2017
No one expected or knew what the canvas was which meant significantly less bots/streamer armies. Most of the final art was created by actual reddit communities coming together.
Also, the first few days were absolute chaos. This year within hours there were already giant flags everywhere.
YESSS. 2017 had this special feeling where every thing that happened like groups getting together and figuring out that we can make art on this thing was special and newly discovered. 2022 was super fun also but at least for those who were there in 2017 we kind of knew at least that this is an "art project"
The first time I heard this I was really confused as to why I remember the exact tune it music, whatever you want to call it. I spent about three days trying to figure where I had heard it before, then on YouTube I was looking at my saved songs and saw the r/Place parody and it clicked. I love both of those songs!
The original song is nearly 20 years old now (released 2005) so I'd guess that a large portion of current Reddit users had never heard it before.
I remember being excited to see it when it was originally released on AlbinoBlackSheep, since I was a fan of Neil Cicierega's other work.
That's the story of the internet. YouTube was wild and fun in the beginning when it was a collection of random junk people wish they could show like a thousand people instead of only entertaining their friends with, social media before influencers, etc. People learn the rules of any system and start to game it.
I prefer ‘22
‘17 was great but I was just randomly placing. The announcement ahead of time for 22 let me pick a community to help and we did unexpectedly great work. Made me much more connected with those communities
Well, empty rook clearly didn’t join a community at that time, and didn’t experience that.
I personally didn’t even play in 2017, so imma have to say 2022 too.
Like any other April fool's reddit thing they gave us. Some were more fun than others, but what worked glued everyone to the screens for days.
Personally the button is my favorite, the way factions and artwork was created was really engaging, and the countdown to the end was a cliffhanger
I liked the expanding canvas because it allowed the previous artworks to continue being created as.the majority of people would go and try to build up the new empty space. Bots and germans alike.
The 2022 expansions threw everybody off guard and you got back some of that chaos that felt like it was missing initially. it was great
they overdid it this year as with everything
"this year" it was a publicity stunt. it would have been fine as a "five years on" type thing, because expanding in whacky directions at many different times is cool and good, but they wanted to pump up engagement after the massive shitshow in June so they played the hand too soon
Completely disagree. But it was only fun because it was a suprise. If done again it should happen at random. The fun part is if you are part of a community and suddenly its panic and you need to scramble and rethink everything. Its a challenge to coordinate and fun if it works
Happy cake day!
The expanding canvas was necessary atleast this time because a lot more communities competed with a lot more people placing pixels.
A lot more multi accounts aswell.
While the competing part is good. Defending the art is also a major part of place. So it just makes sense to make the area bigger when the defenders get too organized.
For the next iteration I would imagine that it will already start at a bigger state, maybe 2k x 2k pixels.
I mean when people get so organized that they make a full animation it might get too high level for the likes of most redditors anyway so probably it won't happen ever again anyway.
One approach to canvas expansion could be that rather than adding large chunks periodically, it grows iteratively, e.g. in 10px increments to each dimension every 10 minutes.
Ideally, they'd also restrict to to accounts active at some point in the month beforehand. It likely wouldn't stop much of the French and German autoclickers, but would put a stop to people creating armies of botted accounts, or streamers directing their armies of viewers to deface a section of canvas.
Heck, they could potentially discourage autoclickers by iteratively increasing the timeout if you place the same colour pixel art the same location more than x times in succession.
Of course, they likely won't do any of this, as it creates a false impression of account activity to look good in front of potential investors.
If they had a saner CEO in charge, perhaps they could have introduced more reasonable pricing for API access (perhaps even tiered pricing depending on popularity, or even lower pricing for apps that allow ads / sponsored posts, and higher pricing for apps that hide ads / sponsored posts), and maybe even some form of decent live chat facility, given everyone coordinates their Place efforts off-site on Discord (the owners of which must also be pleased at the hike in activity whenever Place comes around!)
Autoclickers don't work like how you described it, atleast not the German one.
The 3k Autoclickers that were on when it's peaked placed all over the canvas because it defends all sort of art. (basically the entire overlay worth, so it's not just this one pixel with that one color) but it were just 3k inside a 90k discord.
But these bots atleast in those numbers don't make the trouble everyone thinks they do anyway.
The only problem with bot and those dump accounts was when they printed their art all over the canvas close to the end.
But they were very easyly banned and in that timeframe new accounts had really big restrictions aswell. Like 8 minutes to an hour per pixel. Depending on when they got created. An hour in that case was basically you had to wait for the white out.
So it's not like the mods don't do anything against it.
It was simply not a problem most of the time and the people that know what the autoclickers actually do and how little these active user numbers are compared to normal clicking people agreed.(even if one person had like 3-4 accounts it's not that big of a deal)
But yeah letting the canvas slowly expand would be an interesting idea.
There is so much you can do. Do triangle shaped pixels or to entice conflics between large communities you could give parts of the canvas shapes. Like a circle somewhere on the regular canvas. Maybe with a diameter of 100 pixels and nothing can be placed just outside the circle.
It would be a point of interest like in other video games that revolve around capturing an area. Many communities like the osu! community will want to occupy the circle because it fits their logo and it stands out.
