How is reddit so popular yet I never hear it mentioned irl?

r/

I hear about tiktok and instagram the most, and i did hear about snapchat more in high school. But i never hear about reddit.

Comments

  1. MsKarmaKay Avatar

    Because most stay anonymous

  2. Unhappy-Fox1017 Avatar

    Well for me, it’s my one anonymous internet account. Nobody I know in real life has my screen name for Reddit. I think the majority of people on here feel the same way. My sister in law just discovered Reddit and asked for my name on here and I had to politely let her down and tell her that it’s not that kind of social media… for me at least.

  3. FPM_13 Avatar

    The average Reddit user isn’t out in public or having social interactions

  4. lifeisnonsense Avatar

    The first rule of Reddit is you don’t talk about Reddit

  5. doesnt_know_it_alll Avatar

    Last time I discussed with some friends they were pleasantly surprised. Amongst all the brain rot social medial out there its a sign of hope for someone to express, explore and learn.

  6. Needy-Train Avatar

    cuz you aint depressed, reddit is for depressed people

  7. AgentElman Avatar

    TikTok has 1.2 billion users worldwide. About 90% are assumed to be active daily.

    Reddit has a daily active user count of 97.2 million. So reddit is about 10% as popular as TikTok.

  8. louiemay99 Avatar

    It’s the one place online where we’re anonymous. I sometimes mentions things I’ve come across on Reddit but wouldn’t give anyone my username

  9. Rarewear_fan Avatar
    1. Half of redditors rarely go outside or socialize so it never comes up

    2. When it does come up, most normal people who use this site are ashamed to admit it

  10. OolongGeer Avatar

    Because it’s a bit like Craigslist.

    It’s hard for marketing firms to monetize.

  11. Vanilla_thundr Avatar

    I’ve been hearing it mentioned more in my daily life and in pop culture over the last few years. The most recent example I can think of was on an episode of Taskmaster Australia when Tom Gleeson called out people complaining about his scoring on Reddit.

  12. afinnegan2000 Avatar

    because of things like AITA, AIO, and confession subs. everyone wants to stay anonymous lol

  13. PresenceOld1754 Avatar

    Idk but imo I don’t think it’s socially acceptable to make it explicitly known you use reddit. Associated with porn and basement dwellers and mods. Stuff like that. People may not look at me favorably.

  14. theonejanitor Avatar

    Because Reddit is not based around personal branding and influencers. There is no incentive for Reddit users to share their reddit posts and reddit accounts, meanwhile content creators, influencers, and celebrities are highly incentivized to share and discuss tiktok/instagram etc.

  15. Plenty-Telephone7152 Avatar

    10 years ago, when reddit was in its prime, I went to a small reddit meetup. There were like 30 people. One person started talking about Reddit and everyone started talking about how weird it was to hear reddit talked about in person

  16. willgreenier Avatar

    Are you trying to ruin that

  17. Patricio_Guapo Avatar

    Reddit is organized around topics of interest and is largely anonymous.

    All the others are organized around personalities and is not anonymous.

  18. LionInAComaOnDelay Avatar

    Because it’s just an anonymous forum. No real reason for people to discuss that IRL.

  19. Educational-Act9809 Avatar

    😂😂😂 maybe you are too young? Cause everyone in my circle knows and talks about Reddit. Even my parents use it when they have questions about cars or how things work or how to fix then.

  20. EnvironmentalMind525 Avatar

    My coworkers and I discuss r/excel often.

  21. reddittomarcato Avatar

    I mention it all the time. When people ask me
    “Did you see the latest news on xyz?”

    I reply

    “I Reddit”

  22. tolgren Avatar

    Because people who are on Reddit and people who are in the real world are a Venn diagram with little overlap.

  23. LunarVolcano Avatar

    Why would I want to tell people I use this app

  24. hc7i9rsb3b221 Avatar

    You have to use the code phrase “the narwhal bacons at midnight” to identify other redditors /s

  25. Raving_Lunatic69 Avatar

    Because most of the time when you read things from reddit, it’s under another name as one shitty website after another recycles posts from here as their own.

