Arbitrary Day: Reddit Users Give Gifts -- For No Reason

Redditors Celebrate Arbitrary Day: Gift-Giving For No Reason

Reddit users are known for marching to their own beat, so it comes as no surprise they're preparing to celebrate their own unique holiday: Arbitrary Day.

Signing up for Arbitrary Day, an open "Secret Santa" gift exchange among users, opened yesterday and ends June 25. At press time, 6,756 people had already pledged to give, arbitrarily.

The 2011 exchange included 7,000 people in 71 countries, giving more than $250,000 in gift.

"Arbitrary Day has no theme and is purely about giving a gift because you feel like giving," the social website reads. "Won't you celebrate it with us?"

The site also announced a new gift-giving opportunity last week in which Reddit users in the U.S. can send gifts or packages to Redditors serving in the military overseas -- with funny man Stephen Colbert hopping on board immediately.

"It dawned on me how much of an impact Reddit really has,” Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, said in a video about the program.

But Redditors don't always stick to arbitrary giving -- sometimes it's very concentrated.

New to Reddit, Luis Francisco González, joined the network as a final plea: To help his family move to Durham, N.C., so his 3-year-old son could undergo a life-saving bone marrow transplant, the Washington Post reports.

In just one night Redditors raised $31,000 for the family -- and González stayed true to his word: Now the father boasts a tattoo of the Reddit symbol on his arm, a reminder, he told the news source, of the site that saved his son.

As another example, in just 24 hours users raised $80,000 for an orphanage in Kenya.

Users have also galvanized to send hundreds of letters to a terminally-ill down syndrome man who loved receiving mail.

Learn more about Reddit's Arbitrary Day, here.

Before You Go

Popular in the Community

Close

What's Hot