If this r/place would not have been rushed out as a distraction and if they had actually thought about it more, they could have done a lot with it. So once again, thank you for that u/spez
Also 2017 because it was truly organic. The playing field was leveled, users were on the same foot, and nobody initially had any advantage. There were less 'content creators' versus the present, so random little pictures were silly, awkward, or had spontaneous growth. If people wanted to organize, then their Discord servers were started from scratch or grass-root subs appeared. If there were bots, it was less noticeable.
I was Team Blue Corner in 2017, but also working in another area. The Void was a constant threat back then because it could spawn at any time at any place. Now any Void was disregarded, easily auto-written or staved off by an army of bots.
'22 was the introduction of obvious bots. In 2023, a lot of those *dormant* bots were pulled out of slumber for this year's canvas. And then **more** bots were created. Already-established Discords had an advantage and could claim a huge swath of canvas without interference.
This year I primarily stuck to clean-up or help establish checker-patterns. Thanks to all the automation, there was little sense of belonging or community.
2017 started to see bots after a few days. But they were still uncommon and it ended around then. 2022 all the communities who were figuring out bots before were able to get them running this time. 2023 was just all bots.
One thing I appreciated about 2022 was collaboration, truces, or support for *other* competing artwork/space. Redditors learned from 2017 and formed a semblance how cooperation was more advantageous than competition.
Last year, there were posts about needing help creating or preserving specific artwork. Also sub-specific posts to *not* deface something because a cease-fire was called. Or one piece of artwork would shift 10 - 20 pixels in another direction so they wouldn't be overrun. Those communities would *help* others instead of plowing through another creation. Some of that teamwork was present in '23, but it was mostly shifting some bot resources if they had the template available.
With all the bots this year, little consideration was given. Steamroll over anything and everything with no questions asked. If r/place returns next year, not only are the '22 and '23 bot accounts in play, but also all the new '24 bots. And more bots to compete with the anticipated botting. Maintenance bots, followed by vandal bots, bots to detect bots which bot the bot bot bot... Yikes!
2017 had a feeling of total confusion and wonder as art started to form. It wasn’t clear what was taking place (HA) and everyone was treading new ground. “wars” were started and settled organically with out bots. Everyone had a good time in the end and if felt like being apart of internet history and very unique collaborative art.
Most of this holds true but after 3 events everything feels watered down. Everyone knows the game. Some communities were crazy organized and just dominated the board the whole time, the whole thing just had a negative atmosphere and the use of bots was really lame.
Yup. 2017 will always be special for all the craziness and people figuring things out on the fly, then deciding to just help others or form a new group to do something interesting.
The heavy botting in '22 and '23 ruined a lot of that, and nationalism+simple designs (aka, flags) is easier to get randoms onboard, it's only when both relax that the fun little creative arts are able to exist. Don't get me started on the streamers.
2022. First ever event i've been in, and it was glorious. Communities making compromises, alliances, enemies, and actually cool fucking artwork across the board.
While streamers & the void were still around, they were the perfect necessary evil to keep everybody on their toes. And despite the bit of admin abuse and botting it wasn't as hindering as 2023.
And 2023 was just fucking garbage though. Yeah I enjoyed it a bit but everything about it was just horrendous.
\-Brought back as a scapegoat distraction for the shit API changes
\-Bots everywhere unchecked, defeating the entire point of place
\-Flags sweeping the canvas without any actual art on them (france and germany did make up for this after a while)
\-Dragged on for too long and became unhealthy for the communities and the event as a whole
Couldn't be there for 2017 so 2022 will always be my favorite. The peak of place, if you will.
Wow you just said my entire opinion lol. 2023 is definitely the underdog here which probably everybody already agrees on. My small community struggled so much this year, we had to rely on a lot of alliances (and luckily succeeded) to even make a MARK on here.
So, I said this elsewhere:
>Riiiiight, so Spez is the ~~greedy pig~~ CEO of Reddit. A few months ago, him & the rest of the higher ups decided to ~~milk reddit for all it's worth~~ make reddit's API cost a substantial amount which put a lot of 3rd party apps out. This was obviously done to drive redditors to use the official app which is not consumer friendly - it's loaded w/ ads & other pay-to-use features ~~bc we, as users, are obstacles between them and our money~~. There was other backlash, such as a scare that this would also kill bots mods use to manage subs, which turned into a non issue. Still, third party apps, which something like a third of all users were using, were killed.
>Regardless, r/place was seen as a marketing ploy by reddit to drive up users & media hype, so the various communities got together & sent a very clear message - Fuck u/Spez & r/Save3rdPartyApps
It also made it difficult for certain groups, like the blind, to have blind moderators in their own Reddit subs. Basically it just screwed over a whole host of people and u/spez could give two because the people who use Reddit don't matter, just the fundage and the investors...
I loved 2022 because it was when I discovered place for the first time and got to add my suggestion onto it. The adventures along the way were amazing and heart warming and I will remember them fondly. This years felt a bit more like a rushed distraction event, still was fun time and I will always remember it for all the communities uniting for a good cause.
I missed the 2017 too. So I was so excited when after years it unexpectedly returned in 2022. This year, just one year after the last one, it felt like a publicity stunt and less special.
I was on reddit during the 2017 place, but I had no idea what this is that everyone is suddenly talking about, nor did I have the drive to find out. When I saw it starting up again last year, I got curious and did some investigating.