  26. Physical_Bedroom5656 Avatar

    I would find it embarrassing to mention reddit IRL, and I like privacy. If I mention my account, someone might ask for the name of it, and then I’d have to say “I’d rather keep that private”, which could make them think “Oh, this guy must do/look at embarrassing stuff on reddit”.

  27. Particular_Can_7726 Avatar

    Reddit is nowhere near as popular as the other platforms you mentioned.

  28. Alpaca_Investor Avatar

    I hear it come up in real life all the time – ever hear of the GameStop meme stock fiasco?

    I also see it all the time with lazy journalism. Eg. for some soft news, stories will run with headlines like “Bad Behavior from Wedding Guests that Brides Couldn’t Forgive”, and it will all be responses from Reddit that people posted  when some journalist posted the question on a subreddit a few days earlier.

  29. Jhopsch Avatar

    Because its primary purpose is to to boost your own ego or sell your subscriptions

  30. -Blixx- Avatar

    I always act casually interested in it when someone mentions reddit, but then admit that I don’t really know what it is.

    I assumed that’s how everyone was handling it.

  31. thebigpink Avatar

    It’s on the news a lot but yeah would never share username

  32. RustyDawg37 Avatar

    Because it’s a vile echo chamber. I don’t want this in real life.

  33. 304rising Avatar

    I talk about Reddit at work sometimes if I see something or have a subreddit I want to recommend to someone.

  34. Embarrassed_Flan_869 Avatar

    Because it’s mostly text based.

    No one is showing videos or cringe worthy selfies destroying nature.

    AITA does cross over to other social media fairly often.

  35. pierogieman5 Avatar

    Redditors don’t talk about Reddit outside of Reddit that much. It’s the anonymous social media site where knowing other people IRL on here isn’t really the point, or can even be contrary to what we want out of the site. The site also has a certain longstanding reputation for being particularly toxic or argumentative due to anonymity and lack of personal connection between most of the users, although I think most of the forms of toxicity on less anonymous sites are actually way worse because they aren’t in an automatic low-trust social environment like Reddit is.

    You share an article or opinion to your friends or followers somewhere else, and you’re spreading god-knows-what information to peers that trust you to some extent. Here, everyone likes proving all the other strangers wrong on even minor things and dunking on them. Anti-social? Yeah. Toxic, combative, and maybe socially unhealthy for prolonged periods? Yeah. Prone to widely spreading misinformation in an isolated higher trust social environment constructed by algorithms and existing social groups? Less so. Obviously we’re not immune, but the problem subreddits are known and made fun of across the site, if not within them when their mods aren’t draconian about banning criticism. Anyway, that’s something that’s still dependent on the anonymity, and a culture you don’t necessarily want to go around announcing you’re a part of among personal acquaintances.

  36. dumptruckbhadie Avatar

    I talk about it. There’s a lot of exciting groups and people doing cool stuff.

  37. Courtaud Avatar

    Reddit is probably the most popular porn aggregator available.

    You don’t hear about it for the same reasons you don’t hear people talk about using Pornhub.

  38. Erikkamirs Avatar

    It’s embarrassing 😳. You look like a giant nerd the moment “Reddit” comes out your mouth. 

  39. mossoak Avatar

    shhhhh……. its a secret

  40. betimwrong Avatar

    Echo chambers are never nearly as popular as they tell themselves they are

  41. Key-Manufacturer9255 Avatar

    Because nobody who uses Reddit actively wants to be known for using Reddit

  42. ThirdSunRising Avatar

    Because none of us exist in real life

  43. Rayn_F Avatar

    Because low-key it’s not seen as respectable. The stereotype is that reddit is full of power hungry neckbeards that live to argue about issues they don’t understand.

