About

How Karma Works refers to the Reddit point system used to measure a Redditor's value on the site. Although there are simple ways of gaining and loosing karma with upvotes and downvotes on comments and links, the exact amount of karma gained does not typically match the actual amount of upvotes which has led users to create theories on how karma is calculated. In September 2019, one Redditor's post, in which they claim they found out how karma is calculated, was removed leading to an increase in queries surrounding Reddit karma.

Origin

On September 7th, 2019, Redditor banana0419 posted that they figured out how karma is calculated to r/teenagers.^[1] The post initially revealed that karma is "based on how many upvotes you get per minute" and received over 31,600 points (81% upvoted) in three days.^[2] The post's contents were labeled "[removed]" within 24 hours (shown below).

Spread

On September 8th, 2019, Redditor Codehard1337 posted an image to r/dankmemes^[3] claiming that the initial post by banana0419 was "too dangerous to be alive" (shown below). The post gained over 14,300 points (97% upvoted) in two days.

Following the initial post's removal, Redditors began commenting through image macros that Reddit might not want users to know how karma is calculated. On September 8th, Redditor Mateicelsexos posted another theory to r/teenagers^[4][5] which was them promptly removed (shown below). The post garnered over 13,000 points (95% upvoted) in a day. On September 10th, Redditor rigor-m noticed numerous memes regarding the karma point system and decided to find out more through r/OutOfTheLoop.^[6] Some users suggested in the comments that banana0419 "removed" the post themself.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References