r/TrueUnpopularOpinion: rules, karma requirements and posting culture

Who posts here

No knowledge is assumed. Posts are personal opinions on politics, dating, religion, media and food, argued from experience or from the news of the week. Nobody explains terms or cites much, and comments are short and sharp. A weak or thinly argued post is not coached, it is mocked in the comments or removed as low effort.

• People with strong political views, many of them critical of the left, of feminism or of Reddit's general consensus.
• People who argue the other side in the comments, often just as bluntly.
• Men and women posting grievances about dating and gender roles.
• Posters with harmless hot takes about food, films, music or holidays.
• Regulars who post meta complaints about the subreddit and how it is moderated.

Karma and account requirements

What it takes to get a post through in r/TrueUnpopularOpinion.

What you can post

What happens to a new post

Where the most recent posts ended up. Sample size: 400.

• Stayed up81%
• Removed by Reddit's filters3%
• Removed by moderators15%
• Deleted by the author2%

Reddit counts a removal by the subreddit's own AutoModerator rules as a moderator removal, so that share is not all human. Held by AutoModerator means the post is waiting in the mod queue.

The rules, in the mods' words

1. 1

   Posts must be opinions

   Opinions are subjective statements that cannot easily be proven true or false. Posts must be opinions or express personal preferences. This rule does not apply to Meta posts or moderator posts.

2. 2

   Opinions must be unpopular

   Opinions should at least be reasonably unpopular among a certain group or population. Since what is unpopular or not is very disputable, we will generally only remove a post for violating this rule only if the post is either so popular that almost no one would disagree (i.e. *'Murder is bad'*) and/or if disagreeing with the main opinion would be a violation of Rule 7 or Reddit-wide rules (i.e. *'Women and men should have equal voting rights'*).

3. 3

   No low-effort posts

   Give a well thought-out opinion and explanation. You don't need to write a novel, but at least put a few sentences of elaboration in the text body.

4. 4

   Keep discussion civil

   Engage in honest, respectful discussions. Do not personally attack or mock others. If you believe that an opinion is ignorant/uninformed/offensive, then attack the opinion on its merits. For a full explanation about what we do or do not consider a violation, see this post.

5. 5

   No spam or trolling

   Keep all discussion on topic. Do not post content designed primarily to anger users or to elicit a desired reaction from users. Do not spam.

6. 6

   Meta posts should start with [Meta] or use the Meta flair

   Meta posts relate to this subreddit and do not have to follow Rule 1 or 2.

7. 7

   No racism or sexism, abide by Reddit policy

   Please see this post for more information on the Reddit-wide rules (TOS). Additionally, racism or sexism against any race or sex is not permitted.

8. 8

   Do not abuse the report feature

   You should only report a post or comment if you believe it violates our rules or Reddit's TOS. Do not use the report button as a downvote button. If a user abuses the report button, we WILL flag their reports, and this very often results in their account being suspended from all of Reddit. If you would like to bring our attention to any post or comment but you are unsure if it violates the rules or the proper report reason is not available, please send us a modmail instead of reporting it.

9. 9

   Do not evade the filter

   Do not deliberately misspell words or substitute characters to avoid detection by our automated filter. Content that does this but otherwise complies with the rules may be removed because this risks encouraging rule-violating users to do the same. The filter helps protect your account and the subreddit as a whole. If you have positive history and you are confident that you understand the rules and the Content Policy, you may request a filter exemption by sending a Mod Mail to r/TUO_Meta.

10. 10

    Do not make negative comments about other subreddits or their moderators

    While you can absolutely mention other subs, such as r/LostRedditors or r/Whoosh, this is not the place to express your grievances about how another subreddit is run or how you wish their moderators were as awesome as those of this subreddit. Doing so is a contravention of Reddit-wide rules and will be removed.

11. 11

    Posts about transgender topics belong in the transgender topics megathread

12. 12

    No discussion regarding pedophilia, grooming, or sexual or romantic relationships involving minors

    For the purpose of this rule, a minor is defined to be a person under 18 years of age, even if the legal age of consent is lower in your jurisdiction.

These are the rules as archived in January 2025. Rules change. Check the sidebar before you post.

The culture

r/TrueUnpopularOpinion sells itself as a place for civil discussion of unpopular opinions, free of some of the censorship found on other subreddits. In practice it is a high volume argument board. It has about 210,000 members and around 135 posts a day. Posts run about 150 words, state a position in the title and defend it in a few paragraphs.

Politics and gender carry the place. Political and Sex / Gender / Dating flairs cover over 40% of posts, and the top threads are almost all reactions to whatever is in the news that week: a criminal trial, a celebrity controversy, an immigration argument. The same story can produce a dozen posts in a few days, each taking a slightly different angle. The tone leans against progressive and feminist positions, with a steady minority posting the opposite view.

