Our favorite subreddits, for a healthier scroll [members-only]

I've tried to quit the scroll for years and have had some success with it finally; the total Nazification of most social media sites has certainly helped. Let me pull on my old-timer blogger jorts and sit you kids down for a lesson some of you simply won't believe: social media used to be good! You could tune into Twitter to see whether that was gunshots or fireworks, you could open up Instagram and see posts from your friends in chronological order, you could start a single-serving Tumblr and get a deal for a book that would be sold at Urban Outfitters across the whole damn country. Nextdoor existed, but the less said about that the better. Nowadays, we're all better served just getting off the internet.

I'll cop that I have one last scroll left that I truly enjoy, saved for insomnia nights and long toilet breaks, and that is Reddit. More hyperlocal than a Bluesky feed, more elegant than a standard comment section, less brain rotty than TikTok and more human (and accurate) than Google's AI slop, Reddit still feels a little raw and actually useful, in ways we forgot the internet can be. Last week, Katie Hanson wrote about the enduringly robust world of NYC Reddit, where even the most wide-eyed, fresh-off-the-bus questions are met with earnest answers.

But Reddit is a big place even for the power users, so I'll share a few favorite subreddits — and some suggestions from other Groove members — for both the city and beyond, for your enjoyment, and maybe even enlightenment.