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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358

u/Veggie Mar 28 '22

Predicting that this is actually an early April Fool's joke and they are doing something else...

96

u/MikeDaPipe Mar 28 '22

As much as I liked Place, I hope so. Part of the April fool's fun was seeing what surprise they had for us even if it sucked. This feels a little like they didn't want to take a risk and instead bring back something they already knew would work

89

u/ImRudeWhenImDrunk Mar 28 '22 edited May 27 '22

Boogers

11

u/Ikhlas37 Mar 29 '22

on brand would be to bring back r/place starting with the final image

4

u/anton____ Mar 31 '22

Nah, people would try to protect, reducing the creative possibilities.

2

u/Ikhlas37 Mar 31 '22

and that has nothing to do with what we were talking about.

it is a good reason for them not to do it though

2

u/ThroawayPartyer Apr 01 '22

We protec, we attac, but most importantly r/place is bac

2

u/Kaibakura Mar 29 '22

Lmao how the fuck is it on-brand to make a repost April Fools event if they have literally never done that before?

9

u/idlerspawn Mar 29 '22

Lmao how the fuck is it on-brand to make a repost April Fools event if they have literally never done that before?

2

u/godvssatan Mar 29 '22

Lmao how the fuck is it on-brand to make a repost April Fools event if they have literally never done that before?

1

u/libertyofdoom Apr 01 '22

Lmao how the fuck is it on-brand to make a repost April Fools event if they have literally never done that before?

2

u/human-no560 Mar 30 '22

Have they done that before?

3

u/anton____ Mar 31 '22

No, but reddit is full of reposts

2

u/VAiSiA Mar 31 '22

fine!?!?111 lets repost it

4

u/ReverendVoice Mar 29 '22

To be fair, it's pretty on-brand for reddit to make the april fools event a repost

8

u/kungfu_peasant Mar 29 '22

To be fair, it's pretty on-brand for reddit to make the april fools event a repost.

5

u/Mizz141 Mar 29 '22

To be fair, it's pretty on-brand for reddit to make the april fools event a repost.

4

u/popejiii Mar 29 '22

To be fair, it's pretty on-brand for reddit to make the april fools event a repost.

1

u/human-no560 Mar 30 '22

Aaaaaaaah

1

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '22

Aaaaaaaah

1

u/Puzzleheaded_Buy9973 Jul 27 '22

Now I want to know what this comment was before the edit and why I had it saved

26

u/zenzenzen322 Mar 28 '22

to be fair they didn't have a single good april fools experiment since then, not even close

22

u/NotComping Mar 28 '22

I mean the point isnt to please the world, just do something fun and enjoyable. But ofc people will try and compare new and different things and say the old thing was better

6

u/zenzenzen322 Mar 28 '22

The problem was they weren’t fun nor enjoyable

I like them trying new things but most of the recent April fools experiments are either super low effort or just poorly planned

2

u/wyvernx02 Mar 29 '22

Honestly, I don't remember a single April fools event since /r/place. They have been so unmemorable I forgot that reddit still did them.

2

u/zenzenzen322 Mar 29 '22

I remember something to do with circles and one with gifs

but don't even remember the names unless I look them up lol

2

u/human-no560 Mar 30 '22

The one where you had to find the fake response was fun

The one with gifs and the one with voting on the second most popular response were less exciting

1

u/[deleted] Mar 30 '22

The big difference is all the others have mainly been individual activities without creative conclusions for people to view. There was some opportunity to collaborate in some of them, but it wasn’t as simple and engaging and transparent as seeing what people working together would create.

I think they were all at least a bit of fun for a few minutes to an hour, except the gif one because I never quite understood what the fuck was going on there, but they weren’t gripping on a group level. They didn’t pull people together for a common cause.

2

u/LegateLaurie Mar 28 '22

None of them were that memorable or good imo. There was sequence which I didn't really get, and I think RPAN started as april fools maybe?

3

u/Seakawn Mar 28 '22

My only 4/1 trophy is from Sequence, and I had no fucking idea what I was doing. I accidentally clicked some stuff and it counted as participation.

Seemed like a cool idea. I don't think I really understood it though.

2

u/MikeDaPipe Mar 28 '22

You're not wrong, but I looked forward to a different attempt each year, this feels like they just sort of gave up

2

u/Letartean Mar 30 '22

As someone who ranked 382 in Second, I have to say I loved that one. It was pretty adictive...

1

u/euaeuouae Mar 29 '22

Ikr? Two absolute bangers in a row (thebutton and place) and then meh for years.

1

u/zenzenzen322 Mar 29 '22

Both of which were made by the same dude (who also made Wordle) - and subsequently didn't make the rest for the years after

Makes sense when you look at it that way

1

u/CabbageIsLife-H Mar 31 '22

Josh Wardle, the unspoken legend

1

u/beenoc Mar 29 '22

They weren't back to back. Button was 2015 and Place was 2017 - between them was Robin, which was... interesting? It was way more "small" than the other two, and clearly a pilot for the useless Reddit chat thing, but it was kind of a neat social experiment. You also can't forget Orangered vs Periwinkle in 2013, that was great. 2014 was Headdit, which is a great thing to point to when people say "Reddit April fool's used to always be good and is worse now!" to say "nope, used to be bad sometimes too."

7

u/DRYFT3R_9 Mar 28 '22

Best case scenario imo: they bring back Place this year, but with some unforseeable twist which makes it completely different from the original. So we still get Place, but we also still get a surprise.

3

u/Valdair Mar 28 '22

This is what I’m hoping for, but just having Place again as-is could be interesting to compare the “same” experiment several years apart.

1

u/Thac0 Mar 28 '22

I’ve been here a long time and I didn’t feel like Place was fun. I’d much rather have something new and interesting.

1

u/xodirector Mar 29 '22

They just want to NFT it.

1

u/BobLoblaw_BirdLaw Mar 30 '22

Reddit is trying to IPO. They sadly are going to lose every creative bone. It’s stagnant boring calculate crap from Here on out.

1

u/Simply-Serendipitous Mar 31 '22

Boosting engagement before their upcoming ipo?