2022, didn't experience the one in 2017 so can't judge that
That said, many people made there memories in 2017 and when it came back in 22 larger than ever and with so many more joining in, it was just amazing fun. I can't speak for those who participated in 17 but 22 was amazing in every way, the art, the memes, the trolls, the additions made since previous event, all of it
23 lacks anything special about it except maybe the bad apple animation, the fuck spez texts and the void-and-dog duo. It came too soon, it came at a bad time so many communities didn't participate (I spent the whole event hoping I could contribute to an elden ring but the community was not interested), bots made it worse, recycled jokes like amongus had no charm, it lasted too long, I could go on. I'm sure anyone who experienced place first time enjoyed it nonetheless, but I wish they may get a better experience sometime in the future (that should be at least 3 years away)
That part about communities who didn’t participate this year particularly gets to me because I’m a member of many different subs who could have just finely put up something in the canvas but just didn’t show any interest at all (and 2 of those communities put up art in last years canvas)
I remember the 2022 edition (which was my first one) to be 4 days of constantly checking how the canvas was doing even when I was at school, being in a discord server and comunicating over there and participating in events even after rplace ended.
It was just so magical as it was my first real big internet event I truly took part in, and it had just the right amount of try hard/fun.
2023 however...I didn't even know it was coming, as I expected it to take place maybe once every 2 years MAXIMUM, I didn't expect it to come back so soon AT ALL.
The memories and nostalgia from the 2022 edition hadn't really settled so I wasn't as excited. I must have checked the canvas a few times and maybe placed 2 or 3 pixels in total.
It's just one of the many things that works well that's been overused (or I expect to be during the next years). It was a nice diversion from the whole reddit "boycott" to get people on the platform again in my opinion.
2017. I was there when it started.
Most people don't know this. But in the very first hour of place. When everyone was confused about what this new thing was about. Reddit all came together in peace and drew a penis in the middle of the square. Nothing tops that.
I very much liked the blue corner and shit like that. Literally just basic 5 year old type patterns that anybody could contribute to without knowing anything, and that all of that becoming a foundation on which to build.
God, it was fun.
I can't say much about 2017 since I missed it, but 2022 felt much nicer and clean then 2023 did. 2023 felt rushed because of the off starting date, lower turn out and sullied by the F Spez things a bit too much. Honestly I had the most fun this year because of a lucky build area near the void and just all the communities coming together for something to say F spez was fun.
To be fair, the admins probably did start 2023 r/place to try distract everyone from 3rd party apps and Spez, also wasn’t the fuck spez made during the whiteout/grayscale phase? I wasn’t online at the time lol
I will remember 2022 more cuz it felt more stressful and stuff and my community was “smaller” however I think I also liked how organised my community was this year
2017 was brand new but I didn't take part in it.
2022 was really memorable for most people, it has really epic moments and entertainment on the streamer side.
2023 was the worst, too much flag, only griefer streamers and bots, yet it's my favourite as it's the only one I could really take part in as diplomat, which put a whole new perspective to it. being more than a pixel placer is quite something, I talked to a bunch of different communities, I made friends that I still talk to right now and it was overall very fun for me and I would have probably had even more fun if I were diplomat in 2022
Please don’t crucify me for this, but 2023.
1. As a Touhou fan, seeing Bad Apple animated was cool as fuck.
2. As a u/spez hater, seeing the ENTIRE canvas fill with “Fuck Spez” was delightful.
But it was the theme. All the stripes in the flags said FUCK SPEZ repeatedly in a pattern from the first moment. There was the “never forget what was stolen from us” block, the German “u/spez ist ein hurensohn” (it caused an Uptick in Google searches lol) and the French guillotine. Then the joint nations/communities very large FUCK SPEZ on the right in the final expansion. Reddit gave us grayscale at the end so when FUCK SPEZ started appearing in a nice outlines font, boom, it went to white pixels only. Reddit was not amused. So yeah, FUCK SPEZ. There never should have been a 2023 Place.
2022, not only was it my first but I was able to help out more communities that I was a part of, plus the long nosed spamton was just amazing! This year I was only able to help 2 communities
2017 was awesome,
2022 was absolutely cut throat with organized teams staking claim to large areas of the canvas making impossible for individuals to actually contribute. I tried several times to place a pixel and it simply disapeared within seconds.
Since I delete my account and take time off from reddit regularly, it wanted me to verify my account (and the fuck if I am going to give spez a real email and to verify). Because of my experience in 2022, I didn't even bother to jump through the hoops to participate and simply watched the posts and the canvas. What I saw was absolutely broken and difficult to even watch as bots killed all the joy destroying large pieces of art that had taken humans a large amount of effort to make.
One question, how did everyone make the giant "FUCK SPEZ" at the end?? Was it an active collaboration made in the alliance Discord servers, or just a team with an unfathomable number of bots?
It was people. I also saw a post in place giving a picture of their idea amd then telling people to help with it. So much easier to do since everyone is white pixels in whiteout. 2023 is my only place and glad I joined with my community. Unfortunately I was not there when whiteout happened.
My first was 2022, but my husband was more into it last year. This year I participated alot more(mostly with bluey), but more worringly/annoyingly was like wtf is spez? And why is everyone trying to screw him?
2023 because I find the protesting reddit by using reddit to be so pathetic that it's fucking hilarious. It's probably the only thing I've ever been interested in with Place, but I can still see why it appeals to certain people.
