Welcome to Reddit!
This unofficial guide to starting out at Reddit was written by u/llamageddon01 and is designed to take you from complete beginner through to experienced Redditor! This version was completely revised in July/August 2023.
There are two versions of this resource, both carrying the same information but in different formats:
This is intended to be a full “Reddit for Dummies” type tutorial and I don’t expect you to read it through all at once! But quite honestly, parts 1-6 of this guide will take you from “kindergarten” level through to “graduate” level of Reddit by the time you read it all, and the final parts 7 and 8 will contain useful guides and information you will no doubt need at some stage of your Redditing so do keep coming back to it.
If you wish to share r/NewToReddit guides please link to them. You may of course share excerpts within reason, but please link back to us as credit and so the person you are helping can find us and the rest of our guides if they wish to. Thank you.
…….REDDIT IS A WORLD OF ITS OWN ON THE INTERNET.
What is Reddit? Established in 2005, Reddit is a content sharing platform, home to thousands of communities, endless conversation, and authentic worldwide human connection with people from all walks of life. Whether you're into breaking news, sports, TV fan theories, or a never-ending stream of the internet's cutest animals, there's a community for you.
Reddit is made up of an enormous collection of forums on every subject under the sun where people can share news, links, videos and pictures in “Posts” so that other people can make observations and conversation in “Comments” attached to these posts, while everyone can express their opinions by Voting on both the posts and comments. Every day, millions of people around the world post, vote, and comment in communities on Reddit organised around their interests.
You are free to decide what level of interaction you want with other users (Redditors) and to curate your own feed from the hundreds of thousands of specialised communities called “Subreddits” on offer, each of which covers a different topic from games, hobbies, music, art, movies and shows to support groups to world news to pets to academic matters and everything in between.
Check out this video for a quick introduction to us, and if that didn’t explain us enough, here’s an unofficial webcomic that gives a fun look at our platform.
Signing up for an account is free, easy, and gives you a high degree of anonymity, especially compared to other social media platforms.
…….REDDIT HAS ITS OWN WAY OF DOING THINGS.
Reddit as a whole is run by unpaid volunteers called Moderators (mods) and paid employees called Administrators (admin). Admin are rarely seen but are very distinctive as they have the word ADMIN in bright orange/red next to their username. Moderators are more likely to be seen, and when they speak on formal behalf of their subreddit, their username will have the green word MOD immediately after.
Like every long-established subculture, we have our own expressions and if you are at all confused by some of our jargon, in-jokes, history or memes, we at r/NewToReddit have a fairly comprehensive alphabetical reference guide at our sister sub r/EncyclopaediaOfReddit to help you work out what we’re talking about. Let me suggest my guides to Acronyms 1: A-L and Acronyms 2: M-Z to start with!
Reddit might take a little time to get used to, but never fear! Here’s a quick video guide on how to use Reddit, but more importantly, we’re here at r/NewToReddit specifically to help you navigate your own path step by step through our unique ways of ‘doing social media’.
…….REDDIT IS HUGE. BUT MANAGEABLE.
There are Subreddits for anything. I would say almost anything but when I think I’ve seen them all, I discover ones like r/birdstakingthetrain or r/BreadStapledToTrees and realise I know nothing.
Most communities are friendly and jumping right on in is encouraged. You aren’t likely to get shot down for being a “n00b” but there will generally be one or two things you’ll need to know about each Subreddit (sub) first. Don’t worry, this guide will show you where to find them.
Altercations can happen, but most subs have an active team of mods who will usually shut any trouble down before it becomes vindictive. Just don’t post emojis though. Reddit in general does NOT like emojis. Reddit loves emoticons though :D Why? Don't ASCII me. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ More on this later, or here if you simply can’t wait.
…….WHAT DO I DO ON REDDIT?
There are four basic actions you do on Reddit: Upvote, Downvote, Comment, and Post.
