About r/AskReddit
In its own words:
r/AskReddit is the place to ask and answer thought-provoking questions.
Community guide
r/AskReddit (#3, about 60.0 million) is for thought-provoking, open-ended questions—clear and direct in the title, with no body textbox use for the question (Rule 1). It is one of Reddit’s highest-volume text rooms (~4449.7 ppd in samples). Collected rules ban personal/professional advice requests, loaded questions, personal info, goods/rewards begging, and harmful misinformation; [Serious] threads disallow jokes.
Question design
Open-ended only; title carries the question. Image-only replies and giant ascii are removed.
Versus advice and specialist Ask-subs
If you need advice, relationship_advice or professional subs fit better—AskReddit removes advice requests. askscience/AskCulinary want domain framing.
Practical pointers
Be civil; no personal info; respect [Serious] tags.
SubMouse Editorial
The community was created on Jan 25, 2008, which makes it 18 years old. Since Oct 26, 2026, it has gained 59,090 subscribers (+0.10%). It sits just behind r/funny (#2) and ahead of r/worldnews (#4) in our ranking.
What sets r/AskReddit apart
r/AskReddit is far more text-driven than most big subreddits: 100% of its recent posts are text posts, against a median of 34% across the Top 100. For its size it is unusually busy: about 74.1 new posts a day per million members, more than 97% of the Top 100. It is also one of the faster-growing big communities: its 0.62% gain since Sep 19, 2026 beats 89% of the Top 100.
Subscriber growth
Between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 2, 2026, r/AskReddit went up from 59,668,961 to 60,036,904 subscribers (+367.9K, +0.62%). That is about 8,362 new members per day. The chart uses our weekly snapshots (9 so far), so it gets longer every week.
Top posts on r/AskReddit this week
This week’s highest-ranked posts, in Reddit’s own order (collected Nov 2, 2026).
- Scientists of Reddit: What's a discovery that should have blown people's minds but somehow managed to garner absolutely no reaction from anyone ?u/Significant-Order850 · Oct 27 · text post
- What's a 'rich people' thing you tried once and immediately understood why they do it?u/travis-0 · Oct 27 · text post
- What's the most unbelievable excuse someone gave for being late, but later turned out to be true?u/Tiexandrea · Oct 27 · text post
- Hiring managers of Reddit, are younger applicants really showing up to interviews with zero social skills, or are companies just setting ridiculous expectations? What is actually happening in intervi…u/president_of_it · Oct 26 · text post
- What’s the greatest SOLVED mystery?u/twopd · Oct 28 · text post
- What's the highest dopamine-to-effort ratio you've ever discovered in life?u/Intelligent_East4657 · Oct 31 · text post
- Lawyers of Reddit, what’s the most self-centered reason a client gave for initiating a divorce?u/CakesNGames90 · Oct 30 · text post
- To anyone whose family said you’d die from the COVID vaccine: It’s been 5 years and you're still here. What are they saying now?u/Legitimate-Dance-246 · Oct 29 · text post
- People who went from attractive to unattractive as they got older, what physical change caused the biggest downgrade?u/Intelligent_East4657 · Oct 29 · text post
- What’s an expensive ($1k-$10k) luxury items that changed your life for the better?u/cptnringwald · Oct 29 · text post
All-time top posts
The highest-ranked posts in the history of r/AskReddit, from 2017 to 2021, ranked by Reddit.
