/r/fatsquirrelhate

Submission 2,043

Part of a series on Reddit. [View Related Entries]

About

/r/fatsquirrelhate or Fat Squirrel Hate is a parody subreddit dedicated to people sharing images of overweight squirrels and posting hateful comments about them on Reddit. Originally created as a parody of the since-banned /r/FatPeopleHate subreddit, /r/fatsquirrelhate achieved recognition online in 2023 as posts from it were shared and went viral on other platforms.

History

On May 21st, 2015, the parody subreddit /r/fatsquirrelhate^[1] was created. The subreddit was founded as a parody of /r/fatpeoplehate,^[2]^[3] a subreddit that was banned on June 10th, 2015, soon after Reddit instituted its anti-harassment policy.

In /r/fatsquirrelhate, users submit photographs and videos of overweight squirrels and post mean and hateful comments about them. On June 19th, 2015, Redditor kcwckf posted the earliest noteworthy post in the subreddit^[4] comprised of a photograph of a squirrel paired with a mean title that earned over 1,700 upvotes in six months (shown below).

The subreddit achieved initial popularity in late 2018 and early 2019 when multiple posts submitted to it gained viral traction. For example, on November 21st, 2018, Redditor^[5] HolographicSpaceMeth made a post that received over 2,000 upvotes in six months (shown below, left). On December 28th, 2018, Redditor^[6] Dreamworld made a post that received over 1,300 upvotes in the same period (shown below, right).

2023 Recognition

On November 21st, 2022, after a seven-month ban period, the subreddit was reopened, since then accepting other animals from the Sciuridae family such as prairie dogs and chipmunks.^[7]

In April 2023, a screenshot of a January 2019 post in the subreddit went viral online. Notably, on April 11th, 2023, Tumblr^[8] user aweega posted the screenshot, commenting, "this is literally how pokemon villains talk about pokemon." The post (shown below) accumulated over 9,100 reblogs and 15,800 likes in five months.

Starting in May 2023, iFunny^[9]^[10] user SaltStains69 shared screenshots of /r/fatsquirrelhate posts, with multiple posts going viral on the app. Additionally, several posts about the subreddit also went viral on X / Twitter. For example, on May 20th, 2023, the X^[11] gimmick account @GoodReddit posted four screenshots of /r/fatsquirrelhate posts, gaining over 830 reposts and 18,100 likes in four months (shown below).

/r/FatSquirrelLove

On December 13th, 2018, as /r/fatsquirrelhate first achieved recognition on Reddit, the subreddit /r/FatSquirrelLove^[12] was established, collecting posts appreciative of squirrels instead.