Reddit may not have the flashy videos of TikTok, the snappy posts of X or the in-person connections of Facebook, but Reddit’s microcommunity approach to social media makes it an unexpected pop culture influence. With more than 100,000 communities on the platform, Reddit’s 52 million active, anonymous users impact everything from shopping to food to stocks.

Launched in 2005, Reddit is all about connecting users based on interests. Site users, called Redditors, follow subreddits for specific topics ranging from broad interest to the incredibly niche. They can post questions, thoughts, news, images and other content for other Redditors to comment on, upvote and downvote. These conversations may start in insular spaces, but hot new trends quickly leave their subreddit to influence pop culture in the real world.

At the root of Reddit’s influence is the site’s user base. According to Reddit, over 379 million users visited the site every week in December 2024. This makes Reddit the third most visited website in the United States per data tracked by Semrush. It also means that Reddit sees far more weekly visitors than other social media sites. Backlinko records that the next two most popular social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram, have 177 million and 138 million weekly U.S. visitors, respectively.

With this many users, it is perhaps inevitable that content on Reddit doesn’t stay on Reddit for long. Returned in internet searches, shared on other social media sites, reported in news articles or simply spoken about in real life, Reddit posts can quickly spread beyond their initial communities and into pop culture.

The Power of Niche Communities

Reddit reports that its visitors interact in over 100,000 subreddit communities. r/News shares recent news articles. r/Baking is where those who bake and those who eat can connect. r/Corn is simply about corn on the cob and corn dishes. r/MadeMeSmile consists of images and stories that made the original poster smile, while r/MildlyInfuriating has pictures and stories that are, as the name implies, mildly infuriating.

There are subreddits for sports teams, fandoms, hobbies, lifestyles, careers and companies. If you want to talk about something, there is almost always a community for it on Reddit.

Small spaces have the power to amplify voices. Instead of competing with users with the most followers or endless other content, it is easier to be heard in smaller groups of people who share the same passions. Reddit’s anonymity – users do not have to provide any identifying information – may also make some people more willing to speak, for better or worse.

Highly voted posts can reach Reddit’s front page and beyond through the site’s voting mechanism. For instance, a poster in r/Old_Recipes shared a recipe for murder cookies. With over 2,400 upvotes, the trending recipe has made it into Better Homes & Gardens. Peanut butter protein balls, which get shared every few months in r/FitMeals or r/HealthyFood, have become a trendy food for both home cooks and store-bought snacks that tempt beyond health communities.

Reddit as an Incubator for Pop Culture Trends

Reddit has functioned as an early testing ground for cultural trends, from stock investing to shopping trends or even slang. The community in r/WallStreetBets can send the stock market haywire. Last June, Reuters reported that GameStop stock, a common target of the subreddit, jumped 21% in a day after a Reddit user posted a bet on the stock.

According to an article from Quartz, slang terms like “TIL,” short for “today I learned,” and “tl;dr,” short for “too long, didn’t read,” originated on Reddit. Now, however, these terms appear across social media and blogs.

Fashion tips on r/FemaleFashionAdvice and r/MaleFashionAdvice influence the world of clothing. r/TechNews keeps readers at the forefront of new technology, influencing everything from what users buy to what companies build. r/SuggestMeABook brings new readers into the latest book trends through recommendations that match their reading preferences.

Reddit’s Influence on Consumer Choices

As Reddit alters pop culture, it also shapes buying habits. In a recent podcast with Adweek, Reddit Chief Revenue Officer Mike Romoff noted that almost half of the discussions on Reddit are commerce driven. People turn to the site for research and reviews when choosing what to buy.

In turn, businesses are adjusting their products and marketing. SmartBrief recommended that companies include Reddit in their marketing strategies in 2024 to research, customer engagement and direct feedback. This conversation between businesses and consumers alters products that fuel purchasing, creating a cycle that keeps Reddit central in consumption.

Reddit has also emerged as a key player in the underconsumption trend. Amid inflation and an interest in more sustainable consumption, subreddits like r/BuyIfForLife and r/Frugal share ideas for buying longer-lasting or secondhand products or upcycling what you already own.

Other subreddits like r/EatCheapAndHealthy provide low-cost recipe ideas for nutritious meals. Users share cheap ways to make basic dishes tasty, how to use extra bulk foods, or easy recipes like chicken and pasta bake that can make an affordable dinner. When these recipes get popular, news outlets like BuzzFeed round them up in articles about cheap meals, spreading them to users outside of Reddit.

From Online to Real World: How Reddit Drives Change

Reddit’s influence extends beyond consumer trends and new slang. Politics, activism, and legal and financial advice all transcend Reddit to help – or occasionally hurt.

Last year, a group of 75,000 Redditors organized a boycott of Canadian grocery chain Loblaws to protest high prices, according to an article in The Conversation. In r/LegalAdvice, recent posters are getting help with labor law violations, immigration law and more, all provided by people looking to help for free. At its best, Reddit is a forum for people with knowledge to share with others. Through Reddit’s far reach, that knowledge can also be shared among people offline.

Some of Reddit’s influence in pop culture is highly negative. In 2020, Reddit banned hate speech. A Variety article described how this included shutting down several subreddits known for racism, misogyny, transphobic and other bigoted content.

The niche communities on Reddit can also lead to echo chambers, both online and offline. UVA Data Science explains this social media phenomenon as the “dynamic within public political discourse where citizens speak only to, and hear only from, others of the same ideological persuasion.” Researchers at the University of Michigan found that biased political content moderation fed into echo chambers in the 2024 presidential election, indicating the power of Reddit conversation to be particularly divisive.

For Better or Worse, Reddit Is a Pop Culture Launchpad

What starts as a casual observation or question in a subreddit post might be the next pop culture trend. Fashions, food, exercise, slang or spending – these trends have a way of starting in Reddit’s niche communities before spreading to the rest of the world. While some may only kick off the unusual pastime of stapling bread to trees, others could trigger the next mainstream cultural shift.

Sharon Rhodes is the creative force behind the food blog The Honour System. Passionate about all things homemade, Sharon is a seasoned recipe curator focused on making healthier cooking and baking accessible to all.