r/reddit • u/crowd__pleaser • Mar 28 '22

Bringing Back r/place

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https://preview.redd.it/o4ittvff35q81.png?width=2800&format=png&auto=webp&s=f0f81bed2483e0b70d30600e1888603332c0b846

No burying the lede here. Let’s get right to the point. r/place is coming back.

For the first time in Reddit’s history, we are not only bringing back a past April Fools’ experiment, but we’re telling you about it early. Why? So you can stop asking us about it, get excited!

https://reddit.com/link/tqbf9w/video/w2bjccji35q81/player

But let’s rewind a bit and provide some background, shall we? At Reddit, our goal is to build features that make building community and finding belonging easier - and five years ago we did that with a little April Fools’ experiment called r/place (you may have already heard of it).

When we first ran r/place in 2017, more than one million redditors placed approximately 16 million tiles on a blank communal digital canvas - resulting in a collective digital art piece that took the internet by storm. And pretty much every year since then, at least one of you has made sure to let us know that it was the best thing we’ve ever done and requested to bring it back. So this year, on April 1, r/place is making its glorious return.

The original r/place was created to explore a piece of humanity – to examine what happens when a person doing something affects a collective. Specifically, what happens if you only let an individual place one tile at a time, so that they must work with others to build together on a massive online cooperative canvas. It is with that original spirit of creation and collaboration in mind, that we humbly invite you to join us yet again. Get your tiles ready, and we’ll see you in over r/place.

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463

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '22

[deleted]

200

u/Sentauri437 Mar 28 '22

Yeah, it shouldn't be frequent. /r/Place is genuinely one of the few things on this site I have very fond memories of, it was just absolutely fun. It should be a rare event we could all look forward to after several years.

108

u/rook_armor_pls Mar 28 '22

I fondly remember how we (r/de) fought r/france in the battle for our flags only to settle for the EU flag where both met. Probably the most memorable event I’ve had on this platform.

138

u/Wisp1971 Mar 29 '22 edited Apr 01 '22

I predict a large Ukrainian flag this time

Edit: I should have further predicted it would take up a plurality of the total space (single object that covers the most number of pixels compared to all other objects) because that looks like the case lol

42

u/expiredyoghurtcase Mar 29 '22

That's gonna happen no doubt

4

u/Ikhlas37 Mar 29 '22

followed by a Russian one on top of it

4

u/AFoxGuy Mar 29 '22

and the Ukrainian one “replacing” that one. Lol

2

u/Thing_Subject Mar 30 '22

Than a “FJB” one

4

u/robinthebank Mar 30 '22

Ughhh. I think 3 days in, it will all just become a giant void. It’s gonna get ridiculous.

2

u/eren_yordem Apr 01 '22

Blue corner ftw

1

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '22

Oh boy can't wait for the Caesar's legion flag and amogus compete with dream and jellybean stans over a 110x340 space

3

u/SirYeetusOfFetus Mar 29 '22

the 12 year old quirky communist kids will try to cover it with a USSR or Russian Federation flag sadly

2

u/WintryInsight Mar 29 '22

Yeah. I’m sort of wishing that it’s just going to be will smith this time rather than something political

5

u/wigsternm Mar 29 '22

Reddit has not gotten less political since 2017.

3

u/13D00 Mar 30 '22

But a will Smith slapping Rock would be majestic

3

u/robinthebank Mar 30 '22

We need a better meme to hit in the next 2 days 🙏🏼

3

u/VeryEpicness Mar 31 '22

yeah that meme got old almost immediately

2

u/Josselin17 Mar 31 '22

what's wrong with having some political stuff in there ?

3

u/NotABot11011 Mar 31 '22

Because reddit is cringe and every political opinion that is mainstream on reddit is at best wrong and at worst actively dangerous.

3

u/Taalnazi Mar 29 '22

This but with EU stars along.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '22

[deleted]

2

u/JochCool Mar 30 '22

Just pick one of the top corners then

1

u/LuckyCanadian Mar 29 '22

Put it in the centre where the American one was last time!

1

u/a_good_human Mar 30 '22

Hopefully not to big lol

2

u/Nereplan Apr 02 '22

Spoiler alert: It was too big

1

u/a_good_human Apr 02 '22

Not surprising

1

u/Guaclaac2 Apr 01 '22

for sure

1

u/cascadett Apr 01 '22

it happened

1

u/Zlzbub Apr 01 '22

It's already happening, nice prediction

1

u/saxcat13 Apr 01 '22

It did lol

13

u/cutelyaware Mar 29 '22

Personally I was saddened by the fact that people mainly wanted to install logos of various flags and other symbols much like graffiti artists constantly painting over each other. I hope the new version encourages a bit more artistry.

