About r/thatHappened
In its own words:
c0MpLeTElY tRUE St0rIeS
Community guide
r/thatHappened (#712, about 1.5 million subscribers) covers c0MpLeTElY tRUE St0rIeS. A recent sample averaged 5.5 posts a day (~80% image, ~18% gallery, ~2% link). Its public rules include: Post incredibly true stories that totally actually happened.; Redact all identifiable information; No pictures of children; reddiquette applies; No Politics.
What belongs here
Stay inside the room’s stated scope rather than adjacent off-topic dumps. Match posts to: Post incredibly true stories that totally actually happened.; Redact all identifiable information; No pictures of children; reddiquette applies. Recent samples are image-heavy; titles should explain why the media belongs here.
How it differs from lookalikes
Prefer this room when your post matches its description and rules—not merely a larger sibling community.
Practical pointers
Read the live sidebar/rules before posting; rules can change.
The community was created on Nov 23, 2012, which makes it 13 years old. Since Nov 2, 2026, it has gained 231 subscribers (+0.02%). It sits just behind r/3Dmodeling (#711) and ahead of r/ChainsawMan (#713) in our ranking.
What sets r/thatHappened apart
Compared with other large communities, r/thatHappened leans heavily on images (80% of recent posts; the typical Top 100 subreddit sits at 22%).
Subscriber growth
Between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 9, 2026, r/thatHappened climbed from 1,488,769 to 1,490,511 subscribers (+1.7K, +0.12%). That is about 34 new members per day. The chart shows 10 weekly subscriber counts.
Top posts on r/thatHappened this week
This week’s highest-ranked posts, in Reddit’s own order (collected Nov 7, 2026).
- Landlord’s revengeu/blareboy · Nov 5 · image
- And then the crowd starting doing the YMCA dance at the voting boothu/holdstheenemy · Nov 2 · image
- who’s running her account..u/theeconprof · Nov 5 · image
- A super real thing that happened to Ted Cruzu/PlanetaryIceTea · Nov 7 · image
- That's now how CBP worksu/Impossible_Offer7988 · Nov 3 · image
- I was the chicken.u/Weekly_Lingonberry22 · Nov 1 · image
- People actually clapped. Savage.u/Glynnage · Nov 2 · image
- Those 12 year olds sure know how to troll random peopleu/RandomRamblings99 · Nov 1 · image
- No one is driving across state lines for something they can get literally anywhereu/disco-waffle99 · Nov 1 · image
- The future of education is here!u/RandomRamblings99 · Nov 2 · image
All-time top posts
The highest-ranked posts in the history of r/thatHappened, from 2016 to 2022, ranked by Reddit.
- sure buddy.u/Mr_AC250 · Aug 16, 2018 · 35,654 points · 748 comments · image
- How do people honestly believe this?Jul 24, 2017 · 26,862 points · 1,288 comments · image
- Sorry, what the hell did I just read?u/je_suis_un_negre · Dec 16, 2018 · 28,742 points · 1,375 comments · image
- Forbidden Repostu/maybesaydie · Jan 2, 2019 · 26,527 points · 1,043 comments · image
- Sucking out the venomu/blokkiesam · Sep 16, 2018 · 21,554 points · 881 comments · image
- Monday's Forbidden Repostu/maybesaydie · Sep 24, 2018 · 20,684 points · 490 comments · image
- Stop Posting This Rabbitkin Abominationu/maybesaydie · Dec 31, 2018 · 17,975 points · 1,043 comments · image
- Guy gets dissapointed, awesome human got him $50%u/-Flaw- · Jan 4, 2017 · 12,779 points · 350 comments · image
- Woman claims to have lost a bone in her arm after a flu shot - a "known side effect".u/mah_man_ · Nov 10, 2017 · 10,572 points · 350 comments · image
- No way. Even for a teenager. Especially for a teenager?u/DoctorTurkelton · Nov 8, 2021 · 8,939 points · 160 comments · image
What r/thatHappened talks about
Across 40 recent posts (Oct 29–Nov 5), the words that come up most are “voting”, “mom”, “tries”, “piracy” and “conservative”. Other frequent themes are acquaintance, terrifying, experience, halloween, nonsense and clapped. Recurring phrases include “mom tries”, “conservative acquaintance”, “terrifying voting” and “voting experience”. By format, 80% are images, 18% are galleries and 3% are links.
Activity and best time to post
r/thatHappened gets about 5.5 new posts a day. The public archive holds 339,885 posts and 4,588,436 comments in total, about 13.5 comments per post. Last week the busiest day was Friday (10 posts) and the quietest was Thursday (2). Posting peaks around 00:00 UTC and is lowest around 07:00 UTC.
Rules of r/thatHappened
The moderators of r/thatHappened list 5 rules. In short:
- Post incredibly true stories that totally actually happened.
- Redact all identifiable information
- No pictures of children
- reddiquette applies
- No Politics
How to join
Open reddit.com/r/thatHappened and press “Join”. Read the community rules in the sidebar before you post: every subreddit is run by its own volunteer moderators.
Frequently asked questions
How big is r/thatHappened?
r/thatHappened has 1,490,511 subscribers (Nov 9, 2026), which makes it the #712 safe-for-work subreddit in the SubMouse ranking. It added 1,742 members between Sep 19, 2026 and Nov 9, 2026.
How old is r/thatHappened?
r/thatHappened was created on Nov 23, 2012, so it has been around for 13 years.
How active is r/thatHappened?
Moderately: r/thatHappened gets about 5.5 new posts a day (average of the last four weeks). Over its lifetime the archive counts 339,885 posts and 4,588,436 comments.
When is r/thatHappened most active?
Based on post counts from Oct 29, 2026 to Nov 4, 2026, the busiest day was Friday and the quietest Thursday, and most posts arrive around 00:00 UTC, with the fewest around 07:00 UTC. More posts also means more competition, so a quieter hour can help a post get noticed.
What is r/thatHappened about?
The community describes itself as: “c0MpLeTElY tRUE St0rIeS” Recent post titles often mention voting, mom, tries, piracy and conservative. Most posts are images (80%).
Is r/thatHappened safe for work?
Yes. Reddit does not mark r/thatHappened as an 18+ (NSFW) community. SubMouse lists safe-for-work subreddits only.
How do I post on r/thatHappened?
Join the community on Reddit first, then use “Create post”. r/thatHappened accepts link and media posts (no plain text posts), with images and galleries enabled. It has 5 posted rules, starting with: “Post incredibly true stories that totally actually happened.”; “Redact all identifiable information”; “No pictures of children”. Moderators remove posts that break the rules, so read them in the sidebar before posting.
Which communities are like r/thatHappened?
Communities with similar topics include r/nottheonion (26.1M).
Stats from public data (data updated Nov 9, 2026; activity, rules and archive totals via the Arctic Shift archive, Nov 6, 2026; top posts from Reddit’s public feeds). Point and comment counts are archive snapshots and can be lower than on Reddit today. SubMouse is an independent directory and is not affiliated with Reddit or the moderators of r/thatHappened.