If protesters have their way, Reddit will soon serve as a repository for all images featuring John Oliver.
In response to user votes, some of the largest Reddit communities are now only allowing images and videos of the British comedian.
As a form of protest against changes to the way the website is run, thousands of Reddit communities, or subreddits, became inaccessible earlier in June.
Although thousands of them are still inaccessible, many have since reopened.
And as a result of votes from some of the largest subreddits that recently reopened, including r/aww, r/pics, and r/gifs, the communities have been named in honor of Oliver.
The r/pics subreddit's moderators claimed that while the site's rules currently only permit users to post images of John Oliver "looking sexy," in practice any image of the comedian was permitted "because John Oliver is always sexy.".
The comedian responded calmly to the posts on Twitter, calling them "excellent work" and encouraging Redditors to "have at it," before posting a number of images that go beyond the scope of what is considered to be sexy.
Users are protesting Reddit's controversial new fees for making third-party apps that are used to access the social media site.
An estimated 3,600 subreddits are still inaccessible, and more than 7,000 subreddits completely shut down in protest of the changes.
The platform's two biggest subreddits, r/science and r/music, are no longer dark, but moderators are still preventing new posts, with the exception of a video posted to r/music that, perhaps not surprisingly, features Oliver.
The term "subreddit" refers to a forum on the Reddit platform, which is really just a group of people who get together to talk about one topic in particular.
Instead of following specific users on other platforms, Reddit users, or Redditors, typically join a variety of subreddits, and posts from these communities appear in their feed.
Tens of thousands of unpaid moderators, also known as mods, help to maintain the website along with a few paid administrators.
These moderators may put in one or two hours a day to make sure that their subreddit doesn't get overrun with irrelevant or illegal comments or other content.
Although a moderator for r/gifs claimed it was a direct response to remarks made by Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, it is unclear why John Oliver has been selected as the spokesperson for the protest.
In an interview with NBC News, Mr. Huffman stated that he was considering changes that would allow Redditors to vote to ban protesting moderators.
He added to The Verge that he thought the protests were no longer supported by users and were no longer "representative of the greater Reddit community.".
This prompted a number of subreddits to conduct online polls to ascertain whether the public actually supported it.
With 37,331 votes in favor and 2,239 votes against, users decided that r/pics should only "allow images of John Oliver looking sexy.". Similar outcomes were seen in other subreddits.
Reddit also has other challenges to face in addition to John Oliver.
Other subreddits are also continuing to be active while adapting their communities to comply with Reddit's rules. For example, r/iPhone has switched to focusing on "dashing images" of Apple CEO Tim Cook, and moderators of r/scams purposefully take longer than the usual few hours to approve posts.