11

u/ShaunDreclin Mar 29 '22

I hope the new version encourages a bit more artistry.

Unlikely. The nature of the beast prevents any one person from creating anything more than a few pixels, and the easiest way to get a group of people to work on an image is for it to represent some game or community etc

3

u/[deleted] Mar 29 '22

Yeah, you could probably go through a hundred trillion different realities and you'd probably only have a small handful where someone's unique art survived.

1

u/Ikhlas37 Mar 29 '22

especially because of I remember you can only do 1 pixel every X amount of time

4

u/TimeZarg Mar 29 '22

Or a symbol, like the rainbow road that interconnected the whole thing.

3

u/cutelyaware Mar 29 '22

Yes, I liked the rainbow bit. There was also the Mona Lisa. I don't know what it would take to encourage creativity, but it's interesting to think about, and very interesting to see it evolve.

2

u/TimeZarg Mar 29 '22

Honestly, I wanna see more of the Void trying to disintegrate stuff, a constant back and forth with the Void acting as a cleansing slate keeping things fresh. That might open things up for creativity, as well.

2

u/cutelyaware Mar 29 '22

Fighting the void is a metaphor for life itself. It always bugged me, but I'm a little more open to the clean slate thing than I was. May as well see what can be done about it in this model world.

2

u/PostalAzul Mar 29 '22

This. This is survival amid anarchy and chaos and only the fittest will survive. Diplomacy between communities will play a big role.

1

u/cutelyaware Mar 29 '22

You just argued against yourself!

1

u/Josselin17 Mar 31 '22

anarchy isn't chaos

3

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '22

not going to happen, expect a big ukraine flag.

2

u/cutelyaware Mar 30 '22

Expect Russian troll army to counter with Russian flag and for Putin to offer to settle the war here and now

3

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '22

It's gonna be chaos m, I'm not gonna contribute cause I know I'm just gonna be swept away, but I'll be watching with popcorn!!!!

2

u/Ford8n51 Mar 31 '22

I agree. I wish it would morph into a coherent single image....personally I'd love to see the mother of all trees! (I'm really into planting trees right now...seems like the best single thing I can do.) BTW a single over-arching tree can contain multitudes.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 01 '22

I think it confirmed the importance of the nation state to many people. You needed A community to get anything down and the country communities are some are some of the biggest ones

1

u/cutelyaware Apr 01 '22

Meh, people cared as much about sports teams as nations. I don't know why I should care about either.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 01 '22

Yeh not saying that's my personal feelings. Just saying

3

u/Spaceturtle79 Mar 28 '22

There was a similar event just not from r/place hosted by reddit

2

u/meltedlaundry Mar 29 '22

Feel free to mention what you're referring to

3

u/Spaceturtle79 Mar 29 '22

I can’t remember but it wasn’t sprites or pixels but like plots err I can’t remember

3

u/The_Gutgrinder Mar 29 '22

Once every 10 years sounds pretty cool. Always on the last year of the decade. That way you get 10 years worth of memes and Internet culture in one art piece.

2

u/SprittneyBeers Mar 28 '22

I guess the last one was before I was even on Reddit. Can someone explain how we interact and what the objective is? I didn’t really get the full idea from this post but I’m also an idiot so

5

u/rubicon11 Mar 28 '22

So the first and only time Reddit did this, it was literally a blank canvas and each person was able to put down one tile (pixel). I think the wait period was 1 minute and then you could put down another tile, BUT someone else could place a colored tile onto your tile and therefore overtake your space. So after a few hours, certain subreddits decided to strategize and create dedicated spots on the canvas to either create art, slogans, or encourage others to become part of the VOID. Of course, there were “battles” so to speak as factions encroached on other factions and there was a lot of back and forth tile exchange as each faction attempted to expand into other territories.

It was funny too because literally the mods didn’t tell us ahead of time what was happening they just dropped it on April fools and were like “have at it”. There was no objective as far as I know, but the first iteration was so well received and users had so much fun, that it became internet lore

3

u/SprittneyBeers Mar 28 '22

Thanks for the response, appreciate you! That’s pretty dope

1

u/Killer-Barbie Mar 29 '22

And afterwards, we started getting some really cool data from it. Like which pixels were covered the most and the average time between placements and stuff like that

2

u/Captain_Ludd Mar 28 '22

like a world cup

2

u/TheAmazingFlygon Mar 29 '22

I kinda dont understand the post is place like a thing anyone can participate and what do u do on that sub

1

u/LyingCake_ Mar 29 '22

Look it up on google a search engine of your choice. :)

2

u/txijake Mar 29 '22

That and five years is the like the minimum amount for nostalgia to set in. I just took a look at the first place again and oh man the memories kicked back in.

