Who created Reddit's 2015 April Fools' experiment The Button?

Josh Wardle created Reddit’s 2015 April Fools’ experiment, The Button.

Wardle, who used the Reddit username “powerlanguage,” designed The Button as an online social experiment. Reddit launched it on 1 April 2015, presenting users with a button beside a 60-second countdown. Every press reset the timer for everyone, but each eligible account could press only once.

The experiment turned timing into a status system. Users received colored flair based on how many seconds remained when they clicked: pressing early produced purple flair, while pressing near zero produced red flair. Users who never pressed received grey flair, creating competing groups and elaborate community identities.

The Button ended on 5 June 2015, when the timer reached zero without another press. More than one million accounts participated, and Reddit recorded 1,008,316 clicks. Wardle later became widely known as the creator of Wordle, but that later success should not be confused with The Button’s Reddit origins.