announcement with picture of the Joker on a burning background" alt="International Upvote Everything Day
announcement with picture of the Joker on a burning background" data-src="http://i.imgur.com/HNdyfrS.png?1" class=" img-responsive img-thumbnail" height="227" width="400" srcset="https://wompampsupport.azureedge.net/fetchimage?siteId=7575&v=2&jpgQuality=100&width=700&url=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FHNdyfrS.png%3F1, http://i.imgur.com/HNdyfrS.png?1 400w" sizes="(max-width: 400px) 100%, 400px" layout="intrinsic" src="https://wompampsupport.azureedge.net/fetchimage?siteId=7575&v=2&jpgQuality=100&width=700&url=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FHNdyfrS.png%3F1">
On July 29th, 2016, Imgur's front page was filled with posts celebrating Upvote Everything Day.[14][15][16] Users took the opportunity to try and get shitposts on the front page, either with disturbing content[18] or with irrelevant memes.[17]
On November 9th, following the 2016 United States Presidential Election, Imgur users banded together to fill the front page with sea slugs as a distraction from politics. The phenomenon started following dozens of photo posts of sea slugs from user Homophone[19] captioned, "I voted, now I'm posting sea slugs until I feel better" (shown below).
In the following day, over one thousand posts related to sea slugs were posted and upvoted in an effort to get politics off the front page of Imgur.[20] As of November 10th, 2016, the top sea slug post comes from irtaylor[21] captioned, "Fill the Front Page with Sea Slugs" (below, left). The same day, user IceSentry took to /r/OutOfTheLoop[22] to ask a question about the rise of sea slugs on Imgur.
According to Imgur's monthly site statistics[5], for the monthly period between 11th of October to 10th of November, 61,627,977 images were uploaded and image views were 29,976,799,540. Bandwidth used has reached 3.67 petabytes. The site has an Alexa rank of 98 in November 2012[6].
[2] Reddit – User MrGrim
[3] Reddit /r/reddit.com – My Gift to Reddit: I created an image hosting service that doesn't suck. What do you think?
[4] MediaITE – Viral Sensation In One Year: A Q&A With Imgur Founder Alan Schaaf
[5] Imgur via Wayback Machine – Site Statistics One Month
[6] Alexa – imgur.com Site Info
[8] Imgur – Upgrade to Imgur Pro (page unavailable)
[9] Imgur – Uploading Tools
[10] Imgur – Frequently Asked Questions – How do you pronounce Imgur?
[11] Imgur – The Imgur Meme Generator
[12] Imgur – Memes Gallery
[13] Imgur – I've got a can full of gas and a handful of matches
[14] Imgur – July 29th – 'Upvote Everything' Test
[15] Imgur – For 24 Hours, everything is legal. Welcome to the 29th.
[16] Imgur – Every Damn Post
[17] Imgur – The true test of 7/29
[18] Imgur (via Wayback Machine) – 7/29 Official Mascot
[19] Imgur – I voted, now I'm posting sea slugs until I feel better
[20] Imgur – Sea Slugs search
[21] Imgur – Fill the front page with sea slugs
[22] /r/OutOftheLoop – Why is imgur filled with sea slugs?