In 2005Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian launched a simple link-sharing site. Since thenReddit has grown from a small community mainly made up of coders to a mega-hive with somewhere around half a billion active users across the world. If you’re not one of the half billiondon’t worry; it’s never too late to hop inpoke aroundand see if Reddit is something you like.
Reddit can be daunting at first—it is massive and its norms and expectations aren't like other social networks. This guide breaks down the basics of starting a Reddit accountfinding and joining relevant communitiesposting contentand earning Reddit karma; you’ll be upvotingposting contentand making unfunny jokes in comment sections like a seasoned Redditor in no time.
What is Reddit?
At a basic levelReddit is a community-driven platform made up of user-created message boards (called subreddits or communities) that cover any subject you can think offrom the broadest interest to the most niche concerns. Users can post picturestextvideosand links for other users to engage with and judge. That’s the bare bones explanationbut it’s a little like saying New York City is “a bunch of streets and buildings." At a deeper levelReddit is the collective mind of the internet having a running conversation about everythingall the time.
Internet forums have been around since the 1970sbut Reddit improved on the model with a voting system that any allows user to up-vote or down-vote content based on whatever criteria they choose. In theorythis leads to the most relevantusefulengagingand interesting content being highlightedand low-effortoff-topicless-useful content being hidden—all without the need of a central authority to choose what people see. (In theory.)
How to make an account on Reddit
With the basics out of the wayhere's how to make a Reddit account:
Navigate to Reddit.com
Click the “…” on the upper right of your browser window
Choose “Login/Sign Up”
Click “New to Reddit”
Choose whether to make an account with an email addressa phone numberGoogleor other service.
Choose a username and password.
Reddit will autogenerate a username for youbut you might want to choose your own name instead of being stuck with a random word and some numbers. Don’t sweat the first account too much either way. Reddit accounts can be created with any email addressso you can have a bunch of them.
Once you've picked a nameyou'll be guided through a series of questions about your interests. This is so Reddit can populate a homepage with forums/communities/subreddits you might be interested in. Don't worry about these choices too much—you can change all of it at any time.
Once that's completeyou'll be greeted with a customizedscrollable page populated with posts from subreddits related to the interests you've chosen.
Browsing Reddit anonymously
Reddit has become way more mainstream as its popularity has grown over the yearsbut the site still allows you to set up an account with only a burner email address. This is useful if you are an adult who wants to participate in Reddit's gargantuan collection of "NSFW" subredditsbut you don't want them showing up in your main feed. It's also useful if you want to try on a different online identity or you want to post ideas or thoughts that run counter to Reddit's conventional wisdomand you don't want the downvotes to affect your karma. (More on karma below.)
Navigating Reddit's homepage
If you scroll down on Reddit's homepageyou'll see the center is made up of content from subreddits devoted to your interests and content from subreddits that are similar to your interests.
I said I liked Baldur's Gate 3so Reddit suggested r/DnDa Dungeons and Dragons subreddit. Note the "Join" button. Hit it and you're a member of that subreddit. If you’re no longer interested in a subreddit you joinedno worries. You can unsubscribe from any subreddit from the homepage by going to "Communities" on the left paneclicking on the subreddit you want to leavethen clicking on the "joined" button on the top right of the screen.
How you curate your communities determines how you'll experience Redditbut it's really easy to join and leave communities as you hone in on what's useful or enjoyable for you.
As a general rulelargermore broad communities like r/pics tend to have lower-brow content and userswhere communities devoted to specificsmaller interests often provide the best Reddit experience.
All subreddit URLs begin with a lowercase “r” followed by a slashthen the name of the subreddit. Each subreddit was created by a Reddit user and is moderated by Reddit users. Creators and mods of subreddits set up their own rules.
Finding interesting communities on Reddit
If you want a look at the general vibe of Reddit as a wholeat the top-left of the homepageyou can choose "Home" (a feed of only the subreddits you're subscribed to and Reddit's suggestions)"Popular," and "All."
