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Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

arstechnica.com

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Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#91

Post by AimHere »

eatitraw wrote: post #49
rmccoy6435 wrote: post #6

I think this was a pretty neat experiment. For the first 24 hours everything was chaos, then it settled down in the middle as communities formed, then at the end it was just annoying as every subreddit was trying to take over real-estate, and far too many people were taking it way too seriously. It got annoying going to certain subreddits that I subscribe to for content started getting flooded with "Man the decks, we…

> I don't think there is anything actually political on the final /r/place piece other than country flags. There are various flags of different anarchist movements, very long trans* flag, LGBT flags here and there. IMO, all these count as "actually political".

Not to mention a small anarchocapitalist (black/yellow) flag under the snakes near the top left.

Supposedly the Trump Supporters at The_Donald attempted to create a few Trump memes and Pepe frogs, but gave up and concentrated on keeping the US flag intact.

Other than that, the right couldn't get much traction at all.

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#92

Post by pavel_lishin »

the_watcher wrote: post #51
pavel_lishin wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the one thing this really showed was most people on reddit don't really care about politics, but the vocal minority on there makes it seem like it's the forefront of every issue. Isn't it also possible for the reverse to be true? That a very vocal minority cared very much about r/place, and that vocal minority happened to not care enough about politics to show up on Place?

It seems that given the restrictions on how often a single user could actually visibly change the image, coupled with the sheer volume of changes, no, the reverse is almost certainly not true.

As I understand it, most organizers used bots to help coordinate the process. People who care about politics on Reddit are no less likely to be tech savvy.

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#93

Post by eropple »

Navarr wrote: post #55
eatitraw wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think there is anything actually political on the final /r/place piece other than country flags. There are various flags of different anarchist movements, very long trans* flag, LGBT flags here and there. IMO, all these count as "actually political".

Anarchist movements I can see, but I don't think trans/LGBT flags count as "political." It's an identity, not a political statement. It'd be like calling christian crosses "political"

Christianity is a completely political phenomenon (as a cursory historical examination will demonstrate) and public advocacy of it is a political act.

Similarly, most things, including fandoms, are political in nature whether they want to be or not. By liking Star Trek, you're buying into a box of propositions, some related to the art and some related to the real-world universe around that art. By (as in the Reddit experiment) working to expand it, you're making a political claim.

People are political, people are never not political, and drawing an imaginary line to try to separate some political acts from others is pretty fruitless.

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#94

Post by sqeaky »

rhizome wrote: post #74
rmccoy6435 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually a really interesting thought. I hadn't even considered that. I don't currently have the time to find all of the analytics about pixel placement, but I would assume there were tens of thousands of users who aligned with some 'faction' and had more than 20 pixel placements in the entire 72 hours (I would say that is a large enough number to identify people who actively participated), which is by no mean…

it wouldn't have been very hard to get one of the larger political subreddits to get something on the board and maintain it for the weekend I'm not so sure this is actually true. Have you ever tried to organize a large number of people?

For something like this the level of organization is tiny. I added to tux, and all I need was the picture of tux. I barely needed that because I just refilled pixels people poked into him.

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#95

Post by sqeaky »

AimHere wrote: post #91
eatitraw wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't think there is anything actually political on the final /r/place piece other than country flags. There are various flags of different anarchist movements, very long trans* flag, LGBT flags here and there. IMO, all these count as "actually political".

Not to mention a small anarchocapitalist (black/yellow) flag under the snakes near the top left. Supposedly the Trump Supporters at The_Donald attempted to create a few Trump memes and Pepe frogs, but gave up and concentrated on keeping the US flag intact. Other than that, the right couldn't get much traction at all.

Do you think they are angry about the US/Mexico heart?

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#96

Post by Karunamon »

eropple wrote: post #93
Navarr wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anarchist movements I can see, but I don't think trans/LGBT flags count as "political." It's an identity, not a political statement. It'd be like calling christian crosses "political"

Christianity is a completely political phenomenon (as a cursory historical examination will demonstrate) and public advocacy of it is a political act. Similarly, most things, including fandoms, are political in nature whether they want to be or not. By liking Star Trek, you're buying into a box of propositions, some related to the art and some related to the real-world universe around that art. By (as in the Reddit e…

This defines the word "political" to be so broad as to render it essentially meaningless.

