Subreddits to distract yourself from the coronavirus pandemic

Relationship advice, cute animals, weird images of Garfield and more

Talia Heisey, Writer|April 24, 2020

If you’re looking for a distraction and want to find new ways to take your mind off of the coronavirus, check out these interesting and often unusual subreddits.

The internet’s “wisdom”:

r/AITA, r/relationships, r/relationshipadvice, and r/confessions

People generally come to these subreddits asking for advice, or to admit something. r/AITA is where people post social situations they’ve been in where they or other people. Most people usually side on r/AITA with OP, even if OP’s behavior is also very questionable. Like a lot of other social medias, Reddit can definitively be a sounding board or echo chamber at times, which is worth keeping in mind. Though, there also are people who pretty clearly shouldn’t be in a relationship or should get couple’s counselling. r/relationships and r/relationshipadvice has a similar vibe, it’s where people post issues they’re having within their relationships, or issues they’ve noticed with close family or friends. People give pretty good advice in both of them, for the most part, despite how crazy OP’s circumstances can be.

Where the cute animals are:

r/aww, r/eyebleach, and r/illegallySmolCats, r/tinyunits

These subreddits are full of people posting gifs, videos or photos of their adorable pets. R/aww and r/eyebleach are more general. While r/illegallySmolCats is full of “cats(and other smol animals) that are so adorably small it should be illegal” and r/tinyunits, which is also full of tiny, cute animals. Beyond these, there are hundreds of subreddits dedicated to different animals which their subscribers love.

In case you miss UMass:

r/umass

In UMass Amherst’s subreddit, whenever anyone asks for advice they usually get at least one comment directing them to the campus pond or to go ask the campus geese. Right now, it’s a mixture of people asking about classes for the fall, incoming freshmen asking for advice, and people talking about the coronavirus.

Interesting art subreddits:

r/ATBGE

“ATBGE” stands for “Awful Taste But Great Execution”, where the idea behind the art ranges from questionable to awful, but the end product or artwork itself is really well done and high quality.

r/fondanthate

This subreddit is populated with people who hate (for good reason) the cake decoration fondant, and a mixture of cakes decorated with it which are decried, and cakes gorgeously decorated with non-fondant, actually edible alternatives.

r/imsorryjohn

Most users describe this subreddit as “it will ruin your ability to enjoy Garfield comics”, or in the words of one of my friends, “I never knew Garfield could look so weird.” The subreddit describes itself as, “Garfield has abandoned His limited form and He is beautiful. Surrender yourself to Him and be saved! Here we celebrate our favorite cosmic entity with cattitude.”

r/reallifedoodles

A really endearing, non-cute animal-based subreddit, where artists animate and humanize inanimate objects in gifs. Recently it’s gotten to become more of reposting links to YouTube clips they’ve made rather than gifs.

r/embroidery

A subreddit full of people showing off their amazing embroidery projects, and also people asking for help and getting resources to learn how to embroider. When visiting a skill or hobby-based subreddit, and you want to learn how the subreddit’s wiki or pinned post at the top usually has resources and advice.

Niche or unusual subreddits:

r/sbubby

This subreddit has the talent of John Oliver in mocking products, morphing well-known advertising campaigns into ads for much funnier and stranger products.