Rutgers Reddit online users meet in real world

October 1, 2014 10:03pm | By Lin Lan

One hedgehog, three boxes of pizza and 13 students gathered yesterday to meet for the first time.

Student subscribers to the Rutgers Reddit group “r\Rutgers” met in the food court of the College Avenue Student Center yesterday to share their common interest in the online forum.

Reddit is a digital platform for news, entertainment and social networking where users post most of the content. Its posts are divided into themes such as “Funny,” “Aww” and “Today I Learned,” and users can “upvote” or “downvote” posts to filter for the most popular content.

Martin Córdova, a School of Arts and Sciences senior, and Emily Podhorcer, a School of Arts and Sciences senior, are the moderators of the r\Rutgers subreddit, which discusses common issues students have, like the buses, the financial aid office and RU Wireless.

“I met Martin and some of my best friends at a Reddit meeting three years ago,” Podhorcer said. “It’s been a tradition on and off since I’ve been at Rutgers.”

Given that anonymity is a prime feature of the site, the meeting’s announcement was contained to the r\Rutgers thread.

The Reddit post read, “Do you go to Rutgers? Are you on this subreddit? Do you like pizza? Good news, you’re not alone. There are others, just like you, who you will have a chance to meet and interact with (IN THE REAL WORLD).”

Users gradually trickled in and introduced themselves. Students listed their favorite subreddits, which are more specific threads within the website.

Some who arrived were longtime users of Reddit but only discovered /r/Rutgers recently when friends introduced them. Previous Reddit meetings have drawn even more people than this one, Podhorcer said.

One student announced online that she intended to bring her pet hedgehog, Pokey, which she placed on the empty pizza box in the middle of the table for other members to admire.

The members of the group connected over Reddit threads, politics and jokes and decided to meet again in a more casual setting.

Even though the only connection student users initially have is their use of the website, they begin to find more in common along the way and develop long-lasting friendships and bonds, Córdova said.

A previous version of this article incorrectly titled Emily Podhorcer as a School of Arts and Sciences junior.

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