A Look at the Kind Heart of One of the Most Influential Communities on the Internet

Reddit.com, the popular news aggregator and social media site owned by Condé Nast Digital, has become quite a powerhouse of social and cultural clout in recent years. Founded in 2005 by Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian, the site was originally intended to be much like other social news forums. Contributors submit links to stories, or they can post original content. Other users then comment on the stories, and discussion ensues.

The big difference with Reddit is that both the stories and the comments are subject to a sort of popularity contest within the community: any user can “upvote” or “downvote” any post or comment based on whether they think the topic is interesting or if they agree with the story’s message or sentiments. Upvotes move the post farther up the page, increasing the likelihood that more community members (called “Redditors”) will see it and vote in their turn. Downvoting, of course, has the opposite effect.

The upvoting system has had a number of remarkable results. For one thing, attention-seekers who post outrageous or intentionally offensive links and comments are generally downvoted by dozens or even hundreds of people with remarkable speed, pushing their noxious posts down into obscurity within minutes.. But the most extraordinary effect of this system has been the emergence of a very large, very influential altruistic movement on Reddit.

Redditors who post questions, problems, and even requests for help are very often upvoted by hundreds, and this gives their issues weight in the community. They can get their message out to thousands of people, if just a few dozen think their cause is worthy. As a consequence, Reddit has become famous as a forum for nice people, where kindness is encouraged and applauded and cruelty is put in its place.

Even more amazing has been the flood of selfless generosity on Reddit. The upvoting system has encouraged the Reddit community to be brave. As a general rule, Redditors are not mocked or scoffed at for offering advice and support to one another. The result has been an unprecedented swell of uncontrolled, unmitigated, and often unsolicited help and succor. From using software prowess to help clean up family photos to donating thousands of dollars to an individual’s cause, the Reddit community has come out in force time and again to help one another. Below are 25 of the most incredible examples of that unique brand of Reddit altruism.

1. Reddit Secret Santa

In 2009, Reddit established two gift exchanges for its community: Secret Santa, and Arbitrary Day (Reddit’s own invented non-denominational holiday). For the Secret Santa, Redditors sign up to participate, and about a month before Christmas, everyone on the list is sent an email telling them the address of the person they have been matched with.

From there, the honor system takes over: everyone who has signed up is asked to buy, wrap, and ship a gift to their anonymous address. The Secret Santa has been a remarkable success, with thousands of people lining up to exchange gifts with complete strangers.

In 2009, approximately 4,524 people from 57 countries signed up and nearly all of them — 4,256 — participated, spending an average of $37.68 on buying and shipping gifts. Redditors have spent a total of $185,617.65 on Secret Santa gifts for one another. So far, 12,179 people have signed up to participate in the 2010 Secret Santa.

2. Girl with Huntington’s Disease Given Shopping Spree

In early October of 2010, a story was posted on Reddit about a seven-year-old girl, Kathleen Edwards, who was in the advanced stages of Huntington’s disease, a degenerative brain disorder. The story told of how the girl’s neighbors, who were feuding with her parents, began taunting Kathleen about her illness, hitching a coffin to a pick-up truck outside their house and putting depictions of her as part of a skull-and-crossbones on Facebook.¹

The story caused an uproar, with Redditors all over the world expressing their rage and disgust over the neighbor’s behavior. The neighbors quickly apologized, but the outpouring of support for Kathleen and her family didn’t stop. Within just a couple of weeks, a toy store owner and Redditor in Kathleen’s area, Hans Masing of Tree Town Toys, organized a shopping spree at his store for the child, raising donations on Reddit.

