Anybody can post on Reddit, which is currently celebrating its 20th year of existence. With more than a hundred million active daily users and a judicious amount of elbow grease, you might be able to engineer yourself.<\/p>\n
Alas, it didn\u2019t happen \u2013 our posts barely attracted any eyeballs. Something about the discussion site is anathema to shameless self-promotion \u2013 it\u2019s even actively hostile to outsiders looking to game its labyrinthine system of upvotes, downvotes and leaderboard awards. But my boss\u2019s failed attempt to hack Reddit was the start of my respect for the platform \u2013 and the beginning of my journey as an active user. Prior to that, I\u2019d only ever thought of it as a slightly retro-looking web forum \u2013 the kind I remembered from my teenage days on the internet, albeit one that seemed to be mainly populated by male keyboard warriors.<\/p>\n
Flashier platforms like Instagram <\/a>and TikTok <\/a>inject bite-sized content straight to the prefrontal cortex. By contrast, Reddit\u2019s layout is utilitarian and un-lovely. Almost everyone hides behind an anonymous username. While you can post images and GIFs, it is predominantly a text-only platform \u2013 and boy, there is a lot of text. In the years since I signed up, I\u2019ve probably read dozens of comments that stray into dissertation-length territory. <\/p>\n But that is precisely the joy of what I\u2019ve come to regard as the last truly anonymous social space on the internet \u2013 and is one of the few remaining platforms safe from capitalism\u2019s onerous demands to market yourself as popular, attractive or palatable for the online gaze. In a world of hyper-polished content creators screaming at you to like, follow and subscribe, Reddit is decidedly un-glamorous. Freed from the need to appeal to the algorithm or establish a personal brand, people can actually be themselves. <\/p>\n That\u2019s what fuels the brutal honesty behind notorious confessional subreddits like Am I the Asshole<\/a> or Off My Chest<\/a>; it\u2019s also what makes for the most compelling beauty and skincare recommendations on subs like Makeup Addiction<\/a>. Want holiday advice from normal people, not sponcon recs from luxe travel bloggers? I\u2019ve planned everything from afternoon pinxtos crawls in San Sebastian to late-night eats in Shanghai based on tips from local Redditors. Want to find the best makeup? Google \u201cbest mascara Reddit\u201d and crowdsource your find from real customers who hold nothing back in their reviews. <\/p>\n As a journalist, I\u2019ve long regarded Reddit as a relatively accurate barometer for what actual social media users think. On X and Instagram, people are incentivised to have to come up with the most extreme stance on an issue \u2013 outrage travels further, after all. <\/p>\n On Reddit, where comments are confined to individual subs, there\u2019s little impetus to come up with the hottest or most on-trend take. Take the recent uproar about Sabrina Carpenter\u2019s new album cover<\/a>, which features the pop singer getting her hair pulled while on her knees. While posts on X might have you believe this is the worst thing that has happened to feminism, the response on Reddit were refreshingly balanced and clear-eyed about the fact that Carpenter clearly intends to generate headlines (as well as accurately pointing out that it bears a close resemblance to the trashy Animal Magnetism album cover<\/a> by The Scorpions \u2013 and not in a good way). <\/p>\n The site isn\u2019t perfect, of course \u2013 no platform that size is. Anonymity can unleash a dark side in users: I watched in dismay as a sub for my favourite television show attracted a deluge of sexist commentators when its latest season dared to feature two female leads<\/a>. (Thanks, True Detective<\/a> fans, for confirming my worst fears about male TV nerds.) <\/p>\n Racist and misogynist content, as well as looney conspiracy theories, continue to thrive in certain toxic corners of the site \u2013 although Reddit does a passable job at quarantining those subs by making it impossible for users to stumble across them and stopping them from generating revenue. At least it\u2019s trying to do something, unlike X<\/a> or even YouTube<\/a>, which has recently relaxed its rules<\/a> regarding misinformation and offensive speech.<\/p>\n A site that allows people to be anonymous and honest \u2013 and one that doesn\u2019t require you to upload photos of your face to cater to an all-seeing algorithm? That\u2019s much more rare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The social platform is one of the few remaining places safe from capitalism\u2019s demands to market yourself as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3161],"tags":[83149,3082,2511,53,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-206971","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-arts-opinion","9":"tag-internet","10":"tag-reddit","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114731180551249306","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"CHINA](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/SEI_256092655.jpg\")
Currently celebrating its 20th year of existence, Reddit has more than a hundred million active daily users (Photo: Serene Lee\/SOPA Images\/LightRocket via Getty Images)<\/p>\n