AskReddit

About

/r/AskReddit is a popular subreddit on Reddit in which people ask "thought-provoking questions" and typically receive a thread of thoughtful replies.

History

On January 24th, 2008 /r/AskReddit^[2] was launched. The subreddit has gained over 22.5 million subscribers in a little over 11 years and is apart of the top three most popular subreddits on Reddit.^[1] Threads featured on /r/AskReddit front page have been featured in articles and YouTube videos.

Features

The subreddit describes itself as "the place to ask and answer thought-provoking questions." To maintain this, there are ten specific rules that subreddit follows (shown below)

Rule 1: Questions must be clear and direct and may not use the body textbox

Rule 2: No personalized advice requests

Rule 3: Open ended questions only

Rule 4: No personal info

Rule 5: No loaded questions

Rule 6: No questions seeking professional advice

Rule 7: No begging for goods or services

Rule 8: No demeaning terms or personal attacks

Rule 9: No image only replies or large ascii art

Rule 10: Comments in [Serious] posts must be on topic

Highlights

Notably interesting threads posted to /r/AskReddit have been featured in articles on Uproxx,^[4] Complex,^[5] Inverse^[6] and other Media news outlets.

On November 4th, 2012 /r/askredditafterdark^[3] was launch which is a NSFW version of the /r/AskReddit that has gained 196,000 subscribers in seven years.

Redditors have asked a wide range of questions. On January 1st, 2019, Redditor ShoddySubstance asked
"People who haven't pooped in 2019 yet, why are you still holding on to last years shit?" on /r/AskReddit^[7]. The question received 209,000 points (88% upvoted) and created a thread of 7,900 comments in nearly four months. Other questions are quite serious. On January 21st, 2019, iamtehryan asked "Americans, would you be in support of putting a law in place that government officials, such as senators and the president, go without pay during shutdowns like this while other federal employees do? Why, or why not?" on /r/AskReddit^[8]. The post gained 134,000 points (80% upvoted) and 10,700 comments in three months.

There have been countless YouTube videos featuring specific threads on /r/AskReddit. On January 29th, Comment Awards posted a video featuring lifesaving comments posted to /r/AskReddit. The video gained over 2.5 million views in three months (shown below, left). Another YouTube video featuring a thread on the best loopholes was posted on March 26th, by Jayben and garnered over 1.8 million views in a month (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References