- The Gabby Petito subreddit has grown to over 100,000 members since it was started last week.
- As has the public interest in the case, the forum also has grown.
- “It is sudden, but this growth is unseen, at least for me,” Insider was told by one moderator.
Theories about the disappearance of Gabby Petito, a 22-year-old woman who went missing while traveling the US in a van with her fiancé, have spread like wildfire on social media since Petito’s mother reported her missing on September 12.
On Reddit, a forum titled r/GabbyPetito has amassed 100,000 members since it was created on September 13. Redditors have been using the page to discuss the case and collect clues about Petito and her once-fiancé, Brian Laundrie, who returned home to Florida without her after their trip and declined to speak with authorities on Petito’s disappearance.
Laundrie was identified as a person-of-interest in the case, but she has been missing for a week. The FBI said on Sunday that “human remains were discovered consistent with the description” of Petito in Grand Teton National Park.
The FBI announced that the FBI had locked the subreddit Sunday night to prevent overwhelming it.
It’s not the fastest-growing subreddit of all time, with r/WallStreetBets earning over six million subscribers in one week in January, but it does appear to be the fastest-growing subreddit dedicated to searching for a missing person, a popular genre on the platform.
“It is sudden, but this growth is unseen, at least for me,” Sunzu, one moderator for the subreddit spoke to Insider on condition of anonymity because of Reddit’s privacy.
The page gained more new subscribers than any other subreddit across the site on Monday and became the second-fastest-growing subreddit of the last seven days, according to the data collection site frontpagemetrics.com.
“This is absolutely the fastest case of growth I have ever seen on Reddit for any type of missing persons case,” Another moderator went by the pseudonym u/Petiterunner. He also spoke on condition of anonymity.
The subreddit was formed amid the massive attention on the Petito case
The Gabby Petito story has become a massive, viral moment, with content about her and her story trending on multiple social media platforms over the last week.
The subreddit’s creator told Insider that they started the page to “collate and distribute information” when they noticed there was not yet a subreddit dedicated to analyzing Petito’s story. Reddit user u/Accurate_Tip7017 requested anonymity, as they consider their Reddit activities confidential.
The subreddit went from 400 subscribers on September 13 to 9,000 two days later, according to the frontpagemetrics.com.
The creator then put out a call for moderators, or volunteers who help keep the subreddit in accordance with Reddit’s community guidelines and free of off-topic posts.
Sunzu and the u/PetiteRunner are two of nine volunteers moderators. They also moderate r/UnsolvedMystery which is a true-crime subreddit that has 1.4 million subscribers. Another moderator of r/GabbyPetito, u/Alienkween moderates r/TrueCrime which has 6,000 subscribers.
r/GabbyPetito became a hub for conspiracy theories about Petito’s disappearance
Over two dozen posts with theories were linked in a “megathread,” or collection of posts.
There was a large amount of discourse about the van Laurie was driving, with people debating whether it was dented, whether a cargo bag seen on the top of Laurie’s van had vanished, or whether the van was opened in a viral clip from camping vloggers who spotted the vehicle on the side of the road.
These threads each have hundreds of comments, with further comment threads pulling in thousands of comments apiece.
Sunzu stated to Insider that they hoped the internet attention would aid authorities in their search efforts.
“I would hope that people use this enthusiasm, passion, interest, curiosity — whatever it is — to support search and rescue organizations nationwide and share other missing persons information far and wide,” Sunzu told Insider.
Reddit declined comment on this article.
More stories are available at Insider’s Digital Culture desk.