On the Internet, Reddit is the friend who has everything—financial stability, influence, famous friends. What can you possibly give it as a token of your gratitude for a crap-ton of traffic?
If you run ThisIsWhyImBroke.com, the answer is easy: a giant statue of Snoo, Reddit’s beloved alien mascot.
Recently, the website ThisIsWhyImBroke.com announced that they had produced a “life-sized” statue of Snoo, the adorable Reddit alien. The statue, which stands over 5 feet tall, is modeled after the knights of the r/New feed, the “self-titled users of Reddit who courageously help sort through all of the new post submissions.”
“It’s been an awesome experience,” ThisIsWhyImBroke.com owner Adam Freedman told the Daily Dot. “We teamed up with tomspinadesigns.com, and we learned a lot about the entire process of building such an enormous piece. We sent it to Reddit’s offices as a gift from us.”
Once the picture of the statue was submitted to r/pics on August 5, it easily reached the front page.
“There have been a decent amount of negative comments, but overall most people love it,” Freedman said. “In regards to the negative comments, I knew going in that there was a high chance that people would accuse of just pandering to reddit as a publicity stunt. But outside of that small group, most people seem to love it.”
Several redditors backed up Freedman’s sentiment.
“You did a great job. Fuck the haters, this is the best post I have seen today,” okcboomer87 said.
“I wish I could give this two upvotes because one doesn’t feel worthy of such a masterpiece,” _danielthomas said.
While he is naturally thrilled about the statue’s presence on Reddit’s front page—and the 2,500-plus karma points it earned—Freedman is also happy that the gift is being enjoyed by its recipient, Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian.
“He loves it,” Freedman reported. “And if the founder of Reddit loves it, that’s good enough for us.”
Ohanian even appeared in the thread to discuss what Snoo’s “real-life” height would be.
“Snoo would be a few feet tall. Maybe 3 ft including antenna, but also consider the statue has it standing on a massive rock formation, too,” he said.
Unfortunately, there won’t be any other life-sized Snoos.
“It’s unlikely we’ll do such a big project like this again,” Freedman admitted. “There was obviously a big cost associated with it and we did this as a one-time piece to thank Reddit for showing their support of our website.”
Perhaps a six-foot 4chan clover patch would be a bit for feasible for the website.
All photos via ThisIsWhyImBroke.com