How to use Reddit for total beginners

I always want to keep you in the know. You may have heard of Reddit but never really got into using it. Unlike other social media sites, Reddit is more group- or topic-focused. 

Think of it as various rooms of people sharing and talking about one particular topic. About 73.1 million folks use it daily, and there are 2.2 million groups you can check out. If you’re totally new to Reddit, here’s everything you need to know.

Reddit, set … go!

Reddit looks and feels like an old-school forum or message board: Members, or Redditors, can create and post to individual forums called subreddits

Posts have comment threads attached where others can weigh in. You’ll see little arrows on posts and comments, too — these are upvotes and downvotes. That’s the crowd-based ranking system Redditors use to weed out spam and promote the good stuff.

You don’t need an account to browse …

But it’s free and come with a few perks. For one, you can post or respond to others’ threads and earn karma, a points system based on how many upvotes your post or reply gets. 

You can also subscribe to subreddits to get the latest posts on your Reddit homepage — look for that big Join button.

Bonus: Lurking is when you only go on Reddit to read posts, not say anything yourself.

💡 Privacy tip: Don’t use identifying traits in your screenname! Reddit accounts are anonymous by default. If you include clues like your city or nickname, it’s easier than you might think for people to ID you.

Lingo to know

Don’t let the acronyms scare you. Here are some of the most common ones on Reddit: 

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TikTok GenZers getting into trouble

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Zuckerberg waves shiny object to re-direct attention from scandals

Open/download audioYou can always gauge how much legal trouble Facebook is in by how many shiny new toys it puts in front of consumers. Today, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a re-redesign of the social media site, but does it really matter? 

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Protect your phone number! How cheap technology spreads the robocall plague

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