Wow. Here we are, ten years later.
Here’s how Reddit looked minutes after Steve and Alexis flipped the switch in a small rented apartment in Medford, Massachusetts, ten years ago. And after Steve promptly downvoted Alexis’ first post. That’s right,the first ever submission to Reddit was downvoted.
To be specific, here we are after:
(All numbers in this post are as of June 21st, 2015.)
(If you want to make something prettier than this, you can find all the data to play withover in r/redditdata.)
If we were a country, our current active users would make up the 8th largest population in the world, just after Nigeria and larger than Russia, Japan, and Mexico.
But enough boring statistics. Let’s get to the good stuff. Let’s talk about the best content on Reddit.
In order to get to the most gilded Reddit post ever, we must first discuss the most gilded comment ever, which is also the single most gilded anything on Reddit ever.
It’sthis comment, from an AMA by TSM Bjergsen in the League of Legends community.
But the reason it’s been gilded so much doesn’t have as much to do with that comment specifically, and more with this one:
And… it happened.
So the most gilded post in Reddit history? Yup, you guessed it. Avideo by 3hoho5 titled “Me eating a bull’s dick for 400 gold on a single comment.” It is exactly what the title describes. Enjoy.
So, now that we know Reddit’s priorities, let’s move on to the other most gilded posts and comments on Reddit:
Sorry, everyone, we really tried hard to pull the top saved Reddit posts, but u/drunken_economist repeatedly broke things trying to run that query. You’ve saved too many things. Since saving posts has been aroundalmost since the beginning of Reddit and saving comments has only been available site-widesince March of last year, you’ll have to be satisfied with the most saved comments on reddit instead.
Also, you REALLY like free things. In the top ten saved comments, we had two sets of almost identical comments, so in the interest of sharing more cool things, we’ve combined those duplicates into one spot in the standings. There were also a couple deleted comments that have been omitted because it’s no fun linking to nothing.
These are a few of our favorites from the top. You can view the larger listin r/redditdata here.
Aside from all the fascinating and hilarious content they create, redditors are also unbelievably generous. Together we’ve donated over $1.8 million to Extra Life, Haiti, teachers, and Nepal. We donated another $827,659.49—10% of our 2014 ad revenue—to the top 10 charities of your choice. You’ve also donated a huge amount that we can’t begin to track through individual subreddit campaigns andspontaneous events like this.
We’ve also organized for causes you care about, evenearning a thank you from President Obama for our action on net neutrality.
And there are countless thousands of stories of redditors who have helpedsave(1)someone’s(2)life(3) (not to mention the amazing workr/suicidewatch,r/depression and other similar communities do),gotten them desperately needed(1)medical care(2),provided emotional support, and so, so much more.
You guys really are amazing. Thank you for making the last 10 years of Reddit amazing too.
Here’s to the next 10 years.
PS(A): If you liked the content in this blog post, you'll probably also likeUpvoted Weekly, our newsletter that highlights some of the best content from Reddit each week. You cancheck out last week's issue here, andsign up here if you're interested!
And so it ends.
After 1,008,316 presses and more than two months since itlaunched on April 1st, the button has ended. In this time a lot has happened. There werefactions,religions,revolutions,weather forecasting,a prophet who renounced their status, andan allegiance with the undead to name a few. Confused? You can read up on the buttonhere.
The most awe-inspiring part of the button was the creativity of the reddit community. We wanted to take a moment and celebrate some of the amazing things that you came up with as a result of a 60 second timer and a button.
The button cared not who you were; all were judged for the time they pressed, regardless of fame:
I'm filled with regret.pic.twitter.com/hLVgO773kH
— Markus Persson (@notch)April 9, 2015It also became a source of real life change for some. It helpeda redditor with MS get a motorized scooter so they could go on rides with their daughter,prompted one marriage, might haveended another, and helpedtworedditors get sober.
Other than providing the simple rules in the announcement blog post, we tried to not interfere with the button wherever possible. The/r/thebutton community immediately began creating a detailed lore with myriad religions and factions, all spawning from the act of pressing or not.
Some redditors took it upon themselves to document this lore so others might be educated about its intricacies—do you know the difference between a Red Guard and a Knight of the Button?
Button pressers and abstainers alike worked together to scrape as much data about the button as possible. Some incredible tools emerged to track button presses. Most notable wasThe Button Snitch by/u/treyjp based off initial work by/u/jamesrom./u/Chr12t0pher created awebsite full of various button stats as well as/u/TheButtonStatsBot that kept everyone updated on the passing ofsignificant button milestones. Special mention to/u/emtes for their work on theButton Stats API.
redditor/u/mncke createdThe Squire a browser extension that would coordinate presses between those who wished to sustain the button for as long as possible. He also createdThe Necromancer, a program that harnessed the presses of long dead ‘zombie’ accounts to prevent the coming of the after-timer. Ultimately, however,the undead proved to be unruly.
Despite this spirit of collaboration, there were some redditors who sought to mislead others into pressing erroneously. Most notably,/u/MrFunderthuck’s delicious ruse involved creatinga chrome extension that purported to automatically press the button at a time of the owner’s choosing but instead hijacked their precious clicks.
/u/jophuds and/u/Drunken_Economist of the reddit data team looked into how redditors interacted with the button:
The crazed early days where 60% of eligible viewers would press the button quickly subsided. By the fourth day only 10% of viewers were pressing; after two weeks only 5% of viewers were pressing. This was the equilibrium for the button.
All devices fell to the button. Final counts showing 66% of presses from PCs - more than three times that of Mac. Cellular platforms were also lain to waste, 11% of presses coming via Android and 3% from iPhones.
The button brought all redditors with it regardless of their tenure. The distribution of year of account for 1 and 60 second flair shows little difference.
As promised, we’ve also released an anonymized list of timestamps for every button press.Check out the /r/redditdata post to get a hold of it. We can’t wait to see what the reddit community makes of this data set (looking at you/r/dataisbeautiful).
We’ve alsoopen sourced thebutton github repo, for those who enjoy such things.
But who was the last redditor to press the button? “The pressiah,” as the/r/thebutton community decided they would be called, whose coming would signal freedom from tyranny or the end of existence, depending on who you asked. At 2015-06-05T21:49:53.069000, a humble user named/u/BigGoron pressed the button. It was never pressed again.
Thank you to everyone who took part in the button. It was a success only due to the creativity of the reddit community. Tune in to this week’sUpvoted podcast to hear an episode about the button.(Update: Listen to the episode below!) For those wishing to reminisce on the highs and lows of the button, check out/r/ButtonAftermath.
More incredible things emerged from the button than we could have anticipated. This blogpost is just a smattering—I encourage you to share your favorite button moments in the comments.
The experiment is over?