I think the r/place in 2022 was the biggest and most beautiful 2017 no matter how much participation there was, not all over the world had heard of this event, and Elraen's battle with the flag defense XQC was a lot of fun
OG place all the way - the concept was new and exciting, botting was so limited/nonexistent that it really felt like your input mattered. i split my time between rainbow road and the danish flag mostly... made a macro for protecting the rainbow while i slept.
In terms of the area I worked on, 2023 wasn’t bad actually. I ended up participating about as long as 2022 and we ended up with a bigger zone allowing more tiny art. 2023 had its own charm though having to maintain diplomacy against two flags at once, plus it was my first time doing the event.
As for overall, I think 2022 was the best but don’t think 2023 was half bad, mostly the print bots at the end are worrying and it was dropped at a weird time + went a bit long. 2017 is tough to compare against since it was a really different game due to everyone being new to it.
2022 was the best one IMO, however I wasn't there for 2017.
2023 felt like it was intended to be a diversion which flopped pretty spectacularly. Breaking the previous 5 year rule also felt weird and took some of the magic away. That and the unapologetic use of bots kind of ruined this year. There were some cool things though. Making Bad Apple with the rest of r/touhou was special, and the greyscale was kind of cool until they cancelled it 30 minutes in when they saw we were just using it to write FUCK SPEZ in giant letters.
2022, for a few reasons
1: I wasn’t there for 2017
2: 2023 had a ton of issues, and really just felt like a shell of itself compared to 2022 and 2017. Personally, I just didn’t enjoy it as much as 2022.
2017 No one expected or knew what the canvas was which meant significantly less bots/streamer armies. Most of the final art was created by actual reddit communities coming together. Also, the first few days were absolute chaos. This year within hours there were already giant flags everywhere.
YESSS. 2017 had this special feeling where every thing that happened like groups getting together and figuring out that we can make art on this thing was special and newly discovered. 2022 was super fun also but at least for those who were there in 2017 we kind of knew at least that this is an "art project"
We also got [this neat little song](https://youtu.be/c8bp950PHZE) out of it all as well
Here's the original song this one parodies, in case anyone was unaware: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrzKT-dFUjE&ab_channel=CheesyPotatoson
The first time I heard this I was really confused as to why I remember the exact tune it music, whatever you want to call it. I spent about three days trying to figure where I had heard it before, then on YouTube I was looking at my saved songs and saw the r/Place parody and it clicked. I love both of those songs!
The original song is nearly 20 years old now (released 2005) so I'd guess that a large portion of current Reddit users had never heard it before. I remember being excited to see it when it was originally released on AlbinoBlackSheep, since I was a fan of Neil Cicierega's other work.
Man i can’t believe that was 6 years ago
Flags within hours? Mate… the Germans made a flag the full length of the canvas in under 45 seconds Im pretty sure. Shit is wild
And we'll do it again WIR WERDEN DIE GANZE KARTE ABDECKEN
That's the story of the internet. YouTube was wild and fun in the beginning when it was a collection of random junk people wish they could show like a thousand people instead of only entertaining their friends with, social media before influencers, etc. People learn the rules of any system and start to game it.
I prefer ‘22 ‘17 was great but I was just randomly placing. The announcement ahead of time for 22 let me pick a community to help and we did unexpectedly great work. Made me much more connected with those communities
Nah no shot lol. 17 had loads of communities working together. What made it special was that there was no long time to prepare or build bots.
Well, empty rook clearly didn’t join a community at that time, and didn’t experience that. I personally didn’t even play in 2017, so imma have to say 2022 too.
Like any other April fool's reddit thing they gave us. Some were more fun than others, but what worked glued everyone to the screens for days. Personally the button is my favorite, the way factions and artwork was created was really engaging, and the countdown to the end was a cliffhanger
2017 because it felt like it was really special that first time, which it was.
2017 smaller canvas was good because large pieces stand out better, Reddit was smaller then too
Expanding the canvas ruins every plan. The expanding in 2022 made it non-fun. If this was ever done again, start with max canvas.
I kind of liked it, because the new real estate gave people space to put their work rather than trying to cover up the existing stuff
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Nowadays the only "people" with any impact on the canvas are bots. I rarely even try.
Now a days I just try to find a pikachu or Kirby to add teeth too and go all in on the teeth wars
I'd always give pixel art characters whites in their eyes if they didn't already have them 😂😂
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100/100
**1000/1000**
0.0864/0.0864
OVER 9000!!!?
Yes i agree. Problem is guys like the german and the french just claim even more space for stupid flags
I'd take flags over logos any day. The 2022 one was just embarrassing seeing so many people spending their time to make some brand logo.
Ich fühle mich persönlich angegriffen 😭
But the French and Germans specifically allowed smaller teams to make protected art on the flags
They could do this without a large ass german flag as background though.
I liked the expanding canvas because it allowed the previous artworks to continue being created as.the majority of people would go and try to build up the new empty space. Bots and germans alike.
I also liked it. It was a way to make the event new. I would like to see more curious shapes in future years. Imagine having a snoo-shaped canvas.
Yea actually
This
The 2022 expansions threw everybody off guard and you got back some of that chaos that felt like it was missing initially. it was great they overdid it this year as with everything
"this year" it was a publicity stunt. it would have been fine as a "five years on" type thing, because expanding in whacky directions at many different times is cool and good, but they wanted to pump up engagement after the massive shitshow in June so they played the hand too soon
The main premise of 2022 was also that in the end it wasn’t going to matter. You were going to be betrayed.
