; 11 years ago 2005 06 23 1 medford massachusetts u.s. headquarters san francisco california u.s. area served worldwide founder s steve huffman alexis ohanian key people steve huffman co founder and ceo employees 78 2 slogan s the front page of the internet website www.reddit.com written in python 3 alexa rank 26 as of october 2016 4 type of site social news and media aggregation advertising banner ads promoted links registration optional required to submit comment or vote available in multilingual primarily english current status active reddit stylized as reddit r d t 5 is a social media social news aggregation web content rating and discussion website . reddit s registered community members can submit content such as text posts or direct links . registered users can then vote submissions up or down to organize the posts and determine their position on the site s pages . the submissions with the most positive votes appear on the front page or the top of a category . content entries are organized by areas of interest called subreddits . the subreddit topics include news science gaming movies music books fitness food and image sharing among many others . as of 2016 reddit had 542 million monthly visitors 234 million unique users ranking 11 most visited web site in us and 25 in the world . 6 across 2015 reddit saw 82.54 billion pageviews 73.15 million submissions 725.85 million comments and 6.89 billion upvotes from its users . 7 reddit was founded by university of virginia roommates steve huffman and alexis ohanian in 2005 . cond nast publications acquired the site in october 2006 . reddit became a direct subsidiary of cond nast s parent company advance publications in september 2011 . as of august 2012 reddit operates as an independent entity although advance is still its largest shareholder . 8 reddit is based in san francisco california . in october 2014 reddit raised 50 million in a funding round led by sam altman and including investors marc andreessen peter thiel ron conway snoop dogg and jared leto . 9 their investment saw the company valued at 500 million . 10 11 contents 1 description 1.1 site 1.2 users 1.3 subreddits 1.3.1 iama and ama 1.3.2 r science 1.3.3 the button 1.3.4 robin 2 history 3 technology 4 demographics 5 community and culture 5.1 philanthropic efforts 5.2 commercial activity 5.3 reddit effect 5.4 restoring truthiness campaign 5.5 controversies 5.5.1 2010 5.5.2 2011 5.5.3 2013 5.5.4 2014 5.5.5 2015 5.5.6 2016 6 see also 7 references 8 external links description site the site is a collection of entries submitted by its registered users essentially a bulletin board system . the name reddit is a play on words with the phrase read it i.e. i read it on reddit . 12 the site s content is divided into numerous categories and 49 such categories or default subreddits are visible on the front page to new users and those who browse the site without logging in to an account . as of may 2016 update these include 13 category subreddits educational news science space dataisbeautiful todayilearned worldnews entertainment creepy documentaries gaming listentothis movies music nosleep sports television videos discussion based askreddit askscience books explainlikeimfive history iama twoxchromosomes humor light hearted funny internetisbeautiful jokes nottheonion showerthoughts tifu upliftingnews image sharing art aww earthporn gifs mildlyinteresting oldschoolcool photoshopbattles pics self improvement diy food getmotivated lifeprotips personalfinance philosophy writingprompts technology futurology gadgets meta announcements blog note there are over 5 400 active subreddits 14 15 with a default set of 50 subreddits as of may 2014 update . when items links or text posts are submitted to a subreddit the users called redditors 16 can vote for or against them upvote downvote . each subreddit has a front page that shows newer submissions that have been rated highly . redditors can also post comments about the submission and respond back and forth in a conversation tree of comments ; the comments themselves can also be upvoted and downvoted . the front page of the site itself shows a combination of the highest rated posts out of all the subreddits a user is subscribed to . front page rank for both the general front page and for individual subreddits is determined by the age of the submission positive upvoted to negative downvoted feedback ratio and the total vote count . 17 dozens of submissions cycle through these front pages daily . the site s logo and mascot is a line drawing of an alien nicknamed snoo . subreddits often use themed variants of snoo relevant to the subject . 18 although most of the site functions like a bulletin board or message board each subreddit has the option of having an associated wiki that can provide supplementary material like instructions recommended reading or collaboration for real life events . users registering an account with reddit is free and does not require an email address to complete . as of june 2015 there were 36 million user accounts . 19 when logged in redditors have the ability to vote on submissions and comments to increase or decrease their visibility and submit links and comments . users can also create their own subreddit on a topic of their choosing and interested users can add it to their frontpage by subscribing to it . for example as of may 2015 update the wikipedia subreddit subtitled the most interesting pages on wikipedia has over 151 000 subscribers . 20 reddit comments and submissions are occasionally abbreviated and peppered with terms that are understood within and in many cases also outside the reddit community ranging from op for original poster the user who posted the submission being commented upon to nsfw for not safe for work indicating the post has graphic or sexually explicit content . 