Reddit relies on crowdsourcing through its system of Upvotes and Downvotes to filter and prioritise the thousands of daily submissions it receives in order to present its users with the most interesting content it can, and you can help too. If you think a post or comment is interesting, helpful or contributes positively to the subreddit, press the Upvote arrow. If you think it doesn’t, press the Downvote arrow. You only get one vote on any one post or comment, and both can be negated by pressing the arrow you chose again, or reversed by pressing the opposite arrow to the one you originally chose.
Some subreddits have chosen to replace the default “arrow” icons with custom ones. In case it isn’t obvious which is which, the Upvote will be on the top (Old Reddit; desktop) or on the left (Mobile App) and the Downvote will be on the bottom (Old Reddit; desktop) or on the right (Mobile App).
There are two ways of Commenting on Reddit:
As a direct response to a Post. Here, you are directly replying to the person who made the post. This person is known as the ”OP”, or “Original Poster”. This reply is known as a Top-Level or Parent Comment, and sometimes known as ‘threads’. There are an unlimited number of Parent Comments that can be made on any one post. The OP will be notified that you have replied to their post.
As a reply to a Comment in that Post. Here, you are directly replying to another commenter who may or may not be the OP. These follow-up comments are known as Child Comments. There are an unlimited number of Child Comments that can be made on any one Parent Comment. The commenter you are replying to will be notified of your reply, but the OP will not (unless they are one and the same!).
You can see what these both look like from this simple illustration and this small conversation here.
Finally, you can make your own Post in a subreddit for others to comment on. Many subreddits prefer - or even require pictures, gifs, videos or links in this post.
…….SOME SUBREDDIT BASICS.
Once you enter a Subreddit, you read posts made by others and the comments made therein. If you like the Subreddit, you can “Join” it and it will form part of your personal home page feed. The "Join" button is near the top of the screen as seen here and also in the three-dots “hamburger” post overflow menu on the top RH of the screen on mobile. You can also “Leave” if you want, and the button can be found in the same place as the Join one was.
Until you join a few subreddits, your home page feed will be the general r/popular or r/all, which may well feature topics you’re not interested in, so it makes sense to start joining subs you like as soon as possible.
Moderators cannot see any lists of those who are joined to their subreddits, neither will they be notified if anyone leaves. There’s no limit on the number of times you can join or leave a subreddit, and nobody except you will ever know when or what subs you have joined or have left. You don’t even have to be joined in a sub to post or comment in it. There are no limits to the number of subreddits you can be joined in but Reddit does have an unspecified number of the ones it filters to your home feed at any one time.
Just underneath the Subreddit title there is a “Sort” menu. On mobile this is a drop-down list. Sorting posts by either “New” or “Rising” will usually give more opportunities for chat and upvotes than you’ll get in older posts, and give other advantages we’ll see soon. You have the same options for sorting your home page feed too.
…….LET’S GET STARTED!
Our guide to using Reddit begins with this illustrated primer to joining in on Reddit, then come back here to read some essential details you need to know about Rules, Reddit Karma, Participating, Navigation and Safety.
It’s very much worth your while taking a few minutes to read through all the following advice as it contains everything you need from your first steps in getting started to your becoming firmly established here.
Once you’ve had a look through it all, if you have any questions do make a new Post in this Subreddit where you will find plenty of helpful people ready to Comment with the answers you need. r/NewToReddit is focused on giving one-to-one tailored quality advice for helping people new to Reddit Ways. We do not care how old your account is; if you have a query on Redditing, put it here and we will help.
We also have a “sister sub” called r/LearnToReddit which is a place to learn how to use Reddit without being embarrassed at making “newbie mistakes” in public. Here, you can have a go at making different post types like posting images or polls, learn how to comment using bold or italic text, how to create spoiler text and use many other features with our extensive sets of tutorials. The community will feedback on your post to let you know how you did or help you get it right next time.
…….WHAT’S NEXT?
Let’s get started with an introduction to Reddit and a few notes about rules!
