Top 3 Takeaways from 2023's r/Place
The third r/Place event ended just yesterday, but the buzz about Reddit’s latest project is making its way to mainstream platforms as everyone discusses the fallout. For those who don’t know r/Place is a great concept that started as an April Fool’s joke, but was brought back in 2022 and 2023. Registered users get to set the color of one pixel on a giant canvas (with a small timer before you can do it again), the idea being that groups can work together to create a collaborative image. This idealized view of the internet as this meeting ground where all users are equals and have the same level of power and influence, that’s been shown false for decades now; but r/Place tries to make this a reality by allowing each user the same level of influence by limiting each individual to one pixel per five minutes. After all, it’s “impossible” for a single person to make any sort of image themselves, given the time limit and the utterly ridiculous size of the Place map. So, if you really want to make more than just a bunch of random dots, you have to work with other users.
That being said, this perfect “every user is equal” dream didn’t really work out this time. There was a lot of controversy that came out of the r/Place event this year, both during and in the aftermath. I’ll get to this point later, but many believed at the beginning that the timing of the event was….questionable, to say the least. Negativity about the event didn’t stop there, however, as the final canvas was a battleground for human vs machine, large communities vs smaller niche interests, and (most importantly) users vs owners. So, just a day after the canvas went fully white, I’m here to share with you the Top 3 Takeaways from 2023’s r/Place
#3: The Bot Issue
We’re starting off with that battle between humans and machines for the first takeaway, and everyone who kept up with r/Place knows exactly what I’m talking about: bots. While I brought up Reddit’s romanticized idea of the canvas as a place of collaboration and “all users have equal power and influence,” it’s pretty obvious how this didn’t work out in practice. Now, there were plenty of streamers who used their followers to cause chaos on the canvas, showing their influence being greater than everyone else's, but at least these cases had actual people placing pixels. Bots, on the other hand, feel way worse because it only takes one person to alter an entire space, going against the whole point of r/Place. There are many examples of these bots impacting the Place canvas, some subtle and others incredibly obvious.
One of the more infamous bot sites this year has revolved around Morocco. As you can see here, suddenly the image of a building (later identified online as a coding school in Morocco) appeared inhumanly fast with an accuracy only achievable with automatic code. Now, there have been plenty of times where a community comes together, communicates a plan ahead of time, and then executes a collaborative image; that’s the whole goal of r/Place, after all. In fact, many users that gathered on r/Morocco actually came together to plan and set up their national flag on the canvas in the same way most other countries did, and that’s cool. The school image created in less than a minute, not the same thing. There are plenty of other cases of bot abuse on this year’s canvas, but the fact that this one was so blatant and happened so early in the event (and the fact that they made a “No bots?” meme to taunt everyone) makes the Moroccan 1337 School image stand out in infamy.
Reddit has officially discussed the problem of bots and other automated codes allowing single users to cheat the system, but the comments under that announcement show that many users aren’t satisfied with efforts to block bots or think that Reddit is “all talk.” Pointing out obvious examples of bots at work, along with suggested fixes to the system, seem to be the only reaction to the official post. Reading through online discussion and comments, it’s clear that many redditors sat out of this year's r/Place because of how powerless they felt against bots. I’m not saying that there weren’t other issues that users had with the event (or Reddit as a whole), but this seemed to be the problem with the most users actively complaining about or argued was taking the most fun out of the event.
