OP is short for original poster, meaning whoever created the post being discussed. If a comment says “OP never responded” or “not OP, but I had the same issue,” it’s referring to the account behind the original submission, not a random commenter further down the thread. There’s a related term, OOP, for “original original poster,” which comes up when a post gets reposted or shared somewhere else and people want to point back to whoever actually posted it first. We’ve covered OP in more depth here if the full breakdown is useful, including how OP identity connects to account standing over time.
OP Meaning, Reddit Context vs. Everywhere Else
Searching “op meaning reddit” instead of just “OP” usually means one thing: you’ve already seen it used in a way that made the gaming definition come to mind, and you want to know which one actually applies here. On Reddit, it’s always original poster. Type “that build is so OP” into a gaming subreddit and it means something entirely different than “OP, can you post an update?” in a general one. Same three letters, no real relationship between the two meanings, borrowed from “overpowered” rather than “original poster.” Almost nobody actually mixes them up once they’ve seen both used a couple of times, since the subreddit itself usually gives it away before the sentence does.
Repost (Formerly Crosspost)
A repost is Reddit’s built-in way to share a post from one subreddit into another, without copying and pasting it as something new. It carries over the original title and author, and both the vote count and the source stay tied to the original thread. Reddit quietly renamed the feature from “crosspost” to “repost” in its own help documentation, though most people, and most subreddit rules, still say crosspost out of habit. Our full guide to crossposting on Reddit covers when it helps and when it gets a post removed for looking like spam.
TL;DR
TL;DR means “too long; didn’t read,” used either to admit you skipped a long post or, more often, to introduce a short summary of one. It’s common enough that Merriam-Webster added it to the dictionary in 2018. A post ending with “TL;DR: we’re switching providers next month” is doing the reader a favor, not being dismissive.
ELI5
ELI5 stands for “explain like I’m 5,” a request for a simple, jargon-free explanation of something complicated. It’s also the name of an entire subreddit, r/explainlikeimfive, built around exactly that. Using ELI5 in a comment or a post title signals that a plain-language answer is what’s actually wanted, not a technical deep dive.
Why This Vocabulary Actually Matters for a Brand on Reddit
None of these terms are difficult once you’ve seen them a few times, but showing up in a subreddit using them wrong, or not recognizing them at all, reads the same way any obvious outsider mistake does anywhere else. A reply that misunderstands what OP means, or a repost mistaken for plagiarism, is a small thing individually, but it’s exactly the kind of detail that signals whether an account has actually spent time in a community or just parachuted in to post a link.
Managing the Learning Curve Across a Team
Whoever ends up managing a brand’s Reddit presence is often the same person still learning this vocabulary in real time, and that person’s account is quietly building its own standing in specific subreddits while they do. If that account keeps switching devices, or a few different team members log into it from wherever’s convenient, the account’s activity gets harder to keep straight, right at the point when consistency matters most.
Multilogin’s Cloud Phones give that account its own persistent Android environment from the start, so whoever’s learning the ropes has a stable setup to work from rather than picking up wherever the last session left off. For teams working mainly from a desktop, browser profiles do the same job at the browser level, keeping the account’s session, cookies, and history in one place while the person behind it gets comfortable with how a specific community actually talks.
Quick Reference
- OP: original poster, the person who submitted the post being discussed
- OOP: original original poster, used when content gets reposted elsewhere
- Repost (formerly crosspost): sharing a post from one subreddit into another, with credit intact
- TL;DR: too long; didn’t read, usually followed by a short summary
- ELI5: explain like I’m 5, a request for a simple, non-technical answer
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FAQs about OP on Reddit
OP stands for “original poster,” the person who submitted the post a thread or comment section is discussing.
No, it’s neutral, just a reference to whoever posted. The only place OP carries any judgment at all is in gaming slang, where “overpowered” usually means something is unfairly strong, and that meaning doesn’t carry over to Reddit’s use of the term.
They’re the same feature. Reddit renamed crosspost to repost in its own documentation, though the older term is still widely used.
They’re the same feature. Reddit renamed crosspost to repost in its own documentation, though the older term is still widely used.
Not perfectly, but understanding the basics helps avoid the kind of small mistakes that signal an account is new to the community, which matters more on Reddit than on most other platforms.
That’s exactly the problem they’re built to solve. For social media marketing specifically, a Reddit presence rarely stays at one account for long: an agency ends up running one per client, a brand splits accounts across regions or product lines, or a team spreads posting across multiple people. Cloud Phones give each of those accounts its own persistent, dedicated environment instead of routing everything through one shared setup, which is what keeps a growing roster of accounts organized and each one building its own genuine standing as the number climbs.
The Bottom Line
Learning the vocabulary is the easy part. Setting up an account properly, so it can actually build standing in the communities where these terms come up, takes a bit more intention. Multilogin’s free plan is a straightforward way to give a new Reddit account its own environment while a team gets familiar with a subreddit’s culture, with nothing to cancel if it turns out not to be needed. Paid plans start at $7.08/month once more than one account or team member is involved.
Reddit’s vocabulary looks like a lot at first, but most of it comes down to five or six terms that show up constantly. Learn those, and the rest tends to make sense from context.