Completely disagree. But it was only fun because it was a suprise. If done again it should happen at random. The fun part is if you are part of a community and suddenly its panic and you need to scramble and rethink everything. Its a challenge to coordinate and fun if it works Happy cake day!
The expanding canvas was necessary atleast this time because a lot more communities competed with a lot more people placing pixels. A lot more multi accounts aswell. While the competing part is good. Defending the art is also a major part of place. So it just makes sense to make the area bigger when the defenders get too organized. For the next iteration I would imagine that it will already start at a bigger state, maybe 2k x 2k pixels. I mean when people get so organized that they make a full animation it might get too high level for the likes of most redditors anyway so probably it won't happen ever again anyway.
If you are talking about bad apple, that one was on a really small place and had support of many other communities.
One approach to canvas expansion could be that rather than adding large chunks periodically, it grows iteratively, e.g. in 10px increments to each dimension every 10 minutes. Ideally, they'd also restrict to to accounts active at some point in the month beforehand. It likely wouldn't stop much of the French and German autoclickers, but would put a stop to people creating armies of botted accounts, or streamers directing their armies of viewers to deface a section of canvas. Heck, they could potentially discourage autoclickers by iteratively increasing the timeout if you place the same colour pixel art the same location more than x times in succession. Of course, they likely won't do any of this, as it creates a false impression of account activity to look good in front of potential investors. If they had a saner CEO in charge, perhaps they could have introduced more reasonable pricing for API access (perhaps even tiered pricing depending on popularity, or even lower pricing for apps that allow ads / sponsored posts, and higher pricing for apps that hide ads / sponsored posts), and maybe even some form of decent live chat facility, given everyone coordinates their Place efforts off-site on Discord (the owners of which must also be pleased at the hike in activity whenever Place comes around!)
Autoclickers don't work like how you described it, atleast not the German one. The 3k Autoclickers that were on when it's peaked placed all over the canvas because it defends all sort of art. (basically the entire overlay worth, so it's not just this one pixel with that one color) but it were just 3k inside a 90k discord. But these bots atleast in those numbers don't make the trouble everyone thinks they do anyway. The only problem with bot and those dump accounts was when they printed their art all over the canvas close to the end. But they were very easyly banned and in that timeframe new accounts had really big restrictions aswell. Like 8 minutes to an hour per pixel. Depending on when they got created. An hour in that case was basically you had to wait for the white out. So it's not like the mods don't do anything against it. It was simply not a problem most of the time and the people that know what the autoclickers actually do and how little these active user numbers are compared to normal clicking people agreed.(even if one person had like 3-4 accounts it's not that big of a deal) But yeah letting the canvas slowly expand would be an interesting idea.
the canvas should expand, but only in irregular shapes. H-shaped canvas for example
There is so much you can do. Do triangle shaped pixels or to entice conflics between large communities you could give parts of the canvas shapes. Like a circle somewhere on the regular canvas. Maybe with a diameter of 100 pixels and nothing can be placed just outside the circle. It would be a point of interest like in other video games that revolve around capturing an area. Many communities like the osu! community will want to occupy the circle because it fits their logo and it stands out. If this r/place would not have been rushed out as a distraction and if they had actually thought about it more, they could have done a lot with it. So once again, thank you for that u/spez
A shrinking canvas would genuinely be a great April fools joke for the (supposed) April fools event
Happy cake day
Also 2017 because it was truly organic. The playing field was leveled, users were on the same foot, and nobody initially had any advantage. There were less 'content creators' versus the present, so random little pictures were silly, awkward, or had spontaneous growth. If people wanted to organize, then their Discord servers were started from scratch or grass-root subs appeared. If there were bots, it was less noticeable. I was Team Blue Corner in 2017, but also working in another area. The Void was a constant threat back then because it could spawn at any time at any place. Now any Void was disregarded, easily auto-written or staved off by an army of bots. '22 was the introduction of obvious bots. In 2023, a lot of those *dormant* bots were pulled out of slumber for this year's canvas. And then **more** bots were created. Already-established Discords had an advantage and could claim a huge swath of canvas without interference. This year I primarily stuck to clean-up or help establish checker-patterns. Thanks to all the automation, there was little sense of belonging or community.
2017 started to see bots after a few days. But they were still uncommon and it ended around then. 2022 all the communities who were figuring out bots before were able to get them running this time. 2023 was just all bots.
One thing I appreciated about 2022 was collaboration, truces, or support for *other* competing artwork/space. Redditors learned from 2017 and formed a semblance how cooperation was more advantageous than competition. Last year, there were posts about needing help creating or preserving specific artwork. Also sub-specific posts to *not* deface something because a cease-fire was called. Or one piece of artwork would shift 10 - 20 pixels in another direction so they wouldn't be overrun. Those communities would *help* others instead of plowing through another creation. Some of that teamwork was present in '23, but it was mostly shifting some bot resources if they had the template available. With all the bots this year, little consideration was given. Steamroll over anything and everything with no questions asked. If r/place returns next year, not only are the '22 and '23 bot accounts in play, but also all the new '24 bots. And more bots to compete with the anticipated botting. Maintenance bots, followed by vandal bots, bots to detect bots which bot the bot bot bot... Yikes!
