Make friends IRL at Phoenix's Global reddit Meetup Day

Do you love the internet? Do you want to meet other people that do, too?

The 6th annual Global reddit Meetup Day is Saturday, June 13, and the Phoenix meetup is at Encanto Park. Bazinga!

Everyone is invited. You can bring pets, kids, snacks and beer (not in glass bottles), or you can bring nothing but your flawless internet humor.

The Phoenix gathering starts at 4 p.m., and they're taking a huge group photo at 5:30 p.m. The first 100 people will get a special gift depicting the "official unofficial logo" designed by Hayley Meister, who is u/charleyface.

Will Brickles, who lives in Scottsdale, is the Phoenix meetup's primary organizer, defined by the fact that he was the one who secured a beer permit for the event. It's important!

He assures that you don't have to be a reddit whiz to attend – most of the 100 or so people who have attended in the past aren't active posters on r/Phoenixor the reddit Phoenix Facebook group.

"There is core group that definitely knows each other, but we all met by going to these events," said Brickles, 36. "We make it a point to make new people feel welcome if we can."

For the unaware, reddit is "the gateway to everything interesting going on the world… People submit links to reddit – blog posts or images or videos – and other people vote those links up or down. It's a simple idea but it makes reddit into a list of the best stuff people are reading or watching on the internet right now," according to this wonderful video aptly titled "What is reddit?"

Global reddit Meetup Day, or GrMD, draws thousands of people together around the world. Last year, there was a brass band at /r/seattle and a bouncy castle at /r/hawaii, according to the reddit blog.

"I think most people go as an opportunity to expand their social circle, and with a group as large and diverse as ours, many leave with great new lifelong friends," Brickles said.

It's worth getting into. Every year, reddit hosts the world's largest Secret Santa. In the past, redditors have gotten presents from Bill Gates and Shaquille O'Neal!

Details: 4 p.m. Saturday, June 13. A group photo will be taken at 5:30 p.m. Encanto Park, 15th Avenue & Encanto Boulevard, Phoenix. Free. RSVP on Facebook here.