More than $17,000 in donations came in from all over the world. Kathleen was given a limo ride to the store and a red carpet to lead her in. When she had shopped to her heart’s content, her family wrote an enormous check to Mott’s Children’s Hospital to buy toys for other sick children. Below is a video of her big day:

3. Operation Birthday Boy

During the first week of September in 2010, an anonymous poster put up an invitation to William Lashua’s 90^th birthday party on the popular site 4chan. Within minutes the invite had been reposted on Reddit, and the very next day, cards, flowers, and gifts began arriving at William’s door. On the day of his party, September 4^th, a few Redditors and 4chan users who lived in the WWII vet’s area even showed up at his party. According to William’s grandson, 5 UPS trucks showed up on the day of the party with offerings from kindly strangers. The party was a smash hit, and William was one happy nonagenarian.

4. Reddit Restores Last Photo of User’s Mom

On December 4^th, 2009, Redditor “elmstreeter” posted this message:

“My mother died of cancer yesterday. This is the last picture of us together and I wondered if anyone with mad Photoshop skills could touch up the picture and remove the oxygen cannula. I would greatly appreciate anyone who could be of assistance.”

Hundreds of people responded over the next few hours. Those with no Photoshop skills simply sent their condolences and kind thoughts; hundreds more also included their best efforts at touching up the photo. By the time the funeral was held more than one thousand people had replied, and elmstreeter was able to choose one of the newly retouched photos to include in a collage at the service.

5. One Random Redditor Buys Another a New Monitor

One day, Redditor “emorrow64″ posted a picture of a plastic monkey, a gift from a co-worker, perched atop an ancient-looking CRT monitor. While most people posted comments about the monkey, their own personal office doo-dad collections, and so on, one Redditor, “wharthog3″: , had eyes only for the monitor. This exchange ensued:

wharthog3: Is that a CRT monitor?

emorrow64: Why yes, yes it is. My boss is a tight ass.

wharthog3: Well I am willing to offer to chip in on a new monitor, but if Reddit gets you a flat panel lcd where will you put your collection?

emorrow64: Actually for a new monitor I would build a special little shelf just for my friends.

wharthog3: Perfect, where do you work (location, not employer) and what size monitor (reasonable) do you want?

emorrow64: Seriously!? I wouldn’t be choosy, long as I could see it without a magnifying glass.

wharthog3: Yeah, seriously, a 22″ or so? And what outputs does your computer use, DVI, HDMI, or just VGA?

emorrow64: My current screen in 16″ a 22″ would be more than generous, and its VGA. gush

wharthog3: Ok, well PM me an address (are you in the US) and it might take me a week ’til I get paid, gotta check my account.

emorrow64: done and yes, U.S.

wharthog3: Ordered. Check your messages for link with tracking, ETA, etc.

emorrow64: Oh wow. You are seriously the most awesome stranger I know.²

And there it was. A random, just-for-fun post about a monkey led to a new monitor, for no other reason than a spontaneous burst of goodwill.

6. Reddit Helps Injured Boy Win Pepsi Refresh Grant of 25k

5-year-old Reece loved helping on his parents’ produce store and sharing his ideas about running the business, and fruits and vegetables in general. One day in 2008, he told his parents about an idea he had to get his classmates more excited about trying new fruits and vegetables: to let them on the delivery truck and give them free samples of foods they wouldn’t get to try at home.

Just a couple of months later, the family was involved in a devastating car accident that left Reece with a brain injury and unable to speak. Then, nearly two years later, while Reece struggled in therapy 5 days per week, the Pepsi Company announced their new Refresh Grant program, wherein the company would be awarding grants to fund projects that could benefit local communities.

Reece’s dad, Redditor “stinkeye”, immediately thought of his son’s idea, and posted it on the grant application site. Stinkeye then posted the whole story on Reddit and asked the community to make his son’s idea a reality by going to the Refresh Grant website and voting for Reece’s idea. Within days the idea had jumped to the #1 place on the Pepsi site. It was subsequently approved by Pepsi and awarded a 25K grant to make it happen.

