Rachel Feltman explains how the online exchange Redditgifts created a culture – and eventually a business – of anonymous gift-giving:
Through a process that [developer Dan] McComas calls “friendly stalking,” users found out their recipients’ likes and dislikes based on the information given, which included their Reddit username, then sent them an anonymous present–laptops, lobsters, plush sharks stuffed with toys and t-shirts, cruises, and even the odd serenade from Jimmy Fallon. In the first exchange, there were 4,375 participants from 62 countries, and they spent $183,118 on gifts for each other. …
In a TED talk this past May, McComas tried to figure out what Redditgift’s “secret” is.
He pointed to the research of Harvard Business School’s Michael Norton, presented in a TED talk called “Money Can Buy Happiness.” Norton gave students envelopes full of cash, including instructions to spend the money on either themselves or others by the end of the day. At the end of the day, the self-spenders weren’t any happier than they’d been in the morning, but the gift-givers were—whether they’d had $5 to spend on coffee for a stranger in Starbucks or $20 to give to charity. “What he learned,” McComas told the crowd, “is that you can buy happiness with money. You just have to spend that money on a stranger.” The warm-and-fuzzies a Santa gets from spending their cash on someone they’ll never meet are only amplified by a few of the site’s features: Recipients post pictures and descriptions of their gifts, so a Santa knows just how happy she’s made them—plus, each Santa knows that she’ll eventually get a surprise of her own in the mail.
The Dish 