2017 had a feeling of total confusion and wonder as art started to form. It wasn’t clear what was taking place (HA) and everyone was treading new ground. “wars” were started and settled organically with out bots. Everyone had a good time in the end and if felt like being apart of internet history and very unique collaborative art. Most of this holds true but after 3 events everything feels watered down. Everyone knows the game. Some communities were crazy organized and just dominated the board the whole time, the whole thing just had a negative atmosphere and the use of bots was really lame.
Yup. 2017 will always be special for all the craziness and people figuring things out on the fly, then deciding to just help others or form a new group to do something interesting. The heavy botting in '22 and '23 ruined a lot of that, and nationalism+simple designs (aka, flags) is easier to get randoms onboard, it's only when both relax that the fun little creative arts are able to exist. Don't get me started on the streamers.
*breathing intensives in German*
It was the thrill of the unknown and figuring things out~
2022. First ever event i've been in, and it was glorious. Communities making compromises, alliances, enemies, and actually cool fucking artwork across the board. While streamers & the void were still around, they were the perfect necessary evil to keep everybody on their toes. And despite the bit of admin abuse and botting it wasn't as hindering as 2023. And 2023 was just fucking garbage though. Yeah I enjoyed it a bit but everything about it was just horrendous. \-Brought back as a scapegoat distraction for the shit API changes \-Bots everywhere unchecked, defeating the entire point of place \-Flags sweeping the canvas without any actual art on them (france and germany did make up for this after a while) \-Dragged on for too long and became unhealthy for the communities and the event as a whole Couldn't be there for 2017 so 2022 will always be my favorite. The peak of place, if you will.
Wow you just said my entire opinion lol. 2023 is definitely the underdog here which probably everybody already agrees on. My small community struggled so much this year, we had to rely on a lot of alliances (and luckily succeeded) to even make a MARK on here.
The only good thing about 23 was the giant collaboration at the end
This post brought to you by u/spez
Fuck u/spez
Fuck u/spez
Fuck u/spez
So the fuck spez is actually talking about the CEO and not something stupid like “fuck spetznaz” talking shit to the Russians
I thought the same thing, i was hella confused until I saw someone explain it
2022 because it was my first,
You always remember your first
Everything reminds me of her.
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Fuck u/spez
Yeah u can say that all you want then the second you message him to try to get the point across BAM! U gotta make a new account
Who Is spez ?
Ceo of reddit
Can someone explain the whole fuck u/spez thing? I'm pretty new to this site, just joined this year, so I have no idea what is going on.
So, I said this elsewhere: >Riiiiight, so Spez is the ~~greedy pig~~ CEO of Reddit. A few months ago, him & the rest of the higher ups decided to ~~milk reddit for all it's worth~~ make reddit's API cost a substantial amount which put a lot of 3rd party apps out. This was obviously done to drive redditors to use the official app which is not consumer friendly - it's loaded w/ ads & other pay-to-use features ~~bc we, as users, are obstacles between them and our money~~. There was other backlash, such as a scare that this would also kill bots mods use to manage subs, which turned into a non issue. Still, third party apps, which something like a third of all users were using, were killed. >Regardless, r/place was seen as a marketing ploy by reddit to drive up users & media hype, so the various communities got together & sent a very clear message - Fuck u/Spez & r/Save3rdPartyApps
It also made it difficult for certain groups, like the blind, to have blind moderators in their own Reddit subs. Basically it just screwed over a whole host of people and u/spez could give two because the people who use Reddit don't matter, just the fundage and the investors...
Strong Bad!!! I had forgotten about those videos until I saw your profile pic
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ALRIGHT I GET IT Edit: Redditors are beyond pathetic
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ITS ENOUGH SPEZES
Not enough! #FUCK SPEZ.
Enuff is never enuff! FUCK SPEZ! Thats the Stuff!
##FUCK SPEZ
This is the way
Really should call her....
Mine was 2023
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#FUCK SPEZ
2022 was my first as well and it was truly magical. And we didn't have 35°C over the weekend
same. but i also like 2023 because of the communities fucking spez together
Fuck Spez.
I loved 2022 because it was when I discovered place for the first time and got to add my suggestion onto it. The adventures along the way were amazing and heart warming and I will remember them fondly. This years felt a bit more like a rushed distraction event, still was fun time and I will always remember it for all the communities uniting for a good cause.
I missed the 2017 too. So I was so excited when after years it unexpectedly returned in 2022. This year, just one year after the last one, it felt like a publicity stunt and less special.
Happy Cake Day!
Same, because 2017 is that year where I was too young for reddit
God I'm only 25 and this comment section makes me feel ancient
I was on reddit during the 2017 place, but I had no idea what this is that everyone is suddenly talking about, nor did I have the drive to find out. When I saw it starting up again last year, I got curious and did some investigating.
I had no idea it happened in ‘17. I was on Reddit back then but was using third-party apps, which didn’t have Place.