#2: Communities Coming Together
Let’s try to mellow out the negativity a bit with a positive takeaway, because I want to highlight all of the great work done by some of the communities during this year’s r/Place. Flags are an obvious one to point out, with all three iterations of the canvas featuring large sections of national pride (especially the Germans, it’s crazy how fast/consistent they get their flags all over the canvas); but it makes sense that these flags would exist, they’re simple designs to create and nationality is a big community to unite behind. One Piece fans also stand out here. Some fandoms struggle to find enough space to make the smallest of images on r/Place, having to negotiate with other communities to not be overrun or find a low-traffic area to decorate. One Piece, on the other hand, has been one of the “Big 3” anime since I was in elementary school and is not a small community. At one point, I saw five different medium-to-large sized images being simultaneously made and protected on the canvas, a testament to the dedication of the fandom. Another community worth mentioning is “The Void,” a group online who dedicated themselves to filling the canvas with black (they even have lore now, too? Crazy). Part counter-movement, part-enforcers, the group has grown in popularity and impact since the original r/Place and were a powerful force in this year’s version, doing less to ruin the canvas and more to fight bots and streamers from overwhelming smaller communities. Weird how wholesome a group called The Void can be.
But those are bigger groups and I want to highlight the smaller communities here and the efforts they made in keeping a place on the board. While there are many that deserve recognition, the stand-out example that earned its place on this list has to be the Touhou Project fans and their recreation of the “Bad Apple” music video. Yes, on r/Place, the chaotic online canvas where anyone can place a random pixel to mess up someone’s work, the Touhou fans were able to unite and create a time-lapsed recreation of the iconic “Bad Apple” video with unthinkable accuracy. The result of 72 hours of work by users, this may have to be the most impressive example to date of community collaboration. Sure, making a static image is really cool, but to create a pixelated gif while fighting off trolls and coordinating efforts internally, that’s next level work. A side-by-side comparison between the r/Place version and the original video can be found here, and to see them both going really shows how great it is.
Honestly, go check the videos linked above, it looks so much better in motion than as a screenshot
But with that blast of positivity out of the way, let’s move on to the #1 takeaway of this year's event….
#1: F*ck Spez
The elephant in the room that can’t be ignored any longer, and the biggest take-away of this year’s r/Place has to be Reddit’s CEO: Steve Huffman. The last few months have been a testing time for the CEO, as Huffman (known by his Reddit profile “Spez”) recently introduced new changes to the platform, the most noteworthy being an increase in fees for third-party apps. This led to the last couple months seeing Reddit become a site of protest, with many communities going offline or radically changing community rules in blatant attempts to send a message. And then came this year’s r/Place, which many have theorized about the timing being a ploy to distract users from the simmering protests (which is possible,both of the other events happened in April, far removed from the current event here in July). It….didn’t work.
Within the first few hours of the canvas opening up, users had already begun writing out the phrase “f*ck Spez” repeatedly, with a box in the center stating “Never forget what was stolen from you! r/save3rdpartyapps.” As the canvas expanded and more users began fighting over space, “f*ck Spez” began to spread like wildfire, appearing in multiple languages across dozens of different flags and communities, while the "Never forget” box remained mostly untouched by other users. When the last expansion of the canvas occurred, it took less than half an hour before an oversized “f*ck Spez” was drawn so large, you can read it clearly even fully zoomed out. Even in the final hours, as the canvas was being whited out to signal its end, users banded together to write out one final “f*ck Spez” that covered the entire canvas. The fact that so many people would rather try to stick it to the Reddit CEO instead of enjoying the annual event shows the levels of frustration that the platform’s user base is feeling. If people are correct about this year’s r/Place being an attempt to make users forget about the API changes and the protesting, then this could not have been a bigger catastrophe.
And those are my Top 3 Takeaways from 2023’s r/Place! Personally, I had a lot of fun this year. Keeping up to date with the drama of different communities fighting over space or agreeing to work together, watching smaller fandoms work to get their hobby represented on the canvas, and occasionally helping fill in spaces that need it; I had a blast helping shape the final image with millions of other users. That being said, the more I learned about how certain images were created, and the more backlash I saw in the comments, the harder that it was to see the event in a positive light. I definitely hope that we see another r/Place happen in the future, but this year needs to serve as a wake-up for Reddit and its CEO unless they want a similar level of protests and counter-activity next time.
Now you tell me, what did you think of this year/s r/Place? What’s your reaction now that it’s over? What was your favorite piece made in the last 6 days? Let me know in the comments below.
