GallowBoob: Reddit's 'King of Karma' Power-Moderator Controversy and Departure
2015–2020
Robert Allam, known as GallowBoob, became one of Reddit's highest-karma users and a moderator of dozens of large subreddits, drawing accusations of mass self-promotion and karma farming before a viral 'power mod' list triggered harassment and his eventual withdrawal from the platform.
What happened
Robert Allam, who posted under the handle GallowBoob, rose to prominence as Reddit's most prolific karma accumulator, amassing tens of millions of karma points and earning the media nickname 'King of Karma.' A 2015 profile in The Awl dubbed him 'The Traffic King of Reddit,' documenting how he secured near-daily front-page placement by sourcing fresh content from across the internet. Critics on karma-focused subreddits accused him of reposting others' content and 'karma whoring.'
Over time Allam became a moderator of roughly 30-plus large subreddits with tens of millions of combined subscribers. This concentration of moderation power, combined with incidents such as his rapid 2019 posting of a Netflix logo animation, fueled accusations that he abused moderator tools to suppress criticism and was effectively promoting brands. Allam denied accepting paid product promotions but acknowledged the Netflix post was a misstep.
In March 2020 a widely shared post claimed that just a handful of moderators, GallowBoob among them, controlled 92 of the top 500 subreddits, crystallizing long-running concerns about the 'monopolization' of Reddit moderation. The backlash escalated into sustained harassment. Allam reported receiving death threats and hacking attempts, an opposition subreddit was banned for harassing content, and a Reddit admin acknowledged 'an unacceptable amount of large-scale harassment.' By June 2020 Allam said he was stepping back from the platform, dropping more than 100 subreddits, and criticized administrators for treating volunteer moderators as 'expendable.'
Impact
The episode became a flashpoint in the broader debate over power-moderator concentration on Reddit, with the 'a few people control 92 of the top 500 subreddits' framing entering wider discourse about platform governance and unpaid moderation. For Allam personally, the consequences included documented death threats, hacking attempts, the banning of an opposition subreddit, and his substantial withdrawal from Reddit moderation.