To find out more about the “Don’t You Know Who I Am” subreddit, Bored Panda reached out to its moderator u/Acoustag, who took over as a head moderator around a year ago since the team at the time didn’t have time to maintain the subreddit any longer. u/Acoustag is now in charge of day-to-day operations of the subreddit.
“At the moment, we average around 20 new posts per day, but usually half or less of those actually get approved,” he said. Turns out, the sub had an issue with mass reposting of content in the past, but the mod team has now solved that.
Meanwhile, they try to keep the content fresh. “Certain niche subreddits like ours definitely struggle for new content, though. There are only so many 'Don't You Know Who I Am?' interactions happening each day,” u/Acoustag explained.
Turns out that the viral “Tony Hawk” posts where people don't recognize the legendary skater were the ones that inspired the whole “Don’t You Know Who I Am” concept.
“They definitely started it all for me. Tony holds a special place of reverence in the heart of our community. Just google 'Tony Hawk not recognized Twitter' and you'll find tales of many confused strangers suggesting that Tony Hawk must be related to the skateboarder, Tony Hawk. Or Tony Hawk looks like the skateboarder, Tony Hawk. It's all so ridiculous.”
The overall content in the subreddit is best defined as "light-hearted fun," said the mod. “We're not looking to shame people for acting important, or to 'call them out' for not recognizing somebody important.”
Having said that, some interactions can indeed get a little heavy. Like, “involving gender, race, religion, etc.—we aim to keep the discussion clean & civil, and remind our community that most posts here boil down to an 'Oops! I didn't realize!' moment.”
Today, the subreddit has loosened some of the posting rules to allow for more content (posts no longer require well-known people). At the same time, the team “cracked down on reposting rules due to karma-farming accounts. We've held polls in the past to see what changes the community would like to see, but everyone seems to like it as it is,” u/Acoustag concluded.
