Maybe it’s Mini Me. Maybe it’s Snoop Dogg. Or maybe it’s that scraggly shut-in down the hall who never leaves his garbage-stained computer chair.

That’s the beauty of Reddit Secret Santa: your mysterious gift-giver could be anyone with an Internet connection.

“You can get matched with people all over the world,” said Alexandra Gagnon, 27, a cook in Mimico who signed up with the Reddit online community for the fourth time this year. “You can be a s---ty person, you can be a good person, and still get a gift.”

In other words, “it’s just like secret Santa in real life, except on the Internet.”

Created in 2009 by Reddit user Dan McComas—a.k.a. kickme444—the online secret Santa started with 4,000 participants. By 2011 the gift exchange was getting so big that Reddit took over. Now, six years in, the holiday game has set the Guiness World Record for the biggest gift exchange four times in a row, most recently this year, with more than 212,000 people from 188 countries taking part (including 18,809 from Canada), according to Reddit Gifts spokesperson Kaela Gardner.

That’s nearly twice the size it was last year, when 113,000 people exchanged presents, she said.

“We’re taking an online community where everyone’s anonymous and spread out all over the world — totally different people, interests, lifestyles — and connecting them all in this really personal way.”

And, yes, there’s a chance you could connect with a big name. Celebrities have hopped on board, including Bill Gates, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Verne Troyer, who played Mini Me in the Austin Powers movies. California rapper Snoop Dogg is also giving a gift this year. So is Fat Mike from the punk band NOFX, and others.

“It’s a cool way to get that brush with fame. You can interact with anyone,” said Gardner.

But it’s not all about hitting the celeb gift jackpot. For Gagnon, it’s the joy of gift-giving that gets her excited.

“I find there are lots of nerd types on the Internet,” Gagnon said, rhyming off the Dr. Who fiends, Star Trek fanatics and comic book lovers she’s interacted with online. “That’s such a culture now; there are so many things available out there if you’re a fan of Breaking Bad or whatever.”

Jason Gale, a 22-year-old university student from Scarborough, said he likes interacting with people all over the world. Since first signing up three years ago, Gale has sent presents to people in Brazil, Britain and Oklahoma. His go-to gift is a “Canadian care package” made up of “moose droppings” chocolate, maple syrup and other offerings from the home country.

“You play secret Santa with your friends or your co-workers, but to do that with someone you’ve never met, someone you never will meet … It’s a cool idea,” Gale said.

And what about gifts they’ve received? Gagnon points to a Star Trek pizza cutter she got last year, which is a model of the Starship Enterprise. Gale, meanwhile, has been sent a book on cycling and a toy spider to hang from his rear view mirror—a gift inspired by a Reddit post he wrote about arachnids in his car.

“That was really personal. Really cool,” he said.

But the gifting isn’t always so well received. One Reddit user, who uses the moniker babyeatingdingoes, told the Star by email that the exchange is more about giving than receiving.

“I have been shafted several times,” the user wrote. “One exchange I gave a video game, a card game, cookies, and a requested charitable donation and received a salt and pepper shaker.”

As Gardner explains, the Secret Santa process is quite simple. Reddit users sign up through the Reddit Gifts website before the deadline, which was Nov. 30 this year. They are then randomly matched with another participant, and are told to make a post on the website when they have shipped their gift. You can choose whether you want to get matched with someone anywhere in the world, or just in your own country to save on shipping costs, Gardner said.

The deadline to ship is Dec. 19. If your match hasn’t sent the gift by then, Reddit will rematch you with someone who’s volunteered to send a second gift without receiving one, or another person who needs to find a new secret Santa partner, Gardner said.

Though Reddit recommends a $20 gift limit, Gardner said past presents have been extravagant, including trips on cruise ships and laptops. Last year, participants who chose to share how much they spent on their gifts collectively paid $3.8 million playing secret Santa, Gardner said.

Gardner added that Reddit Gifts has “fraud prevention measures” in place, such as computer programs and employees scrolling through lists of participants, to make sure everyone gets a gift and that nobody is “gaming the system” by signing up repeatedly under different usernames.

Like all things on Reddit, a website where users submit and generate content, and then vote to decide what is prominently featured on the site, it is up to the participants to make secret Santa work out.

“We provide the platform and facilitate the experience, but they are the ones that make the magic happen,” said Gardner.

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That said, some gifts are better than others. In Gagnon’s case, she’s received welcome presents like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles DVDs, and others that were less inspired, like a simple scarf.

But still, she said it’s exciting to play, especially after receiving her world record certificate, which she keeps framed on her wall.

“It still blows me away,” Gagnon said. “I always forget that it’s a thing that I’m a world record holder.”