Internet
reddit hug of death
What does reddit hug of death mean?
The phenomenon where a small server gets so much sudden traffic from a popular Reddit post that it falls over and serves errors. Affectionate framing — Reddit loves you so much it kills you.
"Cool blog post but it's down — looks like it got the Reddit hug of death."
Origin
A friendlier rebrand of the older 'Slashdot effect' from the early-2000s tech news site Slashdot, which used to nuke small sites the same way when it linked them.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Reddit hug of death?
It's when a link hits Reddit's front page and the sudden flood of traffic instantly crashes the destination site.
How do you use Reddit hug of death in a sentence?
"His little blog got the Reddit hug of death within minutes of the post blowing up."
Why is it called a hug of death?
The name is ironic — all that attention is meant fondly, but the traffic overwhelms the server and takes the site down.
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