Reddit users are crashing a website for a minute of worthless exclusivity

People spend a lot of money to feel like they are one of a kind. Turns out all that is really necessary is to go to the right website and wait.

The website http://mostexclusivewebsite.com/ does exactly what it says in the URL. Only one user can access it at a time for a 60 second period, during which time they can post a message to commemorate their exclusivity.

While the top user is experiencing their 60 seconds of glory, anyone else who travels to the website is stopped at the door by the web equivalent of a bouncer. They can either claim a ticket, thus getting into a line of other users, or leave. A counter shows how much time is left in the current session, the current ticket number being served and how many people are in line.

The website was created “for the lulz” by Columbus, Ohio, programmer Justin Foley, who didn’t experience much traffic when he first uploaded it 3 months ago. But a link on Reddit has strained his servers to the breaking point. Foley posted in a Reddit comment he had transferred the website to a new server just to keep it going. A loading message that says “Reddit you’re killing me” also was added.

At its peak, Foley wrote he had as many as 2,000 simultaneous connections to the site. When I grabbed ticket number 95240 on Tuesday evening, the number hovered around 500. That gave me about 4 hours to prepare for my brush with destiny. What would I post? Should I try to be clever? Should I try to plug this article? Should I not try at all, and just let the moment wash over me?

Unfortunately, I never got the chance. An important personal phone call later in the evening made me miss my brush with arbitrary elitism. The queue had swelled to about 1,700 by then, so I decided to call it a night.

As of this morning, the site is no longer loading for me. It just hangs on the “Reddit you’re killing me” loading screen. I suppose in order to be truly exclusive, the website could not last forever.