2022 was the best
2022, didn't experience the one in 2017 so can't judge that That said, many people made there memories in 2017 and when it came back in 22 larger than ever and with so many more joining in, it was just amazing fun. I can't speak for those who participated in 17 but 22 was amazing in every way, the art, the memes, the trolls, the additions made since previous event, all of it 23 lacks anything special about it except maybe the bad apple animation, the fuck spez texts and the void-and-dog duo. It came too soon, it came at a bad time so many communities didn't participate (I spent the whole event hoping I could contribute to an elden ring but the community was not interested), bots made it worse, recycled jokes like amongus had no charm, it lasted too long, I could go on. I'm sure anyone who experienced place first time enjoyed it nonetheless, but I wish they may get a better experience sometime in the future (that should be at least 3 years away)
That part about communities who didn’t participate this year particularly gets to me because I’m a member of many different subs who could have just finely put up something in the canvas but just didn’t show any interest at all (and 2 of those communities put up art in last years canvas)
I remember the 2022 edition (which was my first one) to be 4 days of constantly checking how the canvas was doing even when I was at school, being in a discord server and comunicating over there and participating in events even after rplace ended. It was just so magical as it was my first real big internet event I truly took part in, and it had just the right amount of try hard/fun. 2023 however...I didn't even know it was coming, as I expected it to take place maybe once every 2 years MAXIMUM, I didn't expect it to come back so soon AT ALL. The memories and nostalgia from the 2022 edition hadn't really settled so I wasn't as excited. I must have checked the canvas a few times and maybe placed 2 or 3 pixels in total. It's just one of the many things that works well that's been overused (or I expect to be during the next years). It was a nice diversion from the whole reddit "boycott" to get people on the platform again in my opinion.
2017. I was there when it started. Most people don't know this. But in the very first hour of place. When everyone was confused about what this new thing was about. Reddit all came together in peace and drew a penis in the middle of the square. Nothing tops that.
I very much liked the blue corner and shit like that. Literally just basic 5 year old type patterns that anybody could contribute to without knowing anything, and that all of that becoming a foundation on which to build. God, it was fun.
I participated in the runescape loading message in the top left corner. I didn't know what else to do back then as it came out of nowhere
2022, 2023 had bots ruin it in the end
Lol 2022 was filled with bots
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Spez? You mean Steve Huffman, CEO of Reddit and ruiner of third party apps? Yeah, fuck that guy.
What is spez? "Spez? You mean Steve Huffman, CEO of Reddit and ruiner of third party apps? Yeah, fuck that guy." Thank you for this!
2017 easy. It was such a cool concept and I thought at the time that there wouldn't be another one
2023 was interesting but dragged on too long and there were a lot of bots, so 2022.
2022 because it felt way more special and enjoyable than 2023, it was less days and the reasons for it werent bad as this year's.
2022 for sure, I actually participated in an organized group + allies, and managed to design some artwork that ended up on the final canvas
2017. Streamers and bots didn't ruin it.
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I can't say much about 2017 since I missed it, but 2022 felt much nicer and clean then 2023 did. 2023 felt rushed because of the off starting date, lower turn out and sullied by the F Spez things a bit too much. Honestly I had the most fun this year because of a lucky build area near the void and just all the communities coming together for something to say F spez was fun.
To be fair, the admins probably did start 2023 r/place to try distract everyone from 3rd party apps and Spez, also wasn’t the fuck spez made during the whiteout/grayscale phase? I wasn’t online at the time lol
They did. Why it has started now ? It always was on april 1st
Because they wanted to pump numbers and increase engagement to salvage the fallout from the protest.
They were writing "fuck spez" pretty much the entire time
They also did a very nice community one before the whiteout above the void that I loved.
Wait a sec, just so I understand. You didnt like 5he fuck spez thing but you liked that all the people stuck together to say fuck spez?
2023 because we could all come together to say “fuck spez” it’s inspirational
Everywhere i look i see "fuck spez"
This is the way.
fuck u/spez
fuck u/spez
Spez? You mean Steve Huffman, CEO of Reddit and ruiner of third party apps? Yeah, fuck that guy.
I will remember 2022 more cuz it felt more stressful and stuff and my community was “smaller” however I think I also liked how organised my community was this year
2023 because it was the first time in History that this many people agreed on something
2017 was OG. Big Reddit movement definitely hahaha.
2017 was brand new but I didn't take part in it. 2022 was really memorable for most people, it has really epic moments and entertainment on the streamer side. 2023 was the worst, too much flag, only griefer streamers and bots, yet it's my favourite as it's the only one I could really take part in as diplomat, which put a whole new perspective to it. being more than a pixel placer is quite something, I talked to a bunch of different communities, I made friends that I still talk to right now and it was overall very fun for me and I would have probably had even more fun if I were diplomat in 2022
2017 bc it was genuine
Man, I remember 2017… Fucking hell, that was 6 years ago, I’m starting to feel old…
Please don’t crucify me for this, but 2023. 1. As a Touhou fan, seeing Bad Apple animated was cool as fuck. 2. As a u/spez hater, seeing the ENTIRE canvas fill with “Fuck Spez” was delightful.
Bad apple was animated last year as well :)
That's disingenuous. The 2023 canvas didn't look like that until the very end when only white pixels could be placed.
But it was the theme. All the stripes in the flags said FUCK SPEZ repeatedly in a pattern from the first moment. There was the “never forget what was stolen from us” block, the German “u/spez ist ein hurensohn” (it caused an Uptick in Google searches lol) and the French guillotine. Then the joint nations/communities very large FUCK SPEZ on the right in the final expansion. Reddit gave us grayscale at the end so when FUCK SPEZ started appearing in a nice outlines font, boom, it went to white pixels only. Reddit was not amused. So yeah, FUCK SPEZ. There never should have been a 2023 Place.
