What Is Reddit and How Do You Sign Up?

If you spend a lot of time online, you have most likely heard of Reddit. The site once billed itself as "the front page of the internet," and that is no empty boast. According to Semrush, as of November 2022 Reddit is the fourth most visited site in the US and the sixth most visited site worldwide. So what exactly is Reddit? Basically, it is a huge collection of forums where people can share news and content or comment on other people's posts. Here is everything you need to know.

What Is Reddit? 2023

Reddit is a collection of more than a million communities known as "subreddits," each covering a different topic. The name of a subreddit starts with "r/," which is part of the URL Reddit uses. For example, r/nba is a subreddit where people talk about the National Basketball Association, while r/boardgames is one where people discuss board games. Those are straightforward subreddits, but they can get weird, such as r/birdswitharms, a subreddit devoted to pictures of birds with arms.

If you are looking at Reddit for the first time, what you see may leave you a little confused, so here is a quick rundown. The home page (or "front page") shows you a variety of posts trending on the site right now, pulled from various subreddits. You can sort these posts by clicking one of the icons in the ribbon menu below the Create Post text box (if you are logged in with a Reddit account) or under a smaller heading called Popular Posts if you are not logged in. If you are logged in, these icons sort posts by Best, Hot, New, Top or Rising.

There is a search bar at the top that you can use to find posts and subreddits related to a particular term. For example, searching for "World Cup" surfaces some popular posts about the World Cup and related subreddits such as r/worldcup and r/sports.

Subreddits are run by moderators ("mods" for short), volunteers who can adjust how a given subreddit looks, dictate what kind of content the subreddit allows, and even remove posts or content or ban users from the subreddit. Reddit as a whole is run by administrators and Reddit employees, who have broad site-wide powers, including the ability to strip moderators of their privileges and even ban entire subreddits from the site.

Next to a post you will most likely see a number along with up and down arrows. Users click the arrows to upvote or downvote posts, raising or lowering their visibility, and the number reflects the current total of upvotes and downvotes. Reddit users can also upvote and downvote other users' comments, and every account has a karma number attached to it, showing how much karma their comments have earned in total. Karma won't give you Reddit street cred or anything like that, but it helps you climb your standing in the Reddit community. Be proud of your karma!

Like most online communities, Reddit has its own language. Reddit users tend to talk in abbreviations like OP, TIL, IAmA and AMA. OP simply means "original poster" in a thread, while TIL means "today I learned" and is one of the most common abbreviations you will see. Many posts are simple TIL observations and realizations. Both IAmA and AMA refer to what is arguably Reddit's most popular feature: the Ask Me Anything series. In an AMA, a well-known person such as former President Barack Obama or Nick Offerman, or someone who has lived through a unique life experience (or a sad one, like the woman who was mauled by a bear, fought it off, and kept going four miles down a mountain with her face hanging off), puts themselves at the mercy of Reddit's curious minds. The resulting threads are some of the most insightful, witty and fascinating interviews you will ever read.

Users can give awards to other users to recognize and highlight posts the giver really enjoyed. Giving an award costs Reddit Coins, which you can buy as a way to support the community.

Another way to support the community is to buy Reddit Premium, the site's membership program. For 6 US dollars a month, Premium users see no ads and get access to r/lounge, a super-secret subreddit where some of the brightest minds on Reddit come together to trade witty jokes (or whatever else), among other perks. A Premium membership also comes with a regular supply of Coins to spend on Awards. You don't need to buy Reddit Premium to have fun on Reddit, but it is a way to support the site, get some perks and invest in the community.

Remember, Reddit is a group of people who meet up on the internet, share things and talk to each other. That's it. Act as if you were hanging out with old or new friends. Watch the language you use and where you post (some subreddits are not suited to off-topic posts). Reddit has become a popular hub for many topics, both good and bad, as well as niche ones. The community has also taken steps to make the site more inclusive by removing explicit content from its general home page.

How Do You Sign Up for Reddit?

If Reddit sounds like your kind of place, you can sign up by clicking the blue Join Reddit button in the lower-left corner of the main Reddit page. Then follow the on-screen instructions to create an account. Reddit doesn't limit you to a single account, either. You can set up multiple usernames and choose which one to log in with depending on which subreddits you plan to join. For example, some subreddits encourage posts that reveal personal details, and you may find it helpful to have one persona there and another elsewhere. Some people create throwaway accounts when asking for relationship or professional advice, among other topics.

After you sign in, Reddit will make suggestions to help you find popular boards that match your interests. If there is a specific community you want to join right now, go ahead and type its name into the search field. Alternatively, you can search for relevant words and explore that way.

When you come across a subreddit you want to visit again, you get the chance to subscribe to it. Your home page will then show posts from the subreddits you subscribe to. You can look at all your subscriptions from the navigation bar's drop-down menu, which lets you easily switch between communities. You can also link comparable subreddits into custom feeds; for example, you can organize r/nba, r/nbadiscussion and other team subreddits into a basketball multireddit. If you want to do this, go to the relevant subreddit and click the three-dot icon next to About Community. From there you will see a drop-down menu where you should select Add to Custom Feed. After that, follow the instructions to add the subreddit to an existing feed or create a brand-new one. You can even decide to make your multireddit public so other Redditors can subscribe to it.

You can join as many subreddits as you like, and the sheer number of topics keeps you interested. Perhaps the most appealing feature of Reddit is that you can be as private or otherwise socially low-key as you want. With all these great features, it is no wonder it attracts so many subscribers.

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