Reddit 101
I wrote this working document after speaking with a set of writers and content creators about the usefulness of Reddit in my experience. If you are considering diving into Reddit, but are hesitant for various reasons, this post should help answer some questions. If there’s something you think I’m missing, or a question left unanswered after reading all the way through, please ask it in the comments. I’ll do my best to address it, and incorporate it in this piece.
The Reddit logo, “Snoo”, says hello.
Who is this for?
This information should help if you are -
a content creator looking to increase their audience
a content creator looking to network with like-minded people
seeking information and community around otherwise arcane subjects
trying to learn about new things
Reddit is called “the frontpage of the internet” and for good reason!
How does Reddit work?
(subreddits, posts, comment structure, karma)
As a new user, you are subscribed to some default subreddits. You can unsubscribe afterwards, but they are usually a good place to begin your engagement.
A subreddit is a group inside which conversations happen on dedicated subjects. Subs can be of broad interest - r/news, r/art, r/writing. They can also be very specific - r/politicalhumor, r/watercolor, r/writingprompts, r/dataisbeautiful. And there are the subreddits which are absolutely niche, weird-interest, or subculture-specific.
There are two ways to find new and interesting subreddits -
Using the search-bar
Coming across mentions in the comment sections of posts in another subreddits. This will happen quite a lot!
Every subreddit has its rules of engagement, which are fiercely protected by voluntary moderators. Posts or comments which break the rules can be removed within seconds. If you don’t want to overburden yourself, here’s something that helps -
Be good - to the subreddit and to people.
Don’t be extractive - contribute to the community rather than simply extract your purpose.
Comments are nested. Each comment can be upvoted or downvoted.
Upvotes are a reward you give for good content. These help the other redditor accumulate "karma points". You give and get karma for upvotes on posts as well as comments.
“If you want to know the right answer to a question, just post the wrong answer on Reddit.”
The Reddit USP (Unique Selling Point)
Reddit is different from every other social network in some ways that empower both the person posting content, and the person consuming it.
You cannot be performative
I’m comparing mainly to FB and Twitter here, because TikTok/Instagram are not about engaging with others in any meaningful way other than liking/following them. There is no expectation of ‘dialogue’.
On Twitter, nobody replies to a tweet to engage with the other person as much as to perform for their own followers. Because of the algorithm, your followers are exposed to any like or comment you leave on the site. Only QT/RTs are explicitly designed for that. But this happens and it shapes behaviour and incentives. Since you do not engage with someone within their context, but in front of an audience comprising your and their followers, your incentive is to say what your side would want you to say. Therefore, Twitter incentivizes taking things out of context and placing them in your own context, whether to take umbrage, or register disbelief and horror. Big emotional displays do well.
E.g. A trained medical professional may express a nuanced opinion about vaccine side-effects in context to their world, community, and following. That tweet can be taken completely out of context by a random person, in whose feed it showed up as someone else's 'like', and to which they respond in their own context.
But on Reddit, you do not carry an audience around with you. Your replies are seen within a subreddit, by the people who frequent it, so for the most part your upvotes will be determined by whether this audience agrees with you. As a result, you may play to a gallery, but the incentives are that you must care for what this gallery wants. What are the rules for engagement here? Do they tolerate shit-posting/humor on this sub? Are they progressive or conservative? I have had posts be downvoted not because the art was bad, but because it didn’t precisely fit the theme of the subreddit.
E.g. you cannot be flippant about history on r/askhistorians. You cannot even make parent comments on certain posts without formal accreditation by the moderators.
You control your feed
Obviously, at one level, you don’t. There is censorship for which Reddit receives a lot of flak. But the majority of subreddits are moderated voluntarily, and every sincere Redditor is an anti-authoritarian in default mode. Nothing is despised more than admin interference and overt censorship.
That said, the algorithms do not determine your feed. On every subreddit, as on the main page, and in the comment threads for every post, you get to choose how you want to see what has been posted. You can sort it by hot, top, new, controversial, and rising. Compare this to FB or Twitter or Instagram, which fundamentally do not give you the option to see your choice of content (people you have followed) in purely chronological order. There is no sorting. You are in one giant feed pre-decided for you.
A place for all media
In my opinion, Instagram is unsuited to text and discussion. Twitter is less suited to images. Reddit is suited to all media. By breaking into subreddits, you can have a completely different experience depending on where you choose to be. The written word is truly powerful on Reddit, especially in the comment threads. I’ll talk about the incredible importance of Reddit comment threads in a bit.
How Subreddits are formed
Subreddits are expressions of meta-cultures and trends. The culture creation and curation process on Reddit is completely organic and bottom-up.
Basically, anyone can create a subreddit. I have seen subreddits spawned by a recurring joke on another subreddit. Because there aren’t specific monetization opportunities tied to founding a subreddit, often subreddits are made by sincere redditors who want to engage on a topic of their interest. You have to have enthusiasm, and the willingness to take on a potentially enormous workload without direct benefits. It is a lot of work to properly manage and maintain a subreddit within overarching Reddit guidelines, and then the specific subreddit guidelines one may devise.
“If you can imagine it, there is a subreddit about it.”
