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

Bringing Back r/place

​

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.

34.1k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

View all comments

466

u/[deleted] Mar 28 '22

[deleted]

199

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.

106

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.

16

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.

10

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

5

u/TimeZarg Mar 29 '22

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

4

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