The fault line is civility. The rules ask for respectful discussion and ban racism and sexism against any group. Members complain in meta posts that the comments are anything but civil. Moderators removed about 15% of posts in our sample, most often under the Political and Sex / Gender / Dating flairs, and both sides of an argument show up among the removals.

What lands

• A strong stance on the news story everyone is already fighting about, stated flat in the title.
• A claim that one group applies a double standard, built on two recent events side by side.
• A personal account that supports a contested position, such as a student describing how immigration changed the job market where they live.
• A blunt statement of disrespect for an idea or institution, with a paragraph making clear it is not aimed at individual people.
• Low stakes preferences about food or entertainment. They stay up and get replies, but far fewer votes.

What gets removed or ignored

• Sweeping statements about a religion or an ethnic group. Several posts of this kind were removed while more carefully worded ones stayed.
• The same post submitted two or three times. Duplicates are a visible share of the removals.
• Anything on transgender topics outside the megathread, and any discussion of sexual or romantic relationships involving minors.
• Posts that are not opinions: a survey link, a personal confession, a request for feedback on an essay.
• Meta posts that attack the subreddit, and complaints about other subreddits or their moderators.

The unwritten rules

• Scope your claim. Posts that say many or some, and that separate an idea from the people who hold it, survive where blanket statements do not.
• Write the body. A title with one line under it will not clear the 250 character minimum, and the low effort rule asks for a few sentences of reasoning.
• Expect to be insulted. Comments are short, about 27 words, and many are sarcastic. Answer the argument or leave it.
• The Possibly Popular flair exists for opinions that might not be unpopular. Using it heads off the usual complaint.
• Do not use the post to send people anywhere. Posts are text only and the one survey post in the removals was pulled.

Self-promotion

The rules do not mention self-promotion by name. The relevant rule is the ban on spam, along with the requirement that every post be an opinion with an explanation. There is nothing to promote with: posts are text only, and the single clearly promotional item among the removals was a survey request posted under an opinion flair. Links do appear inside posts and in about 3.5% of comments, as sources for an argument. Treat this as a place to argue a view under your own name and nothing else.

How people write here

Typical post length

147 words

Typical title length

11 words

Titles phrased as a question

0%

Typical comment length

27 words

Comments that include a link

4%

Posts that carry a flair

84%

The regulars

The accounts that showed up most in our sample. Worth reading before you post: they set the tone, and they are usually the first to reply.

Top keywords

The words and phrases that show up far more often here than in other communities, from recent posts in r/TrueUnpopularOpinion.

• men 56 posts
• women 57 posts
• cornell 34 posts
• rape 30 posts
• sex 33 posts
• saying 51 posts
• woman 32 posts
• society 23 posts
• political 21 posts
• sexual 22 posts
• man 33 posts
• feminists 10 posts
• cornell case 10 posts
• evil 17 posts
• don 70 posts
• believe 36 posts
• crime 17 posts
• accused 16 posts
• life 53 posts
• reason 40 posts
• world 36 posts
• raped 13 posts
• bad 50 posts
• yes 34 posts
• death 20 posts
• hate 31 posts
• person 46 posts
• clancy 9 posts
• moral 15 posts
• majority 19 posts
• mean 33 posts
• stupid 23 posts
• government 20 posts
• kids 25 posts
• leftists 7 posts
• culture 19 posts
• opinion 22 posts
• fact 23 posts
• case 33 posts
• male 16 posts

Posts that did well

• Immigrants ARE taking our jobs.1.1k upvotes · 534 comments · Political
• The fact that the lone holdout Juror in the L.Clancy case is black and is basically being doxed by her lawyer and the other jurors shows he is a hero.900 upvotes · 509 comments · World Affairs (Except Middle East)
• Demonizing Ed Shereen for not screaming their slogans is exactly why the Left is so insufferable and unpopular869 upvotes · 429 comments · Political
• The fact that the lone Lindsay Clancy juror is Black has made the online discourse hilarious750 upvotes · 175 comments · Political
• Female dominant workplaces are hell on Earth682 upvotes · 162 comments
• Feminists think Sydney Sweeney doing a sexy ad is setting women back, but Lindsay Clancy killing her three kids and crying postpartum psychosis isn’t.677 upvotes · 280 comments · Sex / Gender / Dating
• If Lindsay Clancy looked like Sydney Sweeney, she would have no support from women .645 upvotes · 187 comments · Sex / Gender / Dating
• I don’t respect Islam. At all.618 upvotes · 175 comments · Religion

Common questions