About r/TheWayWeWere
In its own words:
What was normal everyday life like for people living 50, 100, or more years ago? Featuring old photos, scanned documents, articles, and personal anecdotes that offer a glimpse into the past.
Community guide
r/TheWayWeWere (#641, about 1.7 million subscribers) is oriented around: What was normal everyday life like for people living 50, 100, or more years ago? Featuring old photos, scanned documents, articles, and personal anecdotes that offer a glimpse into the past. Recent activity samples show 22 posts/day in recent samples (~73% image, ~24% gallery, ~2% video). Public rules we collected include: No Trolling; Spamming; No Celebrities; Avoid reposting (3 months or less); Images at least 40 years old.
What belongs here
Stay inside the room’s stated scope rather than adjacent off-topic dumps. Self-promotion and ads are limited—read those rules before linking your own work.
How it differs from lookalikes
Prefer this room when your post matches its description and rule list—not merely a larger sibling community.
Practical pointers
Read the live sidebar/rules before posting; collected snapshots can lag. Search before reposting common clips/questions. Common flairs in samples include: 1940s, 1970s, 1960s, 1950s.
SubMouse Editorial
The community was created on Mar 8, 2012, which makes it 14 years old. Since Oct 26, 2026, it has gained 1,902 subscribers (+0.12%). It sits just behind r/lakers (#640) and ahead of r/AskEurope (#642) in our ranking.
What sets r/TheWayWeWere apart
Compared with other large communities, r/TheWayWeWere leans heavily on images (73% of recent posts; the typical Top 100 subreddit sits at 21%).
Subscriber growth
Between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 2, 2026, r/TheWayWeWere climbed from 1,652,193 to 1,660,374 subscribers (+8.2K, +0.50%). That is about 186 new members per day. The chart uses our weekly snapshots (9 so far), so it gets longer every week.
What r/TheWayWeWere talks about
We read the titles of 147 recent posts (Oct 29–Nov 4), the words that come up most are “great”, “hungary”, “photographer”, “halloween” and “photo”. Other frequent themes are young, wedding, inquiring, grandfather, grandmother and baby. Recurring phrases include “inquiring photographer”, “great grandmother”, “budapest hungary” and “great grandfather”. By format, 73% are images, 24% are galleries and 2% are videos.
Popular post flairs: 1940s (21), 1970s (20), 1960s (20), 1950s (15), Pre-1920s (12), 1920s (11).
Activity and best time to post
r/TheWayWeWere gets about 23 new posts a day. The public archive holds 120,684 posts and 1,479,442 comments in total, about 12.3 comments per post. Last week the busiest day was Saturday (34 posts) and the quietest was Tuesday (10). Posting peaks around 17:00 UTC and is lowest around 04:00 UTC.
Rules of r/TheWayWeWere
The moderators of r/TheWayWeWere list 5 rules. In short:
- No Trolling
- Spamming
- No Celebrities
- Avoid reposting (3 months or less)
- Images at least 40 years old
How to join
Open reddit.com/r/TheWayWeWere and press “Join”. Read the community rules in the sidebar before you post: every subreddit is run by its own volunteer moderators.
Frequently asked questions
How many subscribers does r/TheWayWeWere have?
r/TheWayWeWere has 1,660,374 subscribers (Nov 2, 2026), which makes it the #641 safe-for-work subreddit in the SubMouse ranking. It added 8,181 members between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 2, 2026.
When was r/TheWayWeWere created?
r/TheWayWeWere was created on Mar 8, 2012, so it has been around for 14 years.
Is r/TheWayWeWere still active?
Yes. r/TheWayWeWere gets about 23 new posts a day (average of the last four weeks). Over its lifetime the archive counts 120,684 posts and 1,479,442 comments. In a sample of 147 recent posts we counted 90 different authors.
What is the best time to post in r/TheWayWeWere?
Based on post counts from Oct 29, 2026 to Nov 4, 2026, the busiest day was Saturday and the quietest Tuesday, and most posts arrive around 17:00 UTC, with the fewest around 04:00 UTC. More posts also means more competition, so a quieter hour can help a post get noticed.
What kind of posts are on r/TheWayWeWere?
The community describes itself as: “What was normal everyday life like for people living 50, 100, or more years ago? Featuring old photos, scanned documents, articles, and personal anecdotes that offer a glimpse into the past.” Recent post titles often mention great, hungary, photographer, halloween and photo. Most posts are images (73%).
Is r/TheWayWeWere SFW?
Yes. Reddit does not mark r/TheWayWeWere as an 18+ (NSFW) community. SubMouse lists safe-for-work subreddits only.
What are the rules of r/TheWayWeWere?
Join the community on Reddit first, then use “Create post”. r/TheWayWeWere accepts link and media posts (no plain text posts), with images, videos, galleries and polls enabled. It has 5 posted rules, starting with: “No Trolling”; “Spamming”; “No Celebrities”. Moderators remove posts that break the rules, so read them in the sidebar before posting.
What subreddits are similar to r/TheWayWeWere?
Communities with similar topics include r/100yearsago (2.5M), r/nottheonion (26.1M), r/TooAfraidToAsk (2M), r/Colorization (1.4M) and r/london (1.6M).
Stats from public data (data updated Nov 2, 2026; activity, rules and archive totals via the Arctic Shift archive, Nov 6, 2026). Point and comment counts are archive snapshots and can be lower than on Reddit today. SubMouse is an independent directory and is not affiliated with Reddit or the moderators of r/TheWayWeWere.