7. Reddit and the Rally to Restore Sanity

The facts of the case are a little unclear, but it seems that after Glen Beck’s “Rally to Restore Honor” on August 28, a lot of people had a similar idea at the same time: that Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert, the twin dragons of Comedy Central’s respective satirical news shows The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, should hold rallies of their own. Two days after Beck’s rally, Redditor “Mvelez999″ wrote, “John Stewart, please hold an event at the Lincoln Memorial. We’ll show up and show Glen Beck what half a million people looks like.” A day after that, Redditor “mrsammercer” posted his thoughts: “I’ve had a vision and I can’t shake it: Colbert needs to hold a satirical rally in DC.”³ Mrsammercer’s post caught a lot of people’s attention. Within hours of posting it, more than 7,000 people had “up-voted” the notion. Facebook pages and Twitter accounts in support of the idea quickly followed. People started sending emails to the Colbert Report staff.

Meanwhile, Jon Stewart later reported, he had the exact same notion, and had already put down a deposit on the Washington Mall for the event he was envisioning by the time the Reddit community began voicing its enthusiasm for a rally.⁴ When Stewart and Colbert announced their joint endeavor, the Rally to Restore Sanity/March to Keep Fear Alive (later shortened to the Rally to Restore Sanity/Fear), Reddit launched a massive donation push to show their support. In the six weeks between Stewart’s announcement of the event and the day of the rally — October 30 — Redditors had donated $500,000 to donorschoose.org.  The rally was enormously popular, with over a quarter million people in attendance and a further 2 million estimated to have watch the event on TV. Colbert personally thanked reddit and even gave them a covert shoutout during the live election coverage by drawing the reddit alien logo and flashing it on live tv. Shown below.

8. Reddit Buys Disabled Man a New Wheelchair

The Reddit community frequently engages in acts of goodwill without having been asked to do so. The Redditors, however, are also amenable to direct requests for help. In one recent case a disabled man of 28, going by MealsOnWheels, unable to afford a new wheelchair when the one he’d had since high school was no longer operational, turned to his fellow Redditors for help. “Reddit, I’m broke and I need a new wheelchair,” he posted.

“If I sold ad space on my current wheelchair and took pics, would any of you be interested?”⁵

He went on to explain his situation, the back problems his chair was causing, and the cost of buying a new chair. He also included pictures of his current “antique” chair and the new model he was hoping to use. The response to MealsOnWheels’s plea for help was immediate and, in true Reddit fashion, astonishing. Hundreds of people wrote in to pledge their support and offer help, and within a few days MealsOnWheels had set up a PayPal account, received nearly $3,500 in donations, and started getting fitted for his new chair.

9. Outpouring of Gifts for a Redditor with Cancer

When Redditor “Trixare4kids” posted that she had been diagnosed with cancer and needed to find homes for her two kittens, she had no trouble finding a number of fellow Redditors in her area who were willing to help. Some months later, a friend of Trix’s posted to say that her battle with cancer was ongoing, and that Trix was very ill at the moment and heading in soon for more surgery. She asked the Reddit community if they would consider sending cards, books, funny pictures, and other small gifts to help cheer Trix up. Within a week, the PO box provided was full. The poster updated the thread with this message:

“Damnit Reddit, you made me burst into tears at the post office and I’m not one to cry in public. I went to my box just now and found 12 letters/cards, 2 postcards, 6 large envelopes and three packages….Reddit’s not just interesting links and pun threads, it’s a community of really amazing people who would take the time to make a complete stranger in a bad circumstance feel better. I absolutely cannot wait to haul all this over to the hospital tonight. I’ll be taking this huge pile of mail, all the well wishes I printed from Reddit, and a very full Ipod because a wonderful Reddit user is allowing me to raid their audio book library for her. Thank you. I can’t say that enough. My heart is full for you. I’m sure hers will be too.”

10. Reddit Starts a Suicide Prevention Site

The Reddit community is so committed to helping others with their interests, questions, and problems, however great and small, that there is even a section of the site dedicated to members who are feeling depressed or suicidal. Called SuicideWatch, the space allows anyone to post their thoughts and emotions, questions about seeking help, advice for dealing with a suicidal friend or family member, and so on.

