I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise, but at the start of Reddit the founders were creating tons and tons of fake posts. They were doing this to make the site look more popular than it was. They would create a fake user, and then make a post or two under that username. They would also likely use that username to upvote some shit on there to make it look like there is more engagement than there actually is.

Brilliant, really. Gotta do something to kickstart that shit right?