the 120-second death sentence
you post something on reddit. 50 to 200 people see it in "new."
if you don't get 5 to 10 upvotes in the first 120 seconds, it's dead. the algorithm buries it. nobody will ever see it again.
two minutes. that's your entire audition.
the average front page post survives 4 hours and 15 minutes up there. some die in 15 minutes. some last 18 hours. but none of them got there without winning those first two minutes.
everything else you learn about reddit is downstream of this. win the first 120 seconds or don't bother.
the title is the whole post
most people scroll reddit by title alone. they never click. the title IS the content.
turns out the posts that blow up share a specific fingerprint: longer titles (12 words, not 8), high curiosity (you physically cannot scroll past without needing to know), and first-person narrative. "i did a thing. it went wrong. judge me."
41% of the biggest posts use "i," "my," or "me." not "one should consider the implications." just "i accidentally sent my boss the wrong screenshot and now i'm unemployed."
four title archetypes dominate everything:
the confession
"TIFU by accidentally sending my boss the wrong screenshot"
"AITA for telling my friend their startup idea is terrible"
"i did a thing. judge me." people cannot resist weighing in on someone else's moral crisis. it's human nature weaponized as a content format.
the opinion battlefield
"most overrated programming language"
"the most underrated city in america"
everyone has an opinion. everyone thinks theirs is correct. the comments become a war zone. the algorithm loves war zones.
the escalation
"did i overreact?"
"ended up quitting on the spot"
moral uncertainty. the reader needs to know: were you justified or not? that question is physically impossible to scroll past.
the secret reveal
"i worked at [company] for 5 years. here's what nobody tells you."
insider knowledge. the thing everyone suspects but nobody has confirmed. irresistible.
video vs text vs image
video gets 18% more engagement than images. short clips under 30 seconds dominate.
but here's what nobody talks about: text posts get fewer upvotes but way more comments. and they stay on the front page longer. because text invites conversation. images invite a reaction. reactions are fast. conversations take time.
the algorithm notices time.
want raw numbers? post video. want to own the conversation? post text.
the shitpost paradox
reddit's most upvoted post of all time is a shaky phone recording of a Times Square billboard saying "$GME GO BRRR." 494,000 upvotes.
second place is rick astley posting a photo of himself on a bike backstage in vegas. 1989. just vibes.
fourth place is a meme asking people to upvote chancellor palpatine so he shows up when you google "the senate."
that's it. that's the content.
none of these are polished. none took hours. none look like a marketing team touched them.
reddit punishes effort. polished content signals trying. trying signals inauthenticity. inauthenticity is the only real sin on reddit.
the biggest post of january 2026 was a completely fabricated whistleblower confession about a food delivery app using a "desperation score" to exploit drivers. 87,000 upvotes. millions of views. entirely made up. but it felt like someone risking their career to tell the truth.
not a lesson in lying. a lesson in what reddit actually values: raw, messy, human-sounding content that feels like it wasn't supposed to be published.
shitposts are not memes
people confuse these. they're different animals.
memes are funny because they're repeatable. you see the format, you know the structure, you smile at the variation.
shitposts are funny because they're NOT repeatable. the humor comes from the absence of pattern. it's dadaism for the internet. the goal is to confuse someone so thoroughly that they laugh.
meme: recognizable template + new caption = smile
shitpost: no template + deliberate chaos + insider absurdity = confused laughter
the characteristics:
- no template. if it has a template, it's a meme.
- deliberate imperfection. bad photoshop is a feature, not a bug.
- maximum impact, minimum apparent effort.
- surrealism over logic.
- insider references that exclude outsiders. tribal signaling at its purest.
the paradox: making something look effortless requires deep cultural fluency. the best shitposters know the rules well enough to break them in exactly the right way.
when to post
reddit is US-dominated. all times eastern.
the three windows:
- 6 to 9 AM. east coast waking up, europe mid-morning, west coast about to start. your post gains momentum across three time zones.
- 12 to 2 PM. lunch break. professionals doom-scrolling over sad desk salads.
- 5 to 8 PM. decompression hours. highest total traffic.
best day: monday. then saturday and sunday.
the contrarian move: 3 to 4 AM wednesday. zero competition. the "new" feed is yours. if night owls and international users give you those first 10 upvotes, you snowball before the morning crowd even wakes up.
dead zone: 2 to 5 AM any other day. don't bother.
what kills it
sounding like ai
the number one killer right now. reddit users are paranoid. if your post sounds even slightly polished or formulaic, the comments will be "nice chatgpt post" and you're done. the mob has spoken.
self-promotion
reddit can smell marketing from three subreddits away. anything that looks like a funnel gets downvoted into the earth's core.
ghosting your own post
posting and walking away. you need to be in the comments. responding. engaging. the algorithm tracks OP activity. dead OP, dead post.
wrong room
every subreddit has unwritten rules the sidebar doesn't mention. the same post that gets 50,000 upvotes in r/memes gets nuked in r/science. read the room before you enter it.
visible effort
the meta-rule. the effort shows. always. reddit rewards content that feels like it just happened, not content that was reviewed by three people and a content calendar.
the pipeline
reddit isn't just reddit. it's where the internet starts.
reddit → twitter → tiktok → instagram → linkedin → your aunt's facebook.
the same authenticity that wins upvotes wins engagement everywhere. the difference is reddit is the most honest about it. no follower count bias. no verification badges. no algorithm pushing celebrity content.
on reddit, the content wins or loses on its own merits.
that's what makes it the best testing ground. if it works on reddit, it works.
the checklist
before you post:
- can someone scroll past your title? if yes, rewrite it. the title needs to create a gap they physically need to close.
- does it sound human? read it out loud. if it sounds like a press release, kill it.
- are you posting into a live audience? those first 120 seconds need real people online. don't waste them.
- would you actually upvote this? not "is this good content." would you click the arrow. be honest.
- does it feel effortless? the more work it looks like, the less reddit trusts it.
the best reddit posts don't feel like posts. they feel like someone caught a thought, typed it out, and hit submit before they could second-guess it.
that's not just reddit. that's the whole game.