- People who haven't pooped in 2019 yet, why are you still holding on to last years shit?u/ShoddySubstance · Jan 1, 2019 · 202,717 points · 7,779 comments · text post
- Would you watch a show where a billionaire CEO has to go an entire month on their lowest paid employees salary, without access to any other resources than that of the employee? What do you think woul…u/txhorns1330 · Feb 7, 2020 · 177,186 points · 13,107 comments · text post
- What if God came down one day and said "It's pronounced 'Jod' then left?u/esi_disi · Sep 20, 2020 · text post
- How would you feel about a feature where if someone upvotes a crosspost, the original post is upvoted automatically?u/Ka1- · Nov 4, 2019 · 183,206 points · 2,830 comments · text post
- How would you feel about a "if you accidentally scroll to the top, you can go back to where you were," button for Reddit?u/Cheap_Double9726 · Jan 5, 2021 · text post
- Stan Lee has passed away at 95 years oldu/-eDgAR- · Nov 12, 2018 · 164,426 points · 28,802 comments · text post
- Reddit, how would you feel about a law that bans radio stations from playing commercials with honking/beeping/siren noises in them?u/san69cor · Sep 18, 2018 · 149,070 points · 6,918 comments · text post
- Bill Gates said, "I will always choose a lazy person to do a difficult job because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it." What's a real-life example of this?u/lauvnoodles · Jun 30, 2020 · text post
- What if Earth is like one of those uncontacted tribes in South America, like the whole Galaxy knows we're here but they've agreed not to contact us until we figure it out for ourselves?u/slim_p_ · Dec 26, 2020 · text post
- Anthony Bourdain once said "There's a guy in my head, and all he wants to do is lay in bed all day long, smoke pot, and watch old movies and cartoons. My life is a series of strategems, to avoid, and…Oct 3, 2019 · 150,804 points · 11,341 comments · text post
What r/AskReddit talks about
We read the titles of 700 recent posts (Oct 25–Oct 31), the words that come up most are “life”, “actually”, “completely”, “feel” and “work”. Other frequent themes are happened, small, money, worst, movie and advice. Recurring phrases include “unwritten rule”, “halloween costume”, “sounds completely” and “completely changed”. By format, 100% are text posts.
Activity and best time to post
r/AskReddit gets about 4,450 new posts a day. The public archive holds 41,987,221 posts and 885,482,683 comments in total, about 21.1 comments per post. Last week the busiest day was Thursday (4,800 posts) and the quietest was Sunday (3,803). Posting peaks around 16:00 UTC and is lowest around 08:00 UTC.
Rules of r/AskReddit
The moderators of r/AskReddit list 11 rules. In short:
- Rule 1 - Questions must be clear and direct and may not use the body textbox
- Rule 2 - No personal or professional advice requests
- Rule 3 - Open ended questions only
- Rule 4 - No personal info
- Rule 5 - No loaded questions
- Rule 6 - [Serious] tagged posts are off-limits to jokes or irrelevant replies
- Rule 7 - No begging for goods or services, or Reddit rewards
- Rule 8 - Be respectful to other users at all times and conduct your behaviour in a civil manner
- Rule 9 - No image only replies or large ascii art
- Rule 10 - Harmful Misinformation
How to join
Open reddit.com/r/AskReddit 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/AskReddit have?
r/AskReddit has 60,036,904 subscribers (Nov 2, 2026), which makes it the #3 safe-for-work subreddit in the SubMouse ranking. It added 367,943 members between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 2, 2026.
When was r/AskReddit created?
r/AskReddit was created on Jan 25, 2008, so it has been around for 18 years.
Is r/AskReddit still active?
Yes. r/AskReddit gets about 4,450 new posts a day (average of the last week). Over its lifetime the archive counts 41,987,221 posts and 885,482,683 comments. In a sample of 700 recent posts we counted 538 different authors.
What is the best time to post in r/AskReddit?
Based on post counts from Oct 24, 2026 to Oct 30, 2026, the busiest day was Thursday and the quietest Sunday, and most posts arrive around 16:00 UTC, with the fewest around 08:00 UTC. More posts also means more competition, so a quieter hour can help a post get noticed.
What kind of posts are on r/AskReddit?
The community describes itself as: “r/AskReddit is the place to ask and answer thought-provoking questions.” Recent post titles often mention life, actually, completely, feel and work. Most posts are text posts (100%).
Is r/AskReddit SFW?
Yes. Reddit does not mark r/AskReddit as an 18+ (NSFW) community. SubMouse lists safe-for-work subreddits only.
What are the rules of r/AskReddit?
Join the community on Reddit first, then use “Create post”. r/AskReddit accepts text posts only. It has 11 posted rules, starting with: “Rule 1 - Questions must be clear and direct and may not use the body textbox”; “Rule 2 - No personal or professional advice requests”; “Rule 3 - Open ended questions only”. Moderators remove posts that break the rules, so read them in the sidebar before posting.
What subreddits are similar to r/AskReddit?
Communities with similar topics include r/NoStupidQuestions (7.6M), r/AskWomen (5.8M), r/askscience (26.4M), r/AskEconomics (1.5M) and r/CasualConversation (3M).
Stats from public data (data updated Nov 2, 2026; activity, rules and archive totals via the Arctic Shift archive, Nov 1, 2026; top posts from Reddit’s public feeds). 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/AskReddit.