Saturday, June 23, marks two big events for Reddit: It’s the site’s third annual Global Meetup Day, and it’s also Reddit’s birthday.
That’s right, seven years ago Saturday, Reddit went live, and shortly thereafter cofounder Alexis Ohanian posted the site’s first ever link—to the Downing Street Memo. At the time Ohanian only had a measly -1 karma (the site’s internal scoring mechanism for quality posts). But that tally, like the site as a whole, would grow massively over the next few years.
Ohanian and Steve Huffman, Reddit’s other cofounder, populated the site with an army of fake accounts to make it look popular, and that plan paid dividends. Soon real people joined in droves. The social news site now sits at more than 35 million unique visitors a month and nearly 3 billion page views.
I asked Ohanian what the best post was that he’s seen over the past seven years. He replied:
“I couldn’t pick just one thing…. maybe I’ll give you the cop-out answer, which is the best thing I’ve seen is how versatile the reddit platform is—building online communities among people sharing everything from cute animal photos to unmatched interviews to pizza.”
To celebrate the birthday of Reddit’s first post, the Daily Dot collected the top nine Reddit posts of all time.
1) test post please ignore 21869 points submitted 2 years ago by qgyh2 to r/pics
Reddit’s most popular post ever has become an inside joke—a test post upvoted ironically and to legendary effect.
2) I hate my job… 12961 points submitted 2 years ago by prehack to r/funny
How this joke, yanked from an old post from Web forum Steroidology, holds the No. 2 spot in Reddit’s history may very well remain a mystery for eternity.
3) This is called humanity 10266 points submitted 11 months ago by freestylepopcorn to r/pics
A story about elderly residents of Japan braving cancer-causing radiation to help out after the 2011 tsunami. The article quotes a Mr. Yamada as saying: “I am 72 and on average I probably have 13-15 years left live. Even if i were exposed to radiation, cancer would take 20-30 years or longer to develop. Thefore us older ones have less a chance of getting cancer.”
4) So my little cousin posted on FB that he was bored and gave everyone his new phone number… (pic) 9348 points submitted 4 months ago by frackyou to r/funny
Whoever came up with this practical joke took it three levels deep, making a website and Facebook page in addition to the Reddit post.
5) Genius 8826 points submitted 6 months ago by MachineMalfunction to r/funny
A cab driver’s Facebook revenge.
6) Obama wins the Presidency! 8543 points submitted 3 years ago by willjohnston to r/politics
One of two major political events that skyrocketed to the top of Reddit’s front page.
7) So long, and thanks for all the postcards 7997 points submitted 1 year ago by raldi to r/blog
Longtime admin Mike Schiraldi’s post bidding farewell to Reddit (he’d landed a job at Google) is the site’s most popular official blog post of all time.
8) The health bill has PASSED! 7252 submitted 2 years ago by thingamagizmo to r/politics
That exclamation point is no accident. There was no doubt where Reddit’s political sympathies lie.
9) I am Neil deGrasse Tyson — AMA 7041 submitted 7 months ago by neiltyson to r/IAmA
This was the first AMA (“ask me anything”) from Reddit’s favorite astrophysicist/celebrity. He’s since done two others and occasionally crashes in on other discussions on the site.
Photo by Will Clayton