21 users earn post karma and comment karma for submitting text posts link posts and comments which accumulate as point values on their user profile . post karma refers to karma points received from text and link posts while comment karma refers to karma points received from comments . users may also be gifted reddit gold if another user has well received the comment or post generally due to humorous or high quality content ; this process is known as gilding . reddit has also created a system of points called creddits . reddit gold creddits are like gift certificates each creddit you have allows you to give one month of reddit gold to someone else . the points do not lead to a prize as they are meant to stand in as a badge of honor for the user among their peers although redditors have attempted to redeem their points before . 22 reddit also allows submissions that do not link externally . these are called self posts or text submissions . many discussion based subreddits allow only text only submissions such as askreddit where users are only allowed to pose broad discussion based questions to the community at large . self posts previously did not accumulate karma points for the submitter but as of july 2016 these text only posts generate karma . 23 mister splashy pants logo used on november 27 2007 reddit communities occasionally coordinate reddit external projects such as skewing polls on other websites such as in 2007 when greenpeace allowed web users to decide the name of a humpback whale it was tracking . reddit users voted en masse to name the whale mr. splashy pants and reddit administrators further encouraged this by changing the site logo to a whale during the voting . in december of that year mister splashy pants was announced as the winner of the competition . 24 within the site redditors commemorate their cake day once a year which is the anniversary of the day the user s account was first created . the cake day offers no special benefit except that a small icon representing a slice of cake appears next to that user s name for 24 hours . 25 redditors can friend one another which gives a redditor quick access to posting and comments of their friend list . the commenting system and friend system along with a certain reddit ethos called reddiquette on reddit lend reddit aspects of a social networking service though not to the extent of facebook google and other websites aimed at providing social networking services . the reddit community also socializes at meetups held at local parks and bars around the world 26 and many localized subreddits for local in person meetings exist . subreddits reddit entries are organized into areas of interest called subreddits . historically the front page was the main reddit and other areas were subreddits . there is now no main subreddit . instead there are multiple default subreddits dealing with topics such as books television and music . any registered user may create a subreddit although a link to do so does not appear on the user s homepage until after thirty days . 27 there are over 5 400 active subreddits to peruse 14 15 with a default set of 50 subreddits as of may 2014 update . users may customize what is shown on their personal front page by subscribing to individual subreddits through a page that shows all subreddits available . the site s general front page is also accessible via a link to all at the top of the individual user s customized front page . in an interview with memeburn reddit gm martin noted that the platform s approach is to give the community moderators or curators as much control as possible so that they can shape and cultivate the type of communities they want . 28 iama and ama one of the most popular subreddits is iama i am a where a user may post amas for ask me anything or similarly amaas for ask me almost absolutely anything prompts for others to ask questions about any topic . amas are open to all reddit users and use the site s comment system for both questions and answers ; it is similar to a press conference but online . this subreddit was founded in may 2009 . 29 from 2013 to 2015 victoria taylor assisted reddit s volunteer community in presenting interviews . 30 31 32 a number of notable individuals have participated in the iama subreddit including united states president barack obama 33 34 while campaigning for the 2012 election dave grohl 35 madonna 36 chris hadfield 37 who answered questions from the international space station bill gates 38 ron paul 39 stephen colbert 40 psy enya arnold schwarzenegger rachel maddow ren e fleming m. shadows louis c.k. roger federer larry king philip zimbardo bill nye 41 stan lee john mather david copperfield paul krugman danny boyle rapper j. cole 42 al gore roger ebert michael bolton gary johnson lawrence krauss jill stein kevin rudd julie benz 43 amanda palmer 44 tim ferriss 45 gordon ramsay 46 peter dinklage 47 chandra wickramasinghe 48 and neil degrasse tyson . 49 as of april 2015 update barack obama s ama is the highest rated on the site ; 50 the increased traffic brought down many parts of the website when the ama occurred on august 29 2012 . 51 celebrities participating in iamas have seen both positive and negative responses . woody harrelson s 52 ama was criticized after harrelson declined to answer questions that were unrelated to the movie rampart he was promoting . 53 in contrast rapper snoop dogg attracted 1.6 million page views 54 after conducting an ama that provided several candid responses to the community s questions . 55 other than harrelson s bollywood actress priyanka chopra s 56 ama was criticized for evasiveness when she focused on promoting her upcoming album to the detriment of other questions . a particularly well received ama of 2014 was that of peter dinklage 57 best known for