    It’s the left equivalent of saying “so I was watching Fox News the other day”

  44. Northeast4life Avatar

    It’s like fight club

  45. nash3101 Avatar

    When I was in high school 12 years ago, people used Tumblr for anonymous browsing/blogging. I accidentally found out my female best friend’s Tumblr ID and she made me promise never to use it to see what she did on Tumblr

  46. Top-Yellow-4994 Avatar

    we don’t want anyone here, stop telling people about it! 😒

  47. ThrowRAboredinAZ77 Avatar

    I don’t know, it’s not exactly cool to be on Reddit is it?

  48. Complete_Spot3771 Avatar

    it’s not. also reddit isn’t really a socially acceptable app to be using in comparison to instagram

  49. Electronic_Cow_7055 Avatar

    There is zero accountability on this platform. It’s one giant cess pool of shit post after shit post. Nobody really believes what they post. It’s just emotional masturbation.

  50. 1Pip1Der Avatar

    SHHH!! We don’t talk about Fight Club OR Bruno

  51. cdspace31 Avatar

    Reddit was a cesspool of a community years ago. I think it still has that reputation. No one wants to admit they are on reddit.

    It’s since been bought by Conde Nast, and moderation has improved, nsfw stuff has been isolated unless you’re looking for it.

  52. MartialBob Avatar

    Reddit isn’t a real social media site. It’s basically a message board where everyone is anonymous.

  53. JellicoAlpha_3_1 Avatar

    It’s literally mentioned on TV shows as a plot device on the regular

    It’s a major plot point in season one of the new TV show Matlock

    I’ve heard it talked about on sports podcasts and even during football broadcasts on TV

  54. Capital_Ad9567 Avatar

    Most anonymous websites are basically incel sites.

  55. Awriternotalefter Avatar

    The first rule of Reddit, is that you don’t talk about Reddit.

    Fun fact: I signed up for a Reddit ad account a few weeks ago, and they presented some interesting facts about platform use – the percentage of Redditors who do not use other social media platforms is quite high. Surprisingly high.

  56. enayjay_iv Avatar

    I thinks people’s are scared

  57. SomeIrishGamer Avatar

    reddit is “popular” in the sense that yes everyone knows about it but besides using it rarely to find an answer to a problem you have, most people don’t really use it.

    it’s more so people know about reddit and just make fun of it, which to be fair is very easy with how stuck up people can be on here. personally between youtube, twitter and reddit, Reddit is my least favorite and the easiest one to get rage baited on

  58. strangetines Avatar

    So shit like Instagram and Facebook are for showing off, gossiping and trying to have sex with people. They’re like plastic fake make believe versions of real life, which is why people talk about them so much.

    Reddit is the old internet where it’s just a bunch of message/image boards. It’s about talking about random nonsense, arguing about bullshit or porn.

  59. Notquitearealgirl Avatar

    I do hear about reddit now sometimes, and it sucks more than it used to so that tracks.

  60. justalittlebuilder Avatar

    Real Gs move in silence like lasagna

  61. seagull7 Avatar

    It’s like Fight Club… Shhh

  62. FinanciallySecure9 Avatar

    lol my husband calls it The Underground.

  63. blueponies1 Avatar

    Eh i do hear my friends and coworkers at the office and what not mention Reddit from time to time, but it’s kind of a middle man of information, it can be left out of the equation a lot of the time. If I hear news on here, I’m going to share the news article, not the Reddit link. If I see a meme, I’m gonna send a picture of the meme, not the Reddit link. It can be taken out of the conversation for most topics. The only time I really hear the actual site being brought up is when people complain about how people are crazy on here and shit like that.

  64. Top-Comfortable-4789 Avatar

    Because it’s embarrassing to talk about Reddit doesn’t have the best reputation.

  65. Spellman23 Avatar

    Reddit is more popular among Millennials but not Gen Z/Gen Alpha

  66. WyrdHarper Avatar

    I ain’t admitting to anyone I’m on reddit.

  67. Botosuksuks808 Avatar

    First rule of Reddit

  68. Bellsar_Ringing Avatar

    I might say, “I read an online discussion of that recently.” I’d be less likely to detail what site that discussion was on.

