It’s been a mad few days, but the April Fools’ Joke that keeps on giving, Reddit’s R/Place has faded back into the white void from whence it came.
It’s a massive, profane, beautiful, combative and thought-provoking collaborative art piece based on a simple rule: you have the ability to change the colour of one dot on a field of 2000×2000 every 5 minutes.
And anyone else could do the same. At any time.
What could go wrong?
It started white, and eventually, became white, when the admins restricted the colour palette from 16 colours to 1 after several days of charged to-and fro between redditors to claim real estate in the final jewel in the crown; the Final Canvas.
Alas, unlike five years ago, the true April Fool’s joke is that there’s no ‘final canvas’ to own. There’s only points in time; places where great art rose and fell according to the whims of tiny friend groups and giant political collectives.
There was a point in time where a few loosely coordinated Australian teams claimed parts of the canvas to create animals, flags and portraits. Those works of art took time to plan, co-ordinate and maintain against hostile streamers and other groups. These works are archived below. They may exist elsewhere, but only as snapshots.
R/Place is, again, a white void. But what a void.
And right in the middle of it, an ANZAC-commemorating poppy.
UPDATE: Here’s what the canvas looked like before the White Void took over. You might want to zoom in.
UPDATE: here’s an interactive atlas if you want to explore the whole thing,
UPDATE:And finally, a breakdown of my own humble contribution
BONWAG 