A bizarre but interesting example (par for the course on reddit) was r/picturesofiansleeping. It emerged from a post Ian's roommate made about his friend's weird sleeping poses. It ran daily, with a post for every night, for 3 years. It gathered thousands of subscribers. Then it stopped one day. A couple of years later, there was a fresh post, and it was treated like the second coming of Christ.
I’ve drawn ~400 portraits on r/redditgetsdrawn. This one’s from 2020.
How Reddit creates Culture
The story of r/unbgbbiivchidctiicbg - A ‘phenomenon’ of the internet is that any post featuring a hot woman gets more clicks and upvotes than others, more popularly referred to as click-bait. This has partly to do with the fact that most people - even on Reddit - are males (or incels). The response to this ‘phenomenon’ was that clickbait is a terrible thing and one must not upvote content that is farming for karma in this way.
However, as is natural, there were also a lot of instances of posts that had seemingly click-bait pics but were actually great, relevant content.
So, because of the trending conversation that clickbait was on the rise, a subreddit was born for the content that fell into the latter category. This was r/unbgbbiivchidctiicbg - Upvoted Not Because Girl But Because It Is Very Cool However I Do Concede That I Initially Clicked Because Girl.
This subreddit is a cultural phenomenon only inside Reddit, created in response to a Reddit zeitgeist that manifested in the comment sections of various subreddits over a long period of time.
I don’t mean to judge the circumstances of this subreddit. I am only using it to illustrate the point of culture creation.
The Importance of the Comment Thread
Reddit lives in the comments. Culture is created in the comments. Memes take form in the comments. Most interaction is between people commenting, often without the participation of the OP (original poster).
My advice to most people wanting to get recognition for their arguments or expertise on a subject, wanting to engage with others on certain topics, is to comment. Don’t even make a post ever. Posts must adhere to many rules, comments to far fewer. People click few links on Reddit, so if you have content to share - directly posting videos and images is often the best option. But if your business is words, the comment section cannot be beat.
To display your skill in creative writing, write a story in the comments at r/writingprompts. To bring attention to your ideas about feminism or gender equality, visit r/twoxchromosomes or any of the other relevant subreddits. Engage with people under popular posts.
As a redditor of 10 years, I consider a post only interesting when there is a thriving comment section to check out. It’s in fact a reddit trope that no one reads the actual articles. But I will always check out the comment section, and in the pseudonymous safety of the Reddit environment, I feel safe in sharing my ideas.
Some Useful Subreddits
I follow different subreddits for different reasons. Some to learn from, some to post to, some to help me share my work and build a following, and some just for laughs. Below is a general list.
r/iama - Ask Me Anything, a format which has become famous even outside of Reddit now. Interesting people, famous people, obscure people with something relevant to say, can volunteer to do AMAs. Sometimes people are also invited. Anyone can ask a question. Good questions are upvoted by the audience, hence reaching more eyes including the attention of the OP (original poster) who can choose to reply to it. There is general irreverence on this sub, and influential and wealthy people are sometimes torn down for not being truthful or sincere with their answers.
r/mildlyinteresting - A place for pics or videos of things that are exactly mildly interesting. Not more, not less.
r/earthporn - pics of amazing natural scenes. A great place for photographers to be noticed for their work. They can then continue a conversation or share their links in the comment sections.
r/writingprompts - users submit interesting writing prompts, incentivized to do so by the karma they earn. Other users write the stories in the comment sections, receiving karma points but also useful feedback and engagement for their work. I have done this quite often, and enjoyed it as an exercise with the bonus of constructive feedback.
r/dataisbeautiful - a subreddit dedicated to beautiful and useful ways of depicting complex data. You can learn much from here, not only as a reader but as a data scientist yourself.
r/askhistorians - accredited historians answer your questions about various historical scenarios and curiosities that cannot be easily answered using Google. E.g. how did people tell or use time in the Dark Ages?
r/askscience - the same as above but for science-related questions. Very useful and very engaging.
r/eli5 - Explain Like I'm Five. Ask questions for concepts you don't understand. Responders are required to explain it in the simplest way possible. They get karma points for how well they adhere to the goal of "explaining like the questioner is just a child".
Things that have worked for me + Parting Advice
I have received excellent feedback on r/writingprompts.
I have drawn ~400 portraits on r/redditgetsdrawn. I made my first sale this way. And it was crucial to my self-education.
I have gone viral several times on various subreddits. Once your post catches that kind of wide attention, it can do enormous good to your social media channels. I get thousands of IG followers from posting my art on Reddit. These are all genuinely interested, organic follows, unlike the BS fake profiles Instagram throws at you. My Reddit followers are more likely to become my newsletter subscribers, YouTube subscribers, and also paying customers. They are real and true fans.
Some of my early r/redditgetsdrawn work. I literally learned to draw faces and portraits from doing hundreds of these.
My Reddit Top Posts
Below are my top posts of all time on Reddit since I started making SneakyArt. You should note the variety of subreddits they represent, and how I have angled the content (pic and title) to that subreddit.
Thank you for reading!
This is a working document, so I will update it every time I have a new idea worth sharing. I look forward to hearing from you in the comment section below. Tell me if this helped, share any question you still have. And go join Reddit!