As 8:00 AM EST rolled around, and Reddit’s 12-hour blackout loomed, some of the site’s users scrambled to prepare for a day without the site.
Many took to r/AskReddit, the subreddit dedicated to pure discussion.
One activist user there challenged the subreddit to “decide on a single Facebook picture” for everyone to adopt for the day, pleading “let us at least brand ourselves for the cause. Most upvotes=chosen picture.”
The winner, with almost 2,000 upvotes, was a red circle with the text “NOTICE: THIS IMAGE HAS BEEN FOUND IN VIOLATION OF H.R. 3261, S.O.P.A. AND HAS BEEN REMOVED.”
Otherwise, the mood on the site’s front page links was largely somber. At least four other users created essentially the same thread on r/AskReddit: What will you do while Reddit is down?
Answers on all of them were almost unanimously either mundane or sarcastically sad. “I guess I will do my job :(” wrote HerrDoktor. “I think I might just stare at my computer screen until Reddit comes back online,” responded dominickehoe.
“Masturbate furiously,” wrote TheSporkening.
Another user tried to start a thread asking, “What do you need to get off your chest before Reddit goes down?”
“I’m afraid of how many times I’ll mindlessly click the homepage icon when Reddit is down,” read the top response.
Other subreddits were more proactive. A redditor in r/ListenToThis linked to an independent site, Redditunes, that archives links to every song that r/ListenToThis and r/Music post.
Another in r/iphone tried to compile a list of games to play during the blackout. Response there was tepid as well.
“For the love of God, please contact your congressmen before playing games, or else the whole point of blackout day is meaningless,” wrote shadowslayer978.
Photo by WilWheaton