The moderators of SuicideWatch make it clear, however, that the space is not a suicide hotline, and that there are limits to the Reddit community’s ability to help. A section of the site lists further resources for people to use. Posts on SuicideWatch range from such topics as “It’s only going to get worse from here, so why keep going” to “Lessons from four decades of depression” to I love you. Yes, you, and you and you. *Hugs*” Reddit’s SuicideWatch is among the most active suicide prevention sites online.

11. Reddit Reunites a Member With His Birth Mother

In April of 2009, Redditor “Wannamaker” posted about his plans to seek out his birth mother:

“Finally going to try and call my birth mother after 21 years, wish me luck, Does anyone in CA know a Shelly Lowry? She should be about 41.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Wannamaker got far more than the words of encouragement he was looking for. A number of Redditors started doing some investigating, and before long one of them found a lead on Pipl.com. With the name and updated address provided by the fellow Redditor, Wannamaker found his birth mother on Facebook. He made contact and the two made plans to meet the following summer.

In an interview following the amazing story on the Reddit blog, Wannamaker said,

“I didn’t expect to ask Reddit at all…. I figured that I could get a word of encouragement or at least a funny joke or two…I would like to comment to Reddit, you should not only view yourself as a website for fun, or entertainment, or as a warrior against productivity and boredom, but you should be fucking proud to be here. You should be proud of the users you attract, and you should be proud of the way you run your organization. You do a great job. And as I’ve said thousands of times now, thank you, thank you so fucking much.”

12. Reddit Restores an Online Reputation

Not all of Reddit’s altruistic contributions have to do with money, or gifts, or family dramas. The Reddit community has an enormous amount of influence simply by virtue of its numbers; and sometimes that influence is used to tremendous effect solely within the sphere of the Internet. One Redditor, “CarlH”, had been haunted for 5 years by a lie that somebody posted about him, using his real name, on a website. The lie circulated, growing in popularity and ubiquity, to the point that CarlH’s real life was affected by it. The lie appeared for his full name as a top result in Google. Because of this, he was forever having to explain himself to friends, family members, and business associates.

Finally, he turned to Reddit for help, and made a post asking the community for advice on how to fight the lie and their help in overcoming its adverse effects. Hundreds of people responded; Redditors began posting links and content with his name all over the Internet, using SEO techniques to bring the new posts to the forefront of searches for his name. Within 12 hours, CarlH wrote in an update, all traces of the lie that had been following him had disappeared from the first 5 pages of Google search results. The lie was effectively eradicated.

13. Reddit Helps Pay For Member’s Mother’s Funeral Costs

Funeral costs can be overwhelmingly expensive, and during these times of financial difficulty, many people have lost the funds they had set aside for their services; many more are never able to save up that amount of money at all, and must depend on their loved ones to organize a memorial service.

So when Redditor “wilwaldon” wrote a post explaining that his mother had passed away after a 2-year battle with cancer, and that he and his family were unable to come up with the funds for a funeral, the Reddit community was deeply sympathetic and understanding. Commiseration was the rule of the day — dozens of people came out to share their stories of family loss, exorbitant funeral costs, and the nightmarish legal hassles following a death in the family. Many offered advice on how to bring down the total cost of the service, and many more offered to make a donation.

Ultimately wilwalden was able to raise nearly $500 from the Reddit community in order to help his father with funeral costs. He updated his original post to say, “The donations keep rolling in! THANK YOU SO MUCH REDDIT! My dad cried on the phone when I told him about the outpouring of support from a website of strangers that he has never and will probably never meet. You guys are amazing. I’m overwhelmed with joy!” And, as a final thank-you, wilwalden took this picture of his dad, to put a smile on the face of everyone who contributed:

14. Redditors Aid in Murder Investigation

In 2009, Redditor “hattmall” posted that the father of a dear friend of his had been murdered. There was surveillance footage of the murderer, he went on to say, but it was very poor quality and the police were having trouble using it as a lead to find the killer. Hattmall posted the clearest still shot he could get from the footage, and the Reddit community went to work.

