So, I have a confession to make. Until fairly recently, I actually didn’t do all that much on Reddit. I had friends who were on it continually, and they’d talk about it all the time. They knew the latest trends, were keyed in to the latest memes, and any joke I showed them, they’d already seen or heard it.

It was actually kind of bothersome- they were like a group of Internet hipsters.

Last week, I discovered that I’ve had a reddit account just sitting around collecting dust for a good seven months. I decided I might as well try logging in to see what all the fuss was about. On a completely unrelated note, I believe I may have lost part of my soul. Reddit calls itself “the front page of the Internet,” and rightly so. Pretty much anything that’s interesting and popular online either found its start on Reddit or eventually makes its way TO Reddit. It’s actually incredibly easy to log in and waste away hours upon hours of your life browsing, reading, commenting, and voting.

So, yeah. I’m kind of a hipster now.

For some users, though, getting started and figuring out what everything’s about can be a little intimidating. This brief guide’s designed to get you up and reddit-ing in no time flat; here’s all the most important things you’ll need to know in order to get yourself started. First up, we’ll discuss Karma, upvoting, and downvoting.

Whenever a user submits a link or makes a comment, you’ll notice that there are two little arrows to the left of them- an up arrow and a down arrow. If you thought what they said was particularly insightful or witty, or you absolutely loved the image they shared with everyone, click the up arrow- you’ll vote the link up, making it more likely to appear on the front page of the site. With comments, it makes them more likely to appear near the top of the page. In both cases, the user receives either comment karma or link karma.

With downvoting, the opposite applies. Pretty basic, yeah?

As for Karma…you can redeem it for avatar awards and such if you collect enough of it, but other than that, it doesn’t really have any purpose other than making you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Or terrible, if you get enough negative karma.

Next, we’ll talk about the various subreddits on the site- there’s one for just about everything, as you’ll soon find (some of them are a touch more…disturbing than others. There are a few you’ll want to actively avoid, and you can usually tell by the name of the reddit which those are). In general, a subreddit’s URL consists of http://reddit.com/r/name.

If you want to submit a link, it’s as simple as going to the front page of reddit, clicking ‘submit a link’ and then filling in the requisite information. If you’re sharing a photo, you should probably look into using a free image hosting service- Imgur is a common one on reddit. Make sure you submit it to a subreddit community that actually fits the subject matter of the link.  Oh, you can also search for subreddits that might catch your eye. Again, pretty basic.

That’s…pretty much all there is to know about Reddit. Enjoy your vast decrease in productivity.

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