technically it’s 9 years, 11 months, 30 days, 22 hours, and 16 minutes at time of posting this at 10 am PDT)
- (also 5,258,776 minutes, 87,646 hours, 3651 days, or 521 weeks)
- 16,063,942,290 upvotes
- (and 2,563,574,752 downvotes)
- 1,715,454,785 comments
- (.36% of which mention cats)
- 334,626,161 monthly page views per Reddit engineer
- (also 7,637,686 unique monthly visitors per engineer, at 30 engineers—we're hiring more!)
- 190,227,552 posts
- (36% self posts vs link)
- 36,136,190 user accounts
- (26,222 of which include some variation of “pm me” or “don’t pm me” requests)
- $29,559,467.54 spent on 877,218 presents for RedditGifts exchanges
- (in 201 gift exchanges)
- 1,867,184 months of Reddit Gold purchased
- (804,952 of which you’ve gifted to someone)
- 853,824 subreddits created
- (9,601 of which were active yesterday)
- 213,078 lines of code total
- (1,081,873 lines of code added and 868,795 removed in 10,128 commits since Jan. 23, 2007, the second complete rewrite of Reddit)
- and 1 genderless, raceless, time-traveling alien from the future named Snoo.
(All numbers in this post are as of June 21st, 2015.)
(If you want to make something prettier than this, you can find all the data to play with over in r/redditdata.)
If we were a country, our current active users would make up the 8th largest population in the world, just after Nigeria and larger than Russia, Japan, and Mexico.
But enough boring statistics. Let’s get to the good stuff. Let’s talk about the best content on Reddit.
Most Upvoted Reddit Posts
- When you upvote/downvote you now get a hitmarker
- What tasty food would be disgusting if eaten over rice?
- I participated in one of the biggest Magic: the Gathering tournaments of all time this weekend. In an effort to document it, I posed for pictures near people with exposed asscracks. I present to you Grand Prix Richmond Crackstyle.
- This is Carter. He knocked on my door to ask if he could have a banana then left.
- Waterboarding at Guantanamo Bay sounds super rad if you don’t know what either of those things are.
Most Gilded Reddit Content
In order to get to the most gilded Reddit post ever, we must first discuss the most gilded comment ever, which is also the single most gilded anything on Reddit ever.
It’s this comment, from an AMA by TSM Bjergsen in the League of Legends community.
But the reason it’s been gilded so much doesn’t have as much to do with that comment specifically, and more with this one:
And… it happened.
So the most gilded post in Reddit history? Yup, you guessed it. A video by 3hoho5 titled “Me eating a bull’s dick for 400 gold on a single comment.” It is exactly what the title describes. Enjoy.
So, now that we know Reddit’s priorities, let’s move on to the other most gilded posts and comments on Reddit:
Most Viewed Reddit Posts
- I am the guy with two penises, AMA
(Shameless plug: We did an interview with DoubleDickDude on our Upvoted podcast that’s pretty awesome) - I am Barack Obama, President of the United States -- AMA
- What gif reduces you to hysterical laughter every time?
- Hey Reddit, What tattoos do you have? (The guy in the top comment has ninja photo taking skills)
- what is your favorite picture on the whole internet?
Most Saved Reddit Comments
Sorry, everyone, we really tried hard to pull the top saved Reddit posts, but u/drunken_economist repeatedly broke things trying to run that query. You’ve saved too many things. Since saving posts has been around almost since the beginning of Reddit and saving comments has only been available site-wide since March of last year, you’ll have to be satisfied with the most saved comments on reddit instead.
Also, you REALLY like free things. In the top ten saved comments, we had two sets of almost identical comments, so in the interest of sharing more cool things, we’ve combined those duplicates into one spot in the standings. There were also a couple deleted comments that have been omitted because it’s no fun linking to nothing.
- 93,444 combined saves: What free things on the internet should everyone be taking advantage of? (1 year ago), What free things on the internet should everyone be taking advantage of? (3 months ago), plus comment #2 from same thread, and What free stuff on the internet should everyone be taking advantage of? (6 months ago)
- 45,238 combined: How to find PDF and public ebook versions of your textbooks (r/trackers) and How to find PDF and public ebook versions of your textbooks (r/askreddit)
- 43,322: How to optimize the way you study based on how your brain actually works
- 35,370: The story of Kevin, the dumbest person possibly to ever exist
- 32,924: How to start caring for yourself and have “no more zero days”
- 26,067: Small websites more people should be aware of
- 19,465: Keyboard shortcuts everyone should know
- 17,973: 51 places to visit before you die
- 17,725: The story of the Ulysses bucket list
(Shameless plug #2: we also featured this story on the Upvoted podcast) - 13,538: Tips for being an amazing best man and giving the perfect speech
Most Commented-on Reddit Posts
These are a few of our favorites from the top. You can view the larger list in r/redditdata here.
- Please try to avoid doing things that might stress the servers, such as submitting a post that generates a gigantic comment thread.
(This comment thread really and actually has broken commenting site-wide many, many times, as every few months someone would find it and comment again and prevent it from archiving, until we had to specifically write code to lock this thread and preserve Reddit for all of you. This is also the birthplace of r/counting.) - Bar de la Plaza (Learn more about the Podemos political party on Reddit here.)
- Throwaway time! What’s your secret that could literally ruin your life if it came out?
- What opinion of yours makes you an asshole?
- Teenagers of Reddit, what is something you want to ask adults of Reddit?
Doing Good—on Reddit and in the World
Aside from all the fascinating and hilarious content they create, redditors are also unbelievably generous. Together we’ve donated over $1.8 million to Extra Life, Haiti, teachers, and Nepal. We donated another $827,659.49—10% of our 2014 ad revenue—to the top 10 charities of your choice. You’ve also donated a huge amount that we can’t begin to track through individual subreddit campaigns and spontaneous events like this.
We’ve also organized for causes you care about, even earning a thank you from President Obama for our action on net neutrality.
And there are countless thousands of stories of redditors who have helped save(1) someone’s(2) life(3) (not to mention the amazing work r/suicidewatch, r/depression and other similar communities do), gotten them desperately needed(1) medical care(2), provided emotional support, and so, so much more.
You guys really are amazing. Thank you for making the last 10 years of Reddit amazing too.
Here’s to the next 10 years.
PS(A): If you liked the content in this blog post, you'll probably also like Upvoted Weekly, our newsletter that highlights some of the best content from Reddit each week. You can check out last week's issue here, and sign up here if you're interested!
