Tis the season for recaps and predictions, and today, it’s Reddit’s turn to share its latest usage and trend insights for the year, as part of its annual “Reddit Recap”.
You can check out Reddit's full 2023 Recap report for yourself here, but in this post, we'll take a look at some of the key notes.
First off, on overall usage, Reddit says that it now sees 70 million daily active users, and that those users are active in 100,000 subreddit communities.
The latter figure is the same as last year, so topically, Reddit isn’t seeing a massive expansion in discussion activity. But Reddit’s daily active count is rising. In 2020, when Reddit first began reporting daily active users (as opposed to monthly actives), Reddit was serving some 52 million DAUs. So, on average, Reddit’s adding almost 7 million more daily actives per year, though that has also jumped significantly in the past 12 months, with Reddit reporting 57 million users in its 2022 recap.
Despite controversies around API pricing increases, changing its rules for moderators, and revamping its Reddit Gold system, Reddit is seeing solid growth, which could now position it for more success into the future.
Reddit’s most-viewed community for 2023 was once again r/amitheasshole (AITA), which has held that moniker for the last three years.
As explained by Reddit:
“AITA enables users to share real-life situations, and get a crowd-sourced take on whether they were in the right (NTA), in the wrong (YTA), or if everyone messed up (ESH). Like whether a redditor was in the wrong to walk out of a restaurant and not pay for the in-law's dinner or whether it was right to kick a bridesmaid out of a wedding party for turning up in the wrong dress. This is the community for refreshingly honest feedback, and entertaining takes on real-life situations.”
So if you wanted a taste of what resonates on Reddit…
Reddit also notes that r/mildlyinfuriating was the third most-viewed Reddit community of the year, rising from #21 in 2022, while, r/popculturechat saw 1,880% YoY growth.
Reddit’s most popular posts of 2023, meanwhile, were:
- r/MadeMeSmile: This woman was so nervous about flying, so the flight attendant explained every sound and bump (230,531 upvotes)
- r/MadeMeSmile: Japan, just Japan. (220,082 upvotes)
- r/funny: Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston are shocked by the size of an Australian reporter (213,783 upvotes)
- r/pics: Hi Reddit today is grans 100th birthday and she wanted to show off her hairdo for such a special day (213,133 upvotes)
- r/AnarchyChess: If this post gets 131,072 upvotes, I'll post again with twice as many grains of rice (198,736 upvotes)
Also, AI:
“If 2023 had a digital buzzword on Reddit, it would undoubtedly be “Artificial Intelligence” (AI). A zeitgeist shift toward AI unfolded across the platform as Pope Francis, rocking a white jacket, landed on Reddit. r/ArtificialInteligence (up 579% YoY for views) and r/MachineLearning (up 24% YoY for views) were bubbling forums dissecting neural networks, questioning ethical AI, and pondering the future of machine-human coexistence while r/midjourney (up 1,887% YoY for views) continued to amaze with spectacular creations that left the community wondering ‘’real or AI’’?
The rise of AI discussion is no doubt what you would expect, but it is interesting to note the Reddit-specific trends here.
It’s an interesting summary of the year that was, which, as noted, was also a highly eventful year for Reddit itself, as it went about reforming its business, in order to maximize its ads potential. Over the past few years, Reddit's been working to clean up its platform, and solidify its rules, with a view, ideally, to a future IPO.
In this context, 2023 was a year of tough calls for the app, but with usage rising, it does seem to be on the right path.
Which could make it a more valuable consideration for your marketing, which is why these trend notes could be of particular value to brands.
Reddit’s also published regional trend reports for Australia, Canada, Germany, France, India, and the United Kingdom.
Finally, Reddit also notes that users can view their personal recap by tapping the banana icon under their profile.
Some interesting insights, worth a look if you have any interesting in Reddit and/or overall web trends.
You can check out the full Reddit Recap report for 2023 here.