Various Redditors used all kinds of different software to enhance the photo, pinpoint details, change angles to get a better look, and otherwise try to help. Many others posted suggestions for professional services and other ways he might get the picture and the story out to a wider audience to enlist more help. Below is the improvements community members were able to make.

15. Reddit Brings Family Music Heirloom to Life

Many long years after Matt L’Italien’s grandparents, David and Marcia Rosenthal, had passed away, the family found a remarkable artifact among the couple’s old letters and papers: a pair of love songs, with music written for the piano, entitled “In and Out of Love” and “I’ll Never Regret (Loving You)”, that the couple had written together.

Many family members remembered the couple singing and playing music together, but nobody could remember them ever performing these two songs that they’d created themselves; certainly there was no recording of it. Nobody in the family now knew how to play the piano.  So Matt decided to post the music on Reddit, with the message, “My family recently found two songs on sheet music written by my late grandparents. Would anyone like to play them for us, so that we may hear them?”

Naturally, the response from his fellow Redditors was greater than anything he’d hoped for. Recordings of the song, including a number new arrangements on different instruments, started popping up almost immediately. Newly written-out arrangements for the guitar quickly followed. Some recorded a straight version, others added swing or other styles to the song. Matt and his family couldn’t pick a favorite, but they didn’t need to; they had dozens of recordings of David and Marcia’s songs to choose from. Here is one example:

16. Reddit Fulfills a Teen’s Birthday Wish and Gives Thousands to Charity

If there is one dogma that the Reddit community holds firm, it is karma: that one good deed deserves another. As happy as the contributors are to help a person in need simply for its own sake, they are even more thrilled to help somebody to achieve an altruistic goal.

So when Redditor “PatFlynnEire” posted to say that all his daughter Maggie wanted for her 16^th birthday was to raise enough money to build a well of clean water in Africa, his fellow Redditors were only too happy to oblige. Pat asked for donations of $16 from anyone who was willing to help supplement the $1,000 his daughter raised on her own. Within three days, hundreds of people had contributed to Maggie’s cause, nearly all in payments of $16 or $160, and her goal of $5,000 was met.

17. Reddit Helps Procure a Visa for a Popular Web Comic Author

The popular web comic Cyanide and Happiness is authored and inked by a small group of guys, one of whom lives in Ireland. During the summer of 2010, they decided it would be easier to get the comic done if they were all in one place, and Dave the Irishman applied for a visa to work in The United States. Unfortunately, a spate of unpleasantness with US Immigrations ensued, and it looked like Dave might be stuck in Ireland. There are allowances made to award visas to successful artists, but because the comic is web-based, Immigration didn’t consider his success legitimate. That’s when his colleague, Redditor “jonatapp”, turned to the Internet for help. He made a post about the situation and then reposted it on Reddit, asking that any fans of the comic or anyone who felt that Dave was being treated unfairly to sign a petition at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/letdaveintoamerica/

They knew it was a long shot, and indeed many within even the eternally-optimistic Reddit community were skeptical, but in the end, the petition worked! Jonatapp posted again to say,

“This may very well mark the first time in history that an online petition has changed something, even if it was just getting a guy into the United States to make silly stick figure animations.”

18. Reddit User Gives $30 Tip to Man Stiffed on Huge Pizza Delivery

Random acts of kindness are a way of life on Reddit, but even the smallest and least Earth-shattering of kind gestures can have a significant impact on one person. One Redditor posted in a thread called “What is the cheapest thing you’ve witnessed?” and then, inspired by the spirit of commiseration and empathy, created a new post for his experience. The day before he’d delivered 30 pizzas at 1:30 in the morning, and received nothing for his trouble. Fellow Redditor “JustRice” couldn’t stand the injustice of it; he dialed the number he saw on the receipt the poster had put up, spoke to the manager, and left a $30 tip for the delivery guy.

