The subreddit was created back in late 2017 by Redditor u/Teekeks, with whom Bored Panda got in touch for an interview, after seeing a video of a borderline car crash (more like truck, and not really a crash, more of a stunt-filled near-accident... I am getting really off track here) and a subsequent comment thread that followed it.
Don’t worry, everyone involved in the supposed accident was fine, but what was not fine was what one of the commenters called “the single most useless indication circle I have ever seen.” And if you see it, you’ll understand the magnitude of that comment.
The subreddit is rather straightforward with its presentation and the bulk of its content. The description pretty much says it all: “for images or videos where something obvious got highlighted with a red circle or outline.”
But simplicity is often a cause for people to challenge themselves and to dive deeper into the crux of things, explore the vast unknown and unexpected... which is another great subreddit, but I digress.
Because it’s not just about a useless red circle. It’s also the emphasis on how ridiculous the whole situation is. It’s about finding all red circles, both artificial and natural, those found in the wild on bottles and Xboxes. It’s meta on another level. (This is besides the content around the circles.)
This is where Redditor wit knocks it up a notch (or several) and creativity begins. Ultimately, after a few scrolls, you’ll start noticing red circles everywhere, possibly snapping a pic and uploading it to the subreddit. You see what it does to you?!
When the majority of subreddits have specific rules for what content they allow, this one keeps it self-explanatory and fairly liberal.
“Ideally, [the post] is something a user found with a useless highlight somewhere in the wild, but just crossposts from other subreddits and some self-created memes that follow the topic are also allowed (as long as they don’t get out of hand in post frequency),” explained Teekeks.
This in turn also allows for some meta humor, i.e. the aforementioned red bottle rings and Xbox rings of death. But in moderation, as explains Teekeks: “Those kinda posts can be quite fun and a change from the usual topic of the subreddit. But the problem with those is that people tend to go overboard and I end up with 20-30 exactly identical new posts that all are just of that meme kind from time to time.”
Speaking of the community, it grew rapidly in the 6 years since its founding, now amounting to 177,000 members posting useless red (and other-colored) circles around very obvious things.
“The community consists mostly of people who just want to share their funny pictures they found and people discussing the topic of the post itself. I try to keep the discussion as open as possible, while also not allowing bigotry,” elaborated Teekeks.