  69. silveraith Avatar

    Do you really want to be known IRL as a redditor?

  70. steakpielover2411 Avatar

    probs because no one wants to admit they use it lol. also the anonymity aspect

  71. TricellCEO Avatar

    Because reddit is the place you go to get away from everyone you know IRL. Or at least, that’s how it is branded.

  72. saruin Avatar

    Aside from most other comments, I have one that’s not mentioned. They say it’s a liberal echo chamber which (most) conservatives naturally won’t like and avoid. Same deal with BlueSky.

  73. MaksimusFootball Avatar

    its like the first rule in … you know. the thing we do not talk about. 😉

  74. Lodger49er Avatar

    Reddit is a forum. Tik Tok and Instagram are New Facebook

  75. jfreebs Avatar

    Its funny I was watching a movie this week and someone said the phrase sub-reddit and I wondered how many people didn’t understand the term.

  76. ransom0374 Avatar

    Everyones guilty pleasure

  77. CitizenHuman Avatar

    Funny that you think Redditors spend time in real life.

  78. YVRkeeper Avatar

    I have a bunch of friends in IT who spend their days online, and anytime I mention Reddit they seem to have no idea what I’m talking about.

    These are people that used to go to Chive meetups, so I know they’re active in these types of communities.

  79. iilikecereal Avatar

    Bots. Notice the sheer number of auto-generated account names? I think maybe 80% of them are bots.

  80. Hyperx1313 Avatar

    Because it is an echo chamber.

  81. TexasDeconBlue Avatar

    It’s not popular. Look at the stock. It sucks.

  82. narkahticks Avatar

    Probably because the people on here are the vilest you’ll ever hear about. (Yes, I’m talking about the incest subreddit.)

  83. msalexandriagenesis Avatar

    Reddit gets a bad rap for the kind of people that use it, even if the site has been cleaned up a lot since the early days, but I think for that reason, a lot of people don’t openly admit to using it.

  84. sncd1998 Avatar

    It’s embarrassing to say you found it on Reddit. I kinda like that it’s not super popular among the normies hah

  85. sunsista_ Avatar

    I would never admit to using Reddit tbh 

  86. ned_rod Avatar

    I’m ashamed to be on Reddit, almost nobody knows I use reddit. Only the people that despise reddit know I’m on reddit

  87. throwaway775849 Avatar

    It’s bots and basement dwellers

  88. Traditional-Bake5123 Avatar

    redditors dont go outside

  89. WaterBottleOnAShelf Avatar

    Because you’re the only real person using reddit. The rest of us are bots.

  90. Distortedhideaway Avatar

    It’s like fight club up in here.

  91. headshotmonkey93 Avatar

    Cause most narcisists wanna show themselves on Instagram and Tiktok. The only narcicists on reddit are the moderators, and they barely leave their mother‘s basement.

  92. roses_sunflowers Avatar

    I mean, I talk about reddit irl but I’ve never heard anyone else do it. And I only do it in the sense of “I saw a post/meme on Reddit…” or something to that degree. The appeal of reddit is that it’s as anonymous as you want it to be, so most users aren’t going to go out of their way to bring it up.

  93. serouspericardium Avatar

    I think this site is full of idiots, so I’m ashamed that I actively use it

  94. Medium-Mixture-7096 Avatar

    Because it’s an embarrassment to be associated with. Mostly liberal nerds on here.

  95. 8Pandemonium8 Avatar

    Because Redditors are all too terrified to admit that they’re Redditors in public.

  96. Daddy_Bear29401 Avatar

    Ever stop to think that Reddit isn’t as popular as you think?

  97. Albin4president2028 Avatar

    The number one rule about reddit is don’t talk about reddit ✌️

  98. flakzpyro Avatar

    Reddit is more of a matured social media platform

  99. Interesting-Web-7681 Avatar

    That’s like saying why you never hear about people talking about WeChat, an app used by 1,300,000,000 people, the answer is you don’t often see those people around you.