Millions view Reddit content daily. The issue for Reddit? Many of them are seeing it on other platforms.

On TikTok, robo-voices narrate scary, story posts originating on Reddit’s forums. On YouTube, creators film their reactions to reading Reddit “Am I The Asshole?” stories. Even on Instagram and X, Reddit posts are incessantly screenshotted and reposted. The off-platform content is great for Reddit’s visibility, though capturing those exposed users may prove more difficult.

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— good reddit (@GoodReddit) September 8, 2024

“It becomes an awareness driver for Reddit,” says Jeremy Goldman, a senior director of briefings at eMarketer who analyzes social media companies. “A lot of people who see that stuff won’t necessarily go on Reddit, but it makes it a little bit more mainstream.”

Reddit content is flooding TikTok, YouTube, and X 

In the last year, Reddit’s traffic has skyrocketed. Between Q2 of 2023 and 2024, Reddit added just under 10 million logged-in daily users, jumping from 32.1 to 42 million. The company’s stock price has reflected this: After going public in March, the stock has generally coasted above their opening price of $47 with some minor dips, reaching a height of $78.08 in July. But with this growth comes content leakage—which Reddit has seen in boatloads. (Reddit declined to comment for this story.)

TikTok is a primary point of Reddit republishing. One popular genre finds stories initially posted to Reddit read over a video of someone playing a video game, often Minecraft. The clips capture the fragmented attention spans of TikTok users: While reading a full-length Reddit story may prove tiresome, a narration coupled with some gameplay is easily consumable. These videos now crop up daily, amassing millions and millions of views.

@redditsteaz

Follow for more?? #fyp #storytime #reddit #redditstories #minecraft

? original sound – Wild Reddit Stories

Meanwhile, YouTube creators are also converting Reddit stories into video form. On Reddit’s “Am I The Asshole?” forum, users recite long stories to ask fellow Redditors whether they were in the wrong. The stories often prove controversial—and YouTubers have exploited that controversy by reacting to them live on camera. Now, creators like Charlotte Dobre and Two Hot Takes maintain their multi-million followers through Reddit reaction clips, while the long-popular channel Smosh has even dipped into the genre.

(While a pivot to video and audio on Reddit’s behalf could attempt to capture this lost traffic, eMarketer’s Goldman finds the possibility unlikely. “Every platform has a brand and a certain mechanic that feels native to it,” he says.)

Blatant Reddit screenshots have also blown up on platforms like Instagram and X. There are whole Instagram accounts devoted to reposting Reddit stories: @darkthemereddit got over 300,000 followers for reposting spooky Reddit content, while @toxicreddit got over 200,000 followers for showing Reddit posts “that make you go ‘YIKES.’” The same is true for X: @GoodReddit got 1.2 million followers for simply reposting funny Reddit stories. 

Reddit knows that cross-platform sharing is bound to occur. Back in 2023, it tried to make that process easier, allowing individual posts to be shared in a preview link between social media accounts. But the bulk of viral Reddit reposts don’t use this function: They simply screenshot or narrate the stories, leaving Reddit without the traffic.

Are anonymous forums officially mainstream?

While republished content may not necessarily bring Reddit additional traffic, it does certify the app’s place among the social media titans. Whether or not users are consuming it within the app’s bounds, they are seeing Reddit content everywhere. Goldman compares it to the presence of watermarked TikTok videos on Instagram Reels. 

“People watching Reels are being told, ‘hint, hint, you’re missing something by not being on Tiktok,’” Goldman says. “Who won in that conversation: Instagram, because it got extra engagement, or the original platform whose caché was enhanced?”

That legitimacy push could be crucial for Reddit, whose IPO came despite many arguing the company was too fringe. An anonymous online forum, Reddit can easily be aligned with less-beloved platforms like 4chan. But the last year has proven Reddit’s standing. First the site ate up Google Search, taking a prized place among the engine’s query responses. And now, it’s flourishing across the social media spectrum. 

“I wouldn’t say it’s mainstream, but I’d say it’s certainly approaching there,” Goldman says. “You could almost typify who was a Reddit user, and now I think it’s becoming a little bit more amorphous.”