19. Thief Who Stole a Redditor’s Car Tracked Down

One of the amazing things about being part of the Reddit community is that contributors really feel like the have the power of the entire Internet at their back. If they need the answer to a question they can’t answer, or help with something that they don’t have the technical expertise to achieve, they can bet that somebody on Reddit will.

Redditor “Thinksforfun” knew this, so when his car was stolen in 2009, he turned to the resources at his disposal. He knew the man’s name and a number of identifying details, but had no pictures, no address, phone number, or means of contacting the thief. He shared as much information as he had on Reddit, and wrote, “Reddit, one of my long time clients walked off with my $50K classic car like it was nothing. Can you help me find this guy?”

In fact, they could, and did. Using the details Thinksforfun provided, a Redditor called “FryDuck” was able to find a picture and profile of the thief on Friendster.com. Thinksforfun forwarded the information he found there to the police department working on his case.

20. Reddit Correctly Diagnoses Fellow Redditor’s Cause of Severe Depression, Saves Her Life

As previously discussed, Reddit’s SuicideWatch is among the most active suicide prevention sites online. And while it is mostly a forum of support and good will, occasionally, one fellow Redditor is quite directly responsible for saving the life of another. In one such case, a Redditor called “Dpressed” posted this desperate plea for support: “I have everything I could reasonably ask for, and still I want to kill myself every day.” The usual outpouring of encouragement and thoughtful advice followed, and with more prompting, Dpressed described more about her daily life and the physical emotional symptoms she suffered to make her feel suicidal. And then, Redditor “frinklestein” posted this revelatory comment:

“My wife has suffered from similar feelings for the past 4-5 years, and after therapists and anti-depressants did very little to help after initial success, we stumbled across accounts of these and her other symptoms (weight gain, excessive tiredness, IBS, lack of concentration, etc.) from people using the Mirena coil for contraception, as she was. She had it removed, and within a week I had my wife back. Any hormone-based contraceptives can do this, we’ve found, but not a single person in the medical profession ever even asked about contraception in all that time. Based on our (admittedly biased) trawling of the net, the mirena coil specifically has a very high incidence of it, and it’s comparatively more severe too.”

A few weeks later, Dpressed returned to the post and replied to frinklestein to say that, amazingly, his diagnosis was correct. She had been suffering from the same hormonally-induced depression, and in the few short weeks since learning about it, was already doing much better. She edited her original post to say, “A comment on this post helped me find out the reason for my depression and now it’s gone! I explained the story here. THANK YOU to all of those who posted, who cared, but a very special thanks to frinklestein. You saved my life.”

21. Small-Time Developer’s Iphone Game Made a Hit By Reddit

iPhone developer Matt Rix spent a year developing a new game called Trainyard, a puzzle app where the player must build increasingly complex train tracks. The game was a moderate critical success upon its release in June, but made very little money. Rix created a demo of the game, which earned him more popular recognition. Before long Apple approached Rix about featuring a paid version of his game at the Apple store.

The game took off, and reached #48 on the list of most-downloaded apps in the United States. It was at this point, once Trainyard was on solid ground, that Rix turned to Reddit. He made a post about his game and the hard work he’d put into popularizing it, then put the game on sale, lowering the price from $2.99 to $0.99. Rix went on to explain that the game had a limited run as a feature in the Apple store, and the sale would last until that ended. In that time, Rix asked his fellow Redditors to buy the game and encourage their friends to buy it. And a few days later, Rix edited his original post to add, “Mission accomplished! Trainyard is now the #2 app in the US and UK App Stores, ahead of Angry Birds.”

22. Reddit Helps Make Dream Come True for Dying Man

When Redditor “geenuts” found out that his uncle had only months left to live, he was determined to give the man one last grand gesture of love. The uncle was a lifelong lover of Audis, and drove an S4; if he’d had the means, though, geenuts told Reddit, “he’d be cruising around in an R8.”

