/r/BreadStapledtoTrees

Submission 17,024

About

/r/BreadStapledToTrees is a subreddit community on Reddit devoted to images of slices of bread stapled to trees. The subreddit gained a significant following and notoriety outside Reddit for the hyper-specific nature of its content.

History

The community was founded on March 22nd, 2017 by user despot1.^[1] According to an /r/OutOfTheLoop^[2] post, the group's description once featured a message from despot1 that read:

Why is this a thing?
I honestly don't know.
Why did you create this? Is /u/despot1 such a complete loser that he has nothing better to do with his time?
Yes, actually, I am a complete loser and have nothing better to do. It was actually not my idea, but /u/biscuit_mcniggs's. I had created a subreddit (back when I was at a measly 1,000 karma) and wanted him to mod because I knew he used Reddit, but he told me no. He said he'd only mod if the sub had a point to it. After much thought, I had nothing. So I asked him if he had an idea, and he replied with "Whole Wheat Bread Stapled to Trees." That didn't fit, so we just went with "Bread Stapled to Trees."
Hope that helps. Feel free to ask about anything else in the comments.

As of November 27th, 2018, the top post on the subreddit is a picture of bread stapled to a tree encouraging upvotes so the image will appear when one searches the word "Art" on Google. The post, by despot1, has over 36,000 points (shown below, left). Another post by u/gts250gamer101 showing bread was a "staple food" gained over 12,900 points (shown below, right).

The subreddit grew to over 143,000 subscribers in less than two years. This was aided by commentary from other subreddits and websites remarking on the strangeness of the subreddit. For example, a post on /r/ofcoursethatsathing about the subreddit gained over 11,000 points.^[3] The subreddit was also covered by Cheezburger^[4] and sadanduseless.^[5] On November 25th, 2018, the subreddit was featured by YouTube channel Comment Awards, gaining over 150,000 views (shown below).