TLDR: #introduceyourself — Rise, Abuse & What Actually Drives Retention
- The #introduceyourself tag peaked at 40k posts/month in Jan 2018; today it's under 100/month — a 99% collapse. But the onboarding ritual isn't dead, it migrated to communities.
- The ritual effect is real: performing any intro ritual (tag or welcome community) gives a +10-16pp retention boost over posting without one.
Aliento is the gold standard: 40% retention vs ~32% for the tag and ~20% for topical first-posts. Its secret is coverage — 85% of newcomers get at least $1 support, vs only ~50% for the tag. - The biggest lever isn't ritual — it's community density. A Spanish-speaking newcomer with no ritual retains at 33%, beating a non-Spanish newcomer with the ritual (32%). The ~14pp language-density gap is larger than any ritual effect measured.
- Support has collapsed across the board in 2026. 83% of intro-tag newcomers and 90% of topical first-posters now earn under $1 on their first post — squarely in the "zero-reward cliff" zone associated with 7.7% retention.
- Key recommendation: Don't chase jackpot votes on standout intros — build floor-level coverage so every newcomer gets a modest welcoming vote. At 2026's low account-creation rates, this is more tractable than ever.