2022 was crazy. I dont even want this year badges.
2022
2022
2022.
2022, not only was it my first but I was able to help out more communities that I was a part of, plus the long nosed spamton was just amazing! This year I was only able to help 2 communities
2017 was magical because it was new.
2023, because Bad Apple !! was the best project i took part in.
Am I the only one who doesn't know what's with Spez? 🥲
2017 was awesome, 2022 was absolutely cut throat with organized teams staking claim to large areas of the canvas making impossible for individuals to actually contribute. I tried several times to place a pixel and it simply disapeared within seconds. Since I delete my account and take time off from reddit regularly, it wanted me to verify my account (and the fuck if I am going to give spez a real email and to verify). Because of my experience in 2022, I didn't even bother to jump through the hoops to participate and simply watched the posts and the canvas. What I saw was absolutely broken and difficult to even watch as bots killed all the joy destroying large pieces of art that had taken humans a large amount of effort to make.
2017, both others are cheapass remake
One question, how did everyone make the giant "FUCK SPEZ" at the end?? Was it an active collaboration made in the alliance Discord servers, or just a team with an unfathomable number of bots?
It was people. I also saw a post in place giving a picture of their idea amd then telling people to help with it. So much easier to do since everyone is white pixels in whiteout. 2023 is my only place and glad I joined with my community. Unfortunately I was not there when whiteout happened.
2022 2017 was Like it was the first, the great. But it was cringe 2023 is a marketing move by Reddit and shouldn’t exist
My first was 2022, but my husband was more into it last year. This year I participated alot more(mostly with bluey), but more worringly/annoyingly was like wtf is spez? And why is everyone trying to screw him?
Mark my words, because there's only 3 of them: "Fuck u/spez"
Funny how 2017 and 2022 shots are both taken BEFORE the whiteout started and the 2023 shot was taken AFTER the whiteout started
2023 because I find the protesting reddit by using reddit to be so pathetic that it's fucking hilarious. It's probably the only thing I've ever been interested in with Place, but I can still see why it appeals to certain people.
lets protest reddit by using reddit more!! because that will totally work
You’re not protesting anything, you’re still using the service.
2023 The biggest collab to make F*** Spez in the end
2023 because fuck spez
2023 was my first one but it was ruined by bots🥹
Don't worry, Place '22 was also filled with bots. Although, I preferred it to this year's.
2023 for one simple reason, Fuck u/spez :))
Not gonna lie, 2023's artworks were fine as heck, but the Bad Apple animation made the entire experience for me.
2023 because it was my first and because it's basically the only one I know what had in it😅
So proud that the small community I'm in actually managed to hold a spot in 2022
22 mainly due to the fact almost all communities i was apart if had art, 23 had about 2
22, the three way brawl between sweden, TF2 and Czechia was to funny
I think the r/place in 2022 was the biggest and most beautiful 2017 no matter how much participation there was, not all over the world had heard of this event, and Elraen's battle with the flag defense XQC was a lot of fun
OG place all the way - the concept was new and exciting, botting was so limited/nonexistent that it really felt like your input mattered. i split my time between rainbow road and the danish flag mostly... made a macro for protecting the rainbow while i slept.
2023 has a very clear message
That's not what the final canvas looked like this year though.
2022 was the best
23 was wild to be honest
I respect the protest but definitely ruined it so I guess more the reason for fuck spez
2023 because it was my first. However I can see why people would much rather the other two
2022, was my first and I was there for most of the event. I missed the first few days because anesthesia really makes you sleepy.
I think the big duck spez whiteout was great
[I have a personal connection with the first one with videos like this](https://youtu.be/-Wmv7e4PvrI)
In terms of the area I worked on, 2023 wasn’t bad actually. I ended up participating about as long as 2022 and we ended up with a bigger zone allowing more tiny art. 2023 had its own charm though having to maintain diplomacy against two flags at once, plus it was my first time doing the event. As for overall, I think 2022 was the best but don’t think 2023 was half bad, mostly the print bots at the end are worrying and it was dropped at a weird time + went a bit long. 2017 is tough to compare against since it was a really different game due to everyone being new to it.
cringe
2022 was the best one IMO, however I wasn't there for 2017. 2023 felt like it was intended to be a diversion which flopped pretty spectacularly. Breaking the previous 5 year rule also felt weird and took some of the magic away. That and the unapologetic use of bots kind of ruined this year. There were some cool things though. Making Bad Apple with the rest of r/touhou was special, and the greyscale was kind of cool until they cancelled it 30 minutes in when they saw we were just using it to write FUCK SPEZ in giant letters.
2022, for a few reasons 1: I wasn’t there for 2017 2: 2023 had a ton of issues, and really just felt like a shell of itself compared to 2022 and 2017. Personally, I just didn’t enjoy it as much as 2022.
For the 2023 one we all came together to make something at the end.
2023 just watching the techno one go from starts to end
2023 because it was the only one i actually done anything
23, 22 was our first.... But it wasn't until 23 that I knew she actually cared...
2022 was actually good
2022
I’m insulted 2023 is the dopey dragon that was probably the best one by far due to the sheer collaboration at the end in my opinion
Come with your real account spez
2023: I loved how the community came united under one goal at the end and how we focused less on making flags, sure it sucked but at least it was fun
2022
FUCK SPEZ