Reddit's r/place

2017-04-04

Every year, the preeminent social news/discussion website, Reddit, does some kind of fun and interesting thing on April fools. This year was really incredible to watch. Every user, of which there are tens of millions active, was enabled to place a single coloured pixel on a 1000x1000 grid no more frequently than every 5 minutes, for a 72 hour period. The resulting collage of art was incredible, both the anarchy and the order. Some users just started filling everything competing solid colours. Some repeating patterns. Then major communities started to collaborate and organize. Recognizable franchise logos popped up. Country flags started to dominate, and then compete with each other. Simple, elegant methods of merging themes resolved conflicts, like the German and French flags fighting for territory before an EU flag took over the conflicting space, or the Canadian and Quebecois flags grew into a collection of provincial flags bordering either side of the Canadian one. I was blown away watching all this unfold. I can think of no collaborative project at anything remotely near this scale. I’ve watched it a dozen times and see countless new novelties each time. You can watch it happening here: YOUTUBE.COM ULTIMATE REDDIT r/place TIMELAPSE