Reddit r/Place is all set to be back once again after a successful iteration in 2017 and 2022. The 2023 version of r/Place took place on July 20th.
The r/Place experiments were fascinating pieces of artwork on colourful pixel collages. But compared to the first, the second r/Place was the biggest Pixel War on Reddit fought on canvas.
All You Need to Know About Pixel War on Reddit
The project began in 2017 as an April Fools’ Day experiment. The idea was Josh Wardle’s, an employee of Reddit and who is currently the creator of Wordle.
The r/Place had more than a million Reddit users placing about 16 million tiles on the blank communal digital canvas.
The second version took place five years later and had 72 million tiles being placed by over 6 million users. The simple initiative soon turned into a battlefield and was known as Pixel War on Reddit as countries fought over pixels to dominate the canvas.
Purpose of Pixel War
The purpose of this Pixel War was to draw identifiable artefacts. They also had to see that their art is not deleted from the canvas.
In 2017 the waiting period between colouring a pixel was five minutes and the users could choose the pixel’s colour from a palette of sixteen colours. It was increased to 32 colours palette in 2022.
How to Participate in Reddit r/place
To participate in r/place, a user should have a Reddit account. Each user can click one pixel to change its colour.
After changing the color, Reddit user has to wait for the cooldown period of five minutes before placing another pixel. In this time period, your pixel can be undone many times.
Each user can place a single tile in five minutes, but due to the time gap, it was quite impossible to build alone. In order to create a perfect picture users worked together to produce collective works of pixel art.
Pixel War on Reddit
This initiative, which was an innocent idea at the beginning, turned into a War Field between countries.
The stars of other social networks in attempts to expand existing art, replace defaced pixels, and superimposed new images over existing ones and this led to a ‘Pixel Waon Reddit.’
Fandoms united to overtake other communities’ images. They even vied for space on the board. There were some who were bent on destruction and the best example of this is The Void.
It is a black-hole-like shape that first appeared in 2017. It selects an area on the canvas and starts deleting the art around it with black dots.
This was till the victimized subreddit is forced to give up. Some people tried to sabotage others’ creations with streams of purple pixels.
Social Media Phenomena Involved In The Pixel War
The stars of other social networks (Twitch, Kameto, Zerator), took their communities to seize the pixel canvas and in this way “Pixel War” of an unprecedented scale took place. Users have built out dedicated Discord servers to plan their takeovers of the canvas.
On the night of April 2 to 3, the Pixel War broke out where communities from all over the world fought virtually. The main clash was between France and Spain.
The Spanish group felt that France has pixelated too much of the square. The game spread over several days and the craze crossed the borders of Reddit.
Streamers and their communities joined in the challenge and took over the giant mural to mark their territory. The fierce battle, saw France face off against a United States – Spain alliance. It lasted more than 48 hours, from April 3 to 5.
France won this pixelation contest with Germany in second place and third place in the United States.
Will 2023 be a re-release of the Pixel War? On social networks, many Internet users think so and say they are already ready to fight.