From Snoo to Subreddits: How Reddit’s Look and Features Evolved Over 20 Years

In the spring of 2005, University of Virginia students Steve Huffman and Alexis Ohanian pitched the business idea of a text message-based food delivery service to the then-nascent startup incubator Y Combinator (YC). The concept failed to win over investors, but YC co-founder Paul Graham saw promise in the duo and encouraged them to develop something that could become the “front page of the internet.” That summer, Huffman and Ohanian turned that idea into Reddit and were admitted into YC’s inaugural startup batch with $12,000 in seed funding.

Fast forward 20 years, Reddit is now a $24.8 billion social media giant boasting 108 million daily active users. Over the past two decades, Reddit has kept its original name and orange alien mascot, but has made subtle branding tweaks to reflect shifting market trends and user tastes.

Here’s how Reddit’s face has changed over the years:

2005-2006: The debut of “Snoo”

The original Reddit logo was simple, with just a hint of orange in the eyes of its alien mascot, Snoo. The site’s name came from the phrase “I read it,” a nod to its purpose: a place where users could discover, share, and upload new information. Snoo—originally named “S’new,” short for “What’s new?”—was meant to embody the spirit of exploration across Reddit’s many communities.

Huffman coded the site in just three weeks, while Ohanian handled pretty much everything else, including designing Snoo. Initially, the site was so empty that Huffman and Ohanian decided to create hundreds of fake accounts to simulate user activity.

Fortunately, the site quickly became a hit, attracting 70,000 daily visitors in its first year, Huffman and Ohanian told TechCrunch in a 2006 interview. Later that year, they sold the company to Condé Nast for $10 million. In 2009, both founders stepped away from their leadership roles to pursue new ventures.

2007-2016: Quiet improvements under the surface

During Condé Nast’s ownership from 2006 to 2011, Reddit saw no major rebranding or integration with its parent company. But things changed when Reddit became an independent subsidiary of Advance Publications, Condé Nast’s parent company. The move gave Reddit more operational freedom and brought in a new CEO: Yishan Wong, a former PayPal engineer.

New features rolled out during and after this period reshaped how users interacted on the platform and helped Reddit grow its user base by the millions.

In 2008, Reddit introduced “subreddits”–individual communities dedicated to specific topics—a feature credited with driving the site’s popularity. That year, Reddit reached 2.6 million users that year, according to SEO solutions firm SEO.AI. In 2013, it launched “multireddits,” which let users view top posts from multiple subreddits in one feed.

Wong stepped down as CEO in 2014 and was succeeded by Ellen Pao, a corporate lawyer known for spotlighting sexism in Silicon Valley. Her tenure lasted just eight months.

Huffman returned as CEO in 2015. He introduced formal content policies and a safety team to oversee moderation. That included a new anti-harassment policy and the replacement of shadowbans with transparent account suspensions.

In 2016, Reddit launched its official mobile app. It also began allowing images and videos to be uploaded directly, eliminating the need for third-party hosting sites. According to SEO.AI, Reddit’s user base grew to 170 million that year.

2017-2022: More orange and a site overhaul

In 2017, Reddit updated its logo, turning Snoo entirely orange while keeping the Reddit wordmark in black. The following year, the company rolled out its first major website redesign—a shift away from what Huffman once described as a “dystopian Craigslist.” The overhaul introduced new viewing options, streamlined navigation and a more prominent blue button for creating posts.

2023-2025: Going full orange and public

In 2023, ahead of its IPO, Reddit unveiled a refreshed logo featuring a fully orange, three-dimensional version of Snoo. The update also gave the mascot a wider range of poses, expressions and reactions.

That same year, Reddit released its custom typefaces, Reddit Sans and Reddit Display, on GitHub and Google Fonts to make its “clear, understandable letterforms” freely accessible across the web.

The company went public in March 2024. Recently, it launched a set of A.I. tools to help advertisers better understand which trends and campaigns are gaining traction on the platform.