About r/thatHappened
In its own words:
c0MpLeTElY tRUE St0rIeS
Community guide
r/thatHappened (#712, about 1.5 million subscribers) covers c0MpLeTElY tRUE St0rIeS. Recent activity samples show 5.5 posts/day in recent samples (~80% image, ~18% gallery, ~2% link). Public rules we collected include: Post incredibly true stories that totally actually happened.; Redact all identifiable information; No pictures of children; reddiquette applies; No Politics.
What belongs here
Stay inside the room’s stated scope rather than adjacent off-topic dumps. Match posts to: Post incredibly true stories that totally actually happened.; Redact all identifiable information; No pictures of children; reddiquette applies. Recent samples are image-heavy; titles should explain why the media belongs here.
How it differs from lookalikes
Prefer this room when your post matches its description and rules—not merely a larger sibling community.
Practical pointers
Read the live sidebar/rules before posting; collected snapshots can lag.
SubMouse Editorial
The community was created on Nov 23, 2012, which makes it 13 years old. Since Oct 26, 2026, it has gained 211 subscribers (+0.01%). It sits just behind r/3Dmodeling (#711) and ahead of r/truegaming (#713) in our ranking.
What sets r/thatHappened apart
Compared with other large communities, r/thatHappened leans heavily on images (80% of recent posts; the typical Top 100 subreddit sits at 21%).
Subscriber growth
Between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 2, 2026, r/thatHappened climbed from 1,488,769 to 1,490,280 subscribers (+1.5K, +0.10%). That is about 34 new members per day. The chart uses our weekly snapshots (9 so far), so it gets longer every week.
What r/thatHappened talks about
Across 40 recent posts (Oct 29–Nov 5), the words that come up most are “voting”, “mom”, “tries”, “piracy” and “conservative”. Other frequent themes are acquaintance, terrifying, experience, halloween, nonsense and clapped. Recurring phrases include “mom tries”, “conservative acquaintance”, “terrifying voting” and “voting experience”. By format, 80% are images, 18% are galleries and 3% are links.
Activity and best time to post
r/thatHappened gets about 5.5 new posts a day. The public archive holds 339,885 posts and 4,588,436 comments in total, about 13.5 comments per post. Last week the busiest day was Friday (10 posts) and the quietest was Thursday (2). Posting peaks around 00:00 UTC and is lowest around 07:00 UTC.
Rules of r/thatHappened
The moderators of r/thatHappened list 5 rules. In short:
- Post incredibly true stories that totally actually happened.
- Redact all identifiable information
- No pictures of children
- reddiquette applies
- No Politics
How to join
Open reddit.com/r/thatHappened 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 big is r/thatHappened?
r/thatHappened has 1,490,280 subscribers (Nov 2, 2026), which makes it the #712 safe-for-work subreddit in the SubMouse ranking. It added 1,511 members between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 2, 2026.
How old is r/thatHappened?
r/thatHappened was created on Nov 23, 2012, so it has been around for 13 years.
How active is r/thatHappened?
Moderately: r/thatHappened gets about 5.5 new posts a day (average of the last four weeks). Over its lifetime the archive counts 339,885 posts and 4,588,436 comments.
When is r/thatHappened most active?
Based on post counts from Oct 29, 2026 to Nov 4, 2026, the busiest day was Friday and the quietest Thursday, and most posts arrive around 00:00 UTC, with the fewest around 07:00 UTC. More posts also means more competition, so a quieter hour can help a post get noticed.
What is r/thatHappened about?
The community describes itself as: “c0MpLeTElY tRUE St0rIeS” Recent post titles often mention voting, mom, tries, piracy and conservative. Most posts are images (80%).
Is r/thatHappened safe for work?
Yes. Reddit does not mark r/thatHappened as an 18+ (NSFW) community. SubMouse lists safe-for-work subreddits only.
How do I post on r/thatHappened?
Join the community on Reddit first, then use “Create post”. r/thatHappened accepts link and media posts (no plain text posts), with images and galleries enabled. It has 5 posted rules, starting with: “Post incredibly true stories that totally actually happened.”; “Redact all identifiable information”; “No pictures of children”. Moderators remove posts that break the rules, so read them in the sidebar before posting.
Which communities are like r/thatHappened?
Communities with similar topics include r/nottheonion (26.1M), r/BestofRedditorUpdates (4M), r/TrueCrime (3.4M), r/TrueOffMyChest (2.6M) and r/TrueCrimeDiscussion (1.3M).
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/thatHappened.