What Reddit Is And How To Navigate The Site

If you’re up to speed online, you’ve likely heard of Reddit. Reddit is a site that claims to be the “front page of the internet”. It’s a popular destination for users to come to discuss their favorite topics and current events. If you are an influencer or have a brand, engaging with fans on the subreddit may be valuable to create a close community. As a unique platform, it may seem confusing for those that are new to the app. In this case, here’s a guide to understand the platform Reddit and how to properly navigate the site.

What’s Reddit?

Reddit is a super popular site, ranked the 7th most popular site in the United States. It has 52 million-plus daily users and 50 billion-plus monthly views.

The app is a large collection of forums with which registered users can engage. The topics cover almost any subject imaginable, from sports, politics, entertainment, and more. It’s virtually guaranteed that you’ll find the niche you’re interested in, no matter how obscure.

These communities are broken into something called “subreddits”. The site has over a million subreddits covering a wide variety of interests identified by “r/’topicname'”. The “r/” refers to the URL Reddit uses for its subreddits.

You can read and comment on these subreddits as you please, except if it’s a private subreddit that has an admission process. Also, you can subscribe to the subreddits you love so you can easily see the popular posts pop up on your homepage.

Additionally, you can create your own subreddits to discuss any topic you want. This can be a great opportunity to make connections with others with shared interests and passions.

How to navigate Reddit

If you’re new to Reddit you may be unsure of how to navigate the website to find what you’re interested in. Here’s a quick run-down of the basics.

When you pull up Reddit you’ll be welcomed to the homepage, which shows a variety of posts that are currently trending off of various subreddits. You can sort these posts by multiple filters, such as location, newest, and top posts. You can also filter to see “Hot” posts, which allows you to few the posts with the highest scores. This score is given by subtracting the number of downvotes from a post’s upvotes. Additionally, you can search the site for topics with the search bar located at the top of the homepage.

Creating a subreddit

After joining the site, you also may want to create a subreddit. However, in order to do so, there are some parameters. These parameters include your account:

Being at least 30 days old
Remaining relatively active
Having a minimum amount of “karma”

On Reddit, “karma” is the number that appears next to a username. The metric is used to reflect how much good a user has done for the Reddit community. The minimum amount needed to create a subreddit is unknown, but it’s a relatively small amount.

Additionally, subreddits also have moderators, also called “mods” for short. Their job is to edit the subreddit for a good appearance, dictate what type of content is allowed, and sometimes remove posts and users from the subreddit. Ultimately moderators and whole subreddits can be taken off the site if they aren’t following community guidelines.

Upvotes and downvotes

Located next to each post, you’ll see arrows that point up and down and a number. These arrows allow you to “upvote” similar to liking a post, or “downvote” similar to disliking a post.

This voting differs, however, as it increases or decreases the post’s visibility. You can also upvote and downvote comments, which can help contribute to the commenter’s karma score. Upvote a comment or post if you like it to help the user increase their score.

Jargon

On the site, users have a specific jargon to refer to different aspects of Reddit. Understanding this jargon is helpful to navigate the site.

Users use “OP” to refer to an original poster in a thread. One of the most common abbreviations is “TIL”, which means “today I learned”.

Both “IAmA” and “AMA” stand for “ask me anything”, which references Reddit’s popular Ask Me Anything thread. This thread allows people with unique life experiences to submit themselves to be questioned by the users of Reddit. For example, Barack Obama himself was one of the people featured on the page. Pretty cool right!

Sign up now

After learning how to navigate Reddit, it’s time to get started for the sight. Signing up is easy! First, click the “Sign Up” button at the top of the page. Then follow the prompts to get your account started. Being active on Reddit will allow you to connect with countless others over your passions. Also, it will allow you to learn new things and gain new perspectives. So what are you waiting for? Get on Reddit now!

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Alaine Meier is a blogging intern at LadyBossBlogger. She currently attends the College of the Holy Cross and is studying economics and environmental studies.