What geenuts asked for was not money, or a free car, but simply for suggestions from fellow Redditors on how best to make his dream a reality. Hundreds of suggestions poured in, including a number of people who were willing to give geenut’s uncle the use of their own (non-Audi) luxury cars. But one poster, just happened to work for local message board called Beyond.ca, and he took it upon himself to repost the request for suggestions there. Within a day, someone living quite close to geenut and his uncle had come through with an offer to let the man take his Audi R8 out for a spin. He’s pictured above the day of the test drive.

23. Reddit Buys Young Woman A Hearing Aid

In 2009, 23-year old Redditor “focks”, a freelance writer by trade, wrote a beautiful description of her first experience in 16 years with having full hearing. Due to a noise trauma when she was a young girl, focks explained, she’d lost nearly all the hearing in one ear and had deteriorating aural power in the other. The joy of hearing again was just a brief moment in time; it was a try-out of a new pair of hearing aids at her doctor’s office. To own the hearing aids, unfortunately, was out of the question for focks, at a cost of $5,250. Unable to bear the thought of giving up on her hearing entirely, focks posted her story on Reddit and asked for suggestions to help pay for just one of the hearing aids. “Does anyone know any options I could have for how to find the same hearing aid, but for cheaper?” she asked. “Or maybe someone knows a group that can sponsor someone like me and help me pay for it?”

Many people posted suggestions and offers of help, and many offered to help pay for the hearing aid provided frocks could offer proof of her situation. After a careful search of focks’s posting history to ensure that she was on the level, Redditor Anthropoid1 sent focks $2,000 via PayPal, paying almost the entire cost of one hearing aid. Smaller contributions from other Redditors quickly helped focks to meet her goal.

By way of explanation, Athropoid1 simply said, “I always find myself wishing people wouldn’t worry so much about their financial security when they have not only enough money for food and shelter but also for iPods and Blu-Ray. After all, there are people who lack not only financial security but also finances for right now. So, for me, this is a bit of an opportunity to walk the walk instead of just wishing the wish.”

24. Reddit Community Saves Small Business

Redditor “stilesjp” works with her mother and sister, running a small soap-making company largely run on the Internet: Soapier.com. They’d been in business since 1999, but in 2009 business had slowed down dramatically, and the women were afraid they would have to shut their doors. But stilesjp, a long-time Redditor, made a post about their situation, asking the community to come and check out their variety of specialty soaps. Needless to say, quite a few did just that.

Stilesjp posted again to say, “A thank you from Soapier to Reddit… In two days, your purchases beat out our best month, ever. My mom and sister are beside themselves, and have already been gearing up for some late nights over the next week.” She went on to promise to design a new soap for the site in honor of Reddit, and began taking suggestions for scents and colors.

25. One Redditor Finds Another’s Long-Lost Art

In a post made just for fun, Redditor “spellbunny” posted a picture of an art print with the message “I also have a friend who buys paintings from thrift stores and adds to them to make them silly.” Lots of people wrote in to comment on it, compare silly art stories, and talk about found art. But one poster, “TheBlasto”, had quite a different reaction. “That’s my grandfather’s painting!” he said. “I’ve been trying to track it down for years!”

In fact, TheBlasto had even made a post about the art print entitled “Help me find this painting,” a month before spellbunny put up the picture. Thanks to spellbunny’s post and the many helpful Redditors who joined in the investigation, TheBlasto was able to find the name of the original artist and begin looking for a new copy of the print.

Sources:
1 http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/the_edge/dying-girl-taunted-by-neighbors-in-trenton

2 http://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/bc3uc/this_monkey_rocks/c0m0n56

3 http://www.reddit.com/comments/d7ntl/ive_had_a_vision_and_i_cant_shake_it_colbert/

4 http://thefastertimes.com/socialmedia/2010/11/01/rally-to-restore-sanity-andor-fear-brought-to-you-by-social-media-2/

5 http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/dew96/reddit_im_broke_and_need_a_new_wheelchair_if_i/