While Facebook, Twitter and Instagram continue on with all the fake news and garbage usually associated with social media, Reddit has been sitting in its special little corner having a party with Rick Astley. Sure, it did some not great things with user data but let’s try and work past that.
Reddit has released some interesting stats for 2020, including which posts were its most appreciated. By “appreciated” we just mean they got the most upvotes (or fake internet points or whatever you want to call them). Fortunately for everyone, the most upvoted post wasn’t some influencer but about singer and 80’s superstar Rick Astley backstage at one of his first concerts. Better yet, the photo was posted by Astley himself.
Of course, Reddit as a platform upvoted Astley not because it has some kind fever for 80’s cheese but because of the meme he spawned. Since the mid 2000’s, folks on the internet have been sharing posts with outlandish titles only to trick people into clicking on a link to Rick Astley’s breakout song “Never Gonna Give You Up”. It’s a dumb joke but rickrolling is sometimes all you can do.
What’s upvote, Reddit?
In second place is a far more niche post. One that involves some kind of Flat Earther beginning to see the error in their ways and slowly becoming less of a clown. It’s not laugh-out-loud funny but it’s satisfying in it’s own way. In a year where everyone seemed to constantly fall deeper and deeper in garbage conspiracy theories, maybe it was worth celebrating someone digging themselves out.
Reddit also for the first time revealed how many daily users the site has and the number is staggering. Apparently 52 million users log on to Reddit every day to check out what’s happening in the world. It’s certainly not challenging the numbers of sites like Facebook and Instagram but it’s still very healthy indeed.
(Source: The Verge)