To see the most popular subreddits in terms of comments, I calculated the following values for all subreddits:
- comments: number of comments in the subreddit
- c_rank: subreddit rank by number of comments
- users: number of commenters, or users who posted at least 1 comment
- u_rank: subreddit rank by number of commenters
- avg cmts: average number of comments per commenter
The following table shows the subreddits that are in top 20 by either the number of comments, or the number of users (who posted at least 1 comment). You can click on column headers to sort the table by column.
| subreddit | comments | c_rank | users | u_rank | avg cmts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AskReddit | 129526018 | 1 | 4054395 | 1 | 31.95 |
| politics | 33459498 | 2 | 722696 | 17 | 46.3 |
| leagueoflegends | 24259812 | 3 | 606736 | 21 | 39.98 |
| nba | 20042862 | 4 | 280039 | 54 | 71.57 |
| nfl | 19536466 | 5 | 271890 | 56 | 71.85 |
| worldnews | 18893913 | 6 | 1176059 | 8 | 16.07 |
| The_Donald | 18835574 | 7 | 393769 | 38 | 47.83 |
| funny | 18417913 | 8 | 1844344 | 3 | 9.99 |
| pics | 17125307 | 9 | 1851402 | 2 | 9.25 |
| news | 16750343 | 10 | 1019662 | 10 | 16.43 |
| videos | 15047577 | 11 | 1439067 | 4 | 10.46 |
| pcmasterrace | 14464493 | 12 | 690385 | 19 | 20.95 |
| SquaredCircle | 14216591 | 13 | 126425 | 133 | 112.45 |
| todayilearned | 14207850 | 14 | 1359651 | 5 | 10.45 |
| soccer | 13818732 | 15 | 250960 | 66 | 55.06 |
| hockey | 12714481 | 16 | 153287 | 114 | 82.95 |
| gaming | 12157336 | 17 | 1225064 | 7 | 9.92 |
| movies | 11684827 | 18 | 1007113 | 12 | 11.6 |
| DotA2 | 11243969 | 19 | 239691 | 69 | 46.91 |
| GlobalOffensive | 11106482 | 20 | 360058 | 42 | 30.85 |
| gifs | 8700658 | 25 | 1247750 | 6 | 6.97 |
| Showerthoughts | 7162287 | 30 | 1061022 | 9 | 6.75 |
| aww | 4890833 | 35 | 1015063 | 11 | 4.82 |
| IAmA | 4005195 | 55 | 989388 | 13 | 4.05 |
| mildlyinteresting | 4496801 | 44 | 950380 | 14 | 4.73 |
| WTF | 8188117 | 26 | 827009 | 15 | 9.9 |
| Music | 3157128 | 78 | 736537 | 16 | 4.29 |
| AdviceAnimals | 9202993 | 23 | 710905 | 18 | 12.95 |
| explainlikeimfive | 4745297 | 40 | 683992 | 20 | 6.94 |
No real surprise here. Ask reddit, politics, gaming, sports, news, and Donald Trump.
The Donald, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, and Harry Potter
From the data, we can see the popularity, or at least the celebrity, of Donald Trump. /r/The_Donald is the number one subreddit focused on an individual, by either the number of comments or the number of users. The next individual-focused subreddit is for Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton is way behind. I also noticed the Harry Potter subreddit while looking at the data.
| subreddit | comments | c_rank | users | u_rank | avg cmts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The_Donald | 18835574 | 7 | 393769 | 38 | 47.83 |
| SandersForPresident | 4176126 | 51 | 208781 | 78 | 20.00 |
| harrypotter | 832561 | 363 | 82167 | 221 | 10.13 |
| hillaryclinton | 1193252 | 243 | 41418 | 493 | 28.81 |
The fact that /r/The_Donald is the top subreddit focused on an individual is also confirmed by reddistlist, which ranks subreddits by recent activity and subscribers.
Now, would Harry Potter win a presidential race against Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, or Hillary Clinton ? It's tough to predict. Potter is a great wizard, but from all indications, Trump is also a great wizard in his own right.
We know Potter has great name recognition and is popular with young voters, but he has yet to be attacked politically. All we have are some pro-Potter propaganda books by JK Rowling.