The Daily Newsletter
"Popular" and "All" are very similar. Both are designed for new users or people who aren't logged in. "Popular" consists of the most upvoted content across Redditbut filters out some thingslike political content or anything not safe for work. "All" filters out most NSFW contentbut leaves most everything else. You can use these to choose more communities to follow.
Another important landmark when you're looking for relevant subreddits is the search bar at the top of the page. Search for anything you might be interested inand there's probably at least one subreddit already there for you.
All about upvotes and downvotes
On the bottom left corner of each piece of content on Redditwhether it's something posted to the site or a comment on a postyou'll see an up arrow and a down arrow. This is where users indicate how they feelor what they think about this contentand it determines the content's placement on subreddits and affects the posters karma.
There has always been debate on Reddit about the meaning of votes. The original idea was that users should upvote content that they feel adds to the site or to the discussionbut not vote based on their opinion of the content. But users tend to use the up arrow as an "I agree" button instead. This means that interestinginformative content that doesn't fit in with the hive-mind's opinion will generally be down-voted and hidden in larger subreddits.
Reddit's comment sections
If you click on the rectangle/text bubble that's second from the left on a piece of contentyou'll be taken to a comment section devoted to that contentwhere you can express your thoughtsfeelingsreactionsor whatever.
Like posted contentyour comment can be voted up or voted down (or ignored). It varies from subreddit to subredditbut generally highly up-voted comments are pushed to the top of the comment section.
Posting content to Reddit
Only using Reddit to find and enjoy things other people post is totally acceptablebut if you want to engage further in the siteyou're welcome to post your own content to a subredditwhether it's a link to a websitea photoa videoor a text-post. Here's how:
Read the rules of the subreddit you want to post to. This is Reddiquette 101 (more on that below) and will save you timeas most subreddits have specific rules about the kinds of content they allow.
Click the "create" button at the top right of reddit's homepage.
Click "select a community." This list is populated by the subreddits you've joined.
Choose the content type.
Add relevant tags (if the sub you're posting to has them).
Fill in the description or commentary on the content you're posting.
Now that you've entered the Reddit gladiator pitit's time for your content to be judgedwhich brings us to karma.
How does Reddit karma work?
Reddit's karma is a number attached to a Reddit account that represents the account's reputation on the site. There are two kinds of karma: Content karma from upvotes and downvotes on content you postand comment karmabased on the votes on your comments.
There are various tricks and strategies for boosting karmalike subreddits devoted to just handing it outbut as a general ruleIf you participate on Reddit in a way people enjoyyour karma will rise organically. It's not a perfect systembut it's generally okay at determining which kinds of accounts Reddit likes.
What is reddit karma used for?
More than just an internet-person high scorekarma is often used as a way to keep the riff-raff from stinking up the joint with useless posts and comments. Many subreddits only allow posts from Redditors with karma scores above a certain level.
What is "Reddiquette?"
Reddiquette is the catch-all description of the Reddit community's ever-shifting values. You can get fairly granular about expectations from usersbut it's put simply: Reddit is made up of peopleand people generally don't like jerks (unless they're very amusing) so treat other people welldon't trolldon't post identifying informationetc.
In terms of posting contentmake sure you read a community's rules before postingcheck to make sure your content hasn't already been postedpost relevant content from primary sourceslabel content that NSFW as suchetc. It's pretty common sensebut if you want to dig in deeperhere's a link to Reddit's official word on Reddiquette.
The deeper levels of Reddit
The above information (and a little trial-and-error) are enough to get almost anyone going on Redditbut the site goes way deeper than that. Reddit lets users start and moderate their own subredditsclaim "dead" subreddits as their ownfollow other userschat privately and send messagesbecome moderators in existing communitiesaccess Reddit content outside of the website or appand wayway too much more to get intobut I'll be posting a series of Reddit guides in the future that cover these and other topicsso watch this space.
