We have to be honest with you, Pandas. Even though we absolutely love hidden object photos, illustrations, and games, some of us (hi there!) are pretty bad at them. (Or, to put it in slightly geeky Dungeons & Dragons terms, yours truly has a -2 in the Perception skill and needs to buff Wisdom ASAP.)

The good news is that our observation skills are exactly that—skills. Even though some people are naturally good at spotting camouflaged people, animals, and things, it’s not like we can’t sharpen our senses and our environmental awareness through (lots and lots of) practice. Their usefulness goes beyond finding hidden animals and/or Waldo, though: they can help you spot people in a crowd, identify someone’s micro-expressions, and avoid potential danger, too.

We were curious to hear about why the subreddit resonates so much with so many internet users. "I think the 'thrill of the hunt' makes this community a little more interactive than your normal 'answer this question' or 'react to this meme.' We challenge our users with each approved post to put their knowledge of finding things to the test," u/Electrical_Middle78, one of the main moderators running r/FindTheSniper, shared their thoughts with Bored Panda.

The content itself is extremely versatile. "We go beyond the basic 'have you seen my keys' to 'there is a snake looking right at you, do you see it' mentality, which I believe adds an element of adrenaline and danger to each post. We also cater to the other side of the spectrum—find my cute animal hiding in plain sight—so that our focus brings in multiple viewpoints and audiences."

The moderator had some spot-on advice for anyone hoping to sharpen their observation skills. "Always start in the center! Ha! People tend to immediately frame the target in what we call 'dead center,' or right in the middle of the frame. This is our most removed content, as it provides zero challenge for the experienced 'sniper hunter.' If it's not dead center, then zoom can be either your best friend or worst enemy. Your next best bet after that is to slowly scroll and look for breaks in the natural flow of trees, bushes, scenery, etc." they suggested.

According to u/Electrical_Middle78, they and the other moderators are proud to have helped shape the r/FindTheSniper community into what it is today. The current team is actually not the original group of moderators who had created the subreddit in the start. The newcomers had a lot of hard work on their hands, but they dealt with all of the challenges very well.

"With our community growing from 50th-ish ranking to as high at #5 in popularity, obviously our user interaction has dramatically spiked. In addition to that, our first challenge was to tackle a backlog of roughly 9 years of unmoderated content. We decided as a mod team to create better communication channels between ourselves with the creation of a Discord mod channel," the mod told Bored Panda.

"From there, we tackled the overarching root cause of our backlog: severely outdated rules. The next challenge was simple: update the rules and add some basic automation to enhance our user experience and limit the day-to-day hands-on that our quite small mod team needs to physically interact with," u/Electrical_Middle78 said.

"Since the implementation of our new rules and automation, our daily backlog is a small handful of things that require specific, non-standard mediation. Post and comment reviews follow a pretty standard set of checklist items, while reports and modmail interactions are vetted through our Discord for a mod team consensus on a course of action and to take note of how the issue was resolved for future issues."

They continued: "Our insights over the last 2 weeks have increased exponentially and user feedback has been mostly positive. We as a mod team listen to user feedback and take away lessons learned to improve the overall experience, when we can. At the end of the day, all of our mods are volunteers with different things happening in their lives and we take pride in providing everyone with a safe space to have a little fun and challenge each other."

Our ability to spot hidden objects is going to vary a lot depending on who we are as people. Obviously, in real life, someone who’s got 20/20 eyesight, is well-rested and has the focus of a hawk on the hunt will have an easier time seeing hidden details.

Now, compare them to someone who’s exhausted, easily distracted, and has to wear prescription lenses. Many objects would probably elude the latter person. So, it’s impossible to discount a person’s advantages, whether due to their luck with genes or discipline to lead a healthy lifestyle.

However, another huge part of our observation skills comes down to life or professional experience. When we’re intimately familiar with the subject matter, we can spot it more easily, no matter the context.

Someone who raises cats might be better at finding them in photos. A person who works as an editor or a proofreader would be able to catch mistakes in text far more easily than an amateur. Anyone working with machinery for a living would be able to identify different parts in photos and drawings. And anyone who works with actual camouflage (soldiers, hunters, etc.) would know what visual inconsistencies to look for, too.

Indeed points out that you can hone your observation skills through practice in any setting, simply by observing your environment and using as many of your senses as possible. Keep an eye on people or animals’ behavior, body language, and attitudes and how they shift.

Your practice can take place in any setting, whether that’s your office, the local park, a cafe you like, or a busy city square. You can always take notes to remind yourself of important details.

According to MindTools, the more someone knows and understands a specific subject, the more they’ll notice. In the meantime, our observation skills can improve if we don’t multitask. That means slowing down, cutting out all of the distractions that surround you, and focusing on a single task.

You can also improve your observation skills by putting yourself in situations where you engage all of your senses, not just your sight. Later, you can test how well you remember something by writing down what you can remember from a room/scene/photo.

Very few people will be able to do this well on their first go, and some frustration is bound to pop up. It helps to look at failure as a learning opportunity and an unavoidable part of learning rather than something ‘bad.’

The r/FindTheSniper community has carved out a pretty sizable niche for itself on Reddit. Currently, it boasts 689k members and ranks among the top 1% of subreddits on the site. The core idea behind the online group is very straightforward. It’s about inviting internet users to share photos of well-camouflaged things that are hiding in plain sight.

The community really values original content, so reposting someone else’s pics is a bit of a taboo move. The moderators running the group also ask everyone to steer clear of any sort of gross, inappropriate, or food-related content.

Any photos that you share have to be posted with a proper title that describes what everyone’s meant to be looking for! It’s only fair. The objects themselves have to be, well, hidden! If something is easy to find (a bit subjective in some cases), there’s no point in sharing it.

Meanwhile, all the members of r/FindTheSniper are also encouraged to ensure that their photos are top-tier quality. Any images that are low-quality, grainy, or downright unviewable shouldn’t be shared. The moderators also have the right to remove any that they deem not good enough. This makes a lot of sense. If you’re looking for camouflaged things, the last thing you want is to wonder whether a part of a photo is a digital artifact from compression or what you’re supposed to find.

Were you able to spot all the hidden objects, dear Pandas? Which ones did you have the hardest time with? Were there any that were super easy for you? Do these sorts of observation-oriented tasks come naturally to you, or did you have to struggle a bit before improving your skills? We can’t wait to hear from you! Be sure to leave a comment.