I can't like Star Trek without "buying into a box of propositions"? Really? First, you're going to have to tell me why I like Star Trek.

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#97

Post by skizm »

CarVac wrote: post #59
rmccoy6435 wrote: post #6

I think this was a pretty neat experiment. For the first 24 hours everything was chaos, then it settled down in the middle as communities formed, then at the end it was just annoying as every subreddit was trying to take over real-estate, and far too many people were taking it way too seriously. It got annoying going to certain subreddits that I subscribe to for content started getting flooded with "Man the decks, we…

There was another fascinating aspect of politics that sprang up due to Place: inter-community politics. My community (Madoka Magica) was continuously communicating with our neighbors on all sides, ranging from the gigantic PrequelMemes to our right, Canada to our south, Homestuck, the Greek and Turkish flags mentioned in the article (which really were warring for quite a time before the heart appeared), and even tiny…

I still cannot believe how large and clean that /r/PrequelMemes logo came out. It was a lot of text too, which made it all the more impressive.

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#98

Post by sqeaky »

thesagan wrote: post #52
baby wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It got annoying going to certain subreddits that I subscribe to for content started getting flooded with "Man the decks, we need to defend this!" that's awesome! The whole thing became a territory war :)

I, too, thought that was a big part of the fun! I liked the competition of it all. I'm a bit surprised to learn this wasn't a popular sentiment.

I go to reddit for two very different reasons. To unwind and just read interesting and unexpected stuff for a bit or to get into thoughtful and interesting debates. If I am in an unwinding mood I wouldn't want to deal with the /r/place debates. If I want to debate it would be awesome.

Then there are people who live their whole lives in places more extreme than either of the moods I described.

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#99

Post by cyphar »

spike021 wrote: post #88
cyphar wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While some users might feel that way, I'm not sure how an image (which is a collection of pixels on a screen that has many different historical interpretations) would threaten, harass or bully someone. Or incite it. Of course, these days ad networks are hyper-sensitive about this topic, so from an advertising perspective it does make sense.

I don't want to assume you lack a connection to swastikas used as they were during the Holocaust. For me personally, my grandfather and his family were persecuted along with other family members and friends. My grandfather was even beaten by Hitler Youth, among experiencing other horrible events (Kristallnacht in particular). I wish it weren't the case but the symbol is strongly associated with the feelings from this…

While I do empathise with you (my family wasn't under fascist rule, they were under communist rule), I disagree with your way of approaching the issue.

In my mind, the best way of ridding ourselves of the mistakes of the past is to stop holding their symbolism as something that should be banned. It's the same with offensive words -- by keeping them as "things you should never say" you're effectively giving them power which goes against your wishes to eradicate the power they once had.

Do you think that Hitler (or Stalin, Tito, Mao, Pot) would prefer that you made fun of them and lightheartedly used the symbolism they held dear or that you feared them after the deaths of their regimes?

All of that being said, I completely understand why you would feel the way you do.

Re: Reddit’s April Fools’ experiment

#100

Post by softawre »

rmccoy6435 wrote: post #54
pavel_lishin wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the one thing this really showed was most people on reddit don't really care about politics, but the vocal minority on there makes it seem like it's the forefront of every issue. Isn't it also possible for the reverse to be true? That a very vocal minority cared very much about r/place, and that vocal minority happened to not care enough about politics to show up on Place?

That's actually a really interesting thought. I hadn't even considered that. I don't currently have the time to find all of the analytics about pixel placement, but I would assume there were tens of thousands of users who aligned with some 'faction' and had more than 20 pixel placements in the entire 72 hours (I would say that is a large enough number to identify people who actively participated), which is by no mean…

/r/the_donald tried to get their mascot on /r/place many times, only to be destroyed.
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