196 is an older subreddit that has no rules except one: you have to post an image before leaving. A lot of posts are titled “rule” as in they’re following the rule by posting something.

Obviously it’s more of a joke than a serious rule, so it’s quickly devolved into a place for random assortments of memes and weird images.

sure, so 196 refers to a sub called r/196, in reference to r/195, which had one rule only: if you visit, you must post something before you leave.

it was called r/196 after it’s predecessor got a bit… spicy. 195 was a sub that skewed slightly left of center, but had a hard time keeping 195 clear of hate speech etc etc, and so they shut it down. r/196 was made, which skews further left as a result of this. since 195 was a general posting sub, some of the audience had a tough time accepting every 2nd meme post with a side of politics, some ended up getting banned quickly, and in reaction they made subs like r/197

r/195 itself was called r/195 because it was the house number of creator of the sub at that time.

It was our address. All the mods lived together in a 5 bedroom condo during college. 195 was our house number. One of the roommates sucks, so he wasn’t invited, and one roommate has since deleted his reddit account. But originally this was a subreddit for us to share memes and funny stuff during classes and work. It’s blown up in a big way in the 8 years since we created it.

(i cannot fetch sources because most of reddit is blacked out)

that’s about it, if anyone else knows better, correct me if i’m wrong :)