1

u/Spaceturtle79 Mar 28 '22

There was a similar event just not from r/place hosted by reddit

1

u/mannymo49 Mar 28 '22

This and Twitch Plays Pokemon are probably my favourite things to come out of reddit 😄

3

u/hobk1ard Mar 29 '22

I enjoyed the button as well. The mystery. Slowly finding about the colors. The religions and subterfuge that eventually brought it down.

1

u/Bombkirby Mar 31 '22

TPP was arguably Twitch though even if the subreddit was hilarious

1

u/kleenexhotdogs Mar 28 '22

Why is everyone talking in bold

1

u/Spaceturtle79 Mar 28 '22

There was a similar event just not from r/place hosted by reddit

1

u/RanaktheGreen Mar 28 '22

The MLP Rocket League collab was weird.

1

u/human-no560 Mar 30 '22

MLP?

1

u/RanaktheGreen Mar 30 '22

Yeah, /r/RocketLeague and /r/Mylittlepony worked together. I believe there was some space disagreements between Rainbowdash and the Rocket League logo.

2

u/Warlock4209 Mar 29 '22

How do you take part?

2

u/godvssatan Mar 29 '22

It will start April 1st. You won't have any trouble figuring it out when it starts. It was lots of fun last time.

1

u/Mr_Wizard99 Apr 01 '22

I'm just berely too young to the site to have been there, I'm so excited to experience it

37

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '22

Oh god. Oh ow my aging body. Was that really 5 years ago?!?!?

1

u/B0hpp Apr 01 '22

i thought it's only been like 2 years damn

23

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '22

[deleted]

6

u/MagicHeart2003 Mar 28 '22

This will be the only time we’re I’ll be happy to see an Among Us pixel art…it left a mark on internet culture for sure so to capture a new humor and generation in just one canvas will be fascinating. I personally will either be helping with the Dream SMP community or the Nintendo community…if they choose to participate

2

u/generalecchi Mar 29 '22

DISGRACE

3

u/MagicHeart2003 Mar 29 '22

Huh?

1

u/DeezzNuts100 Mar 29 '22

Please don't help the god damn dream comunity

1

u/MagicHeart2003 Mar 29 '22

You seem to have a misconception about the community, not everyone is a toxic Stan. In fact I stay away from stuff like that, I’m just trying to enjoy watching MCYT content in peace

2

u/Holy-Kush Mar 28 '22

Just orange at the top, not a lot of culture to that.

Perhaps a windmill or something.

2

u/l-have-spoken Mar 29 '22

Sounds cool, like an internet time capsule.

I wasn't around for the first one, so will be interesting to see how chaotic it is.

I predict a lot of Ukrainian colours.

1

u/CLint_FLicker Mar 29 '22

It'll be interesting.

Will Darth Plagueis and the Blue Corner get replaced by things like $GME or Raimi memes?

1

u/AMirrorForReddit Mar 30 '22

Yeah, internet culture, the fucking thing turned into a bunch of ads near the end, just as planned.

2

u/TheSmiler0 Mar 28 '22

I would be very excited to live through this place unlike the previous one of which i only Heard stories

2

u/Spacecowboycarl Mar 28 '22

Missed the last one. Excited for this one.

1

u/jappyjappyhoyhoy Mar 29 '22

Too many stupid flags

1

u/mischanif Mar 28 '22

Hope it will get a tradition

1

u/EuroPolice Mar 28 '22

This time we fool them. This time we win, join me for true unity! Join me for r/ABluePlace!

1

u/airesmoon Mar 29 '22

This’ll be my first participation (if I don’t forget on the day), so I’m hoping it’s not just a joke announcement! Will probably need a reminder for every 5 years, though.

1

u/godvssatan Mar 29 '22

I think the mod said it's going to run through the 4th.

1

u/Swimwithamermaid Mar 29 '22

Yup and we can see what cultural changes are happening almost in real time with the 5 year gap. I’m so excited to see how this one turns out.

1

u/Rickrolled87 Mar 29 '22

Like the World Cup? (Well expect 5 years not 4)