The r/place Romanian Trollface

Megumin and Romanian Trollface on r/place canvas

The r/place Romanian Trollface was an event held by OkPrietenRetardat, between April 1 and April 4, 2022, and again on July 20, 2023, in which OKPR Discord server users participated in the creation of a trollface with the Romanian flag, a well-known symbol of the subreddit, on the r/place canvas. In 2022, the drawing was kept alive thanks to the help provided by r/pMegu during the event, with which an alliance was created that holds up even today, while in 2023, the drawing was contested by r/Romania members, with whom discussions were held to cooperate.

Background

r/place was a collaborative project and social experiment hosted on Reddit on April Fools' Day 2017 and repeated again on April Fools' Day 2022. The experiment was based in a subreddit witt the same name, in which individual users could place a single colored pixel on an online canvas of one million (1000 x 1000) pixel squares, and wait a certain amount of time before placing another.

In 2017, the waiting time varied from 5 to 20 minutes throughout the experiment, and the user could choose their pixel's color from a palette of sixteen colors. In the 2022 edition, the canvas was eventually expanded to four million (2000 x 2000) pixel squares, and the palette gradually gained sixteen more colors for a total of 32.

On July 19, 2023, following the huge success of the last canvas edition and the recent turmoil on Reddit, the r/place subreddit announced the decision to reinstate the third edition of the canvas. Next day, at around 16:10 local time (14:10 UTC), the canvas opened to everyone.

Timeline

The sketch of the Romanian trollface, made by RomanianMemer

2022

Preparation for r/place 2022

It isn't known when the OKPR v2 server was first notified about this event (although on the opening day the server members were already aware a few hours before the start), nor who was the first person to announce the server about this experiment. It is certainly known that Mihailul, Netflix's son and Edward were some of the event initiators.

Independent attempts

A meme showing the unfinished Romanian trollface and the advancing Ukrainian flag, whose creators are depicted as hungry pigs. This image represents the earliest known depiction of the trollface.

The canvas was opened to the public at 13:00 UTC. There wasn't an immediate response from the OKPR server, as the members have not decided what to draw. After brief dscussions, everybody agreed on drawing the well-known subreddit symbol, the Romanian trollface. Mihailul created the first and only sketch of the pixelated trollface, which will become the official one. The design was prepared and the members were ready. All they needed was a place to begin.

After some 90 minutes, it was proposed to create the artwork at around the coordinates 785,530, and so it began the first attempt. There were some fears about the brutal advancement of the Ukrainian flag towards the trollface, but the project didn't stop. Eventually at around 15:30 UTC, while the chin of the trollface was completed, the flag was next to our artwork, bringing with it certain death. It didn't last long for the trollface to be covered by blue and yellow pixels, lowering the morale of OKPR members at the moment.

There was a second attempt at recreating the OKPR symbol, although there are currently no direct evidences or media files to prove it. One thing for sure is that the second iteration would have been recreated near the Foxhole artwork, as some members have suggested. While working on the first attempt, there were already some Reddit users creating another pixelated trollface at coordinates 650,620, that eventually would be casted under the shadow of the r/wallstreetbets artwork. It was also discussed to draw the trollface somewhere near the transgender flag, which laid a few pixels above the Ukrainian flag, but this didn't materialize dur to the high risk of being griefed again.

2023

Preparation for r/place 2023

Netflix’s son was the first to announce the OKPR server via Mihailul about the event, thanks to the users from r/pMegu. And again they, along with Edward, encouraged the server to join them and to help recreating the well-known trollface.

Early attempt

The trio, along with Mihai3, RT and others, were waiting for the subreddit to open its canvas. Immediately as it opened, the users found a good spot for drawing the trollface, the first pixel being placed by Edward at coordinates 172;267. RT helped organizing the members to ease the drawing by creating 2 channels for the discussions regarding r/place, #place-general and #place-info. Meanwhile, the r/Romania Discord server members were aware about the event, but very unorganized and without a well-elaborated plan for drawing. Eventually they found the trollface and decided to draw a flag close to it.

40 minutes after the canvas opened, the Romanian trollface was griefed by r/Romania members who wanted to create the Romanian flag, and by strangers who just wanted to delay the progress. In order to keep in touch with the Romanian redditors, Edward created an additional Discord server called PlaceRO, in order to unite them with OKPR members and thus to form an alliance, making the previous 2 channels on OKPR obsolete and archiving them. After an hour, it was decided to abandon the drawing of the trollface and focus on expanding and protecting the Romanian flag.

IRaphahell massive subscribers flux

Later on, Romanian Youtuber IRaphahell would join the fight for the Romanian flag, bringing with him a huge number of subscribers that aggresively conquered many neighboring artworks and therefore disturbing the already fragile balance between the other subreddits. While he was ordering his army what to draw on canvas via his livestream, Edward and other users spread the news about PlaceRO in order to keep in touch and to create temporary aliances with neighboring communities that were attacked, guaranteeing a frail peace. Thanks to a quick response from Romanians and a well-handled coordination, the Romanian flag got very large proportions and it was consolidated and refurbished much better than last year, and also, PlaceRO server reached over 200 members in a very short time, with a peak 45 members on voice channel #coordonare.

New Romanian flag

On the morning of July 21, the Romanian flag and many close artworks were brutally seized by Brazilian users who wanted to raise their national flag, being accompanied by redditors who drew "fuck spez" messages. It was then decided to move the flag somehere else. The new spot to place the pixels was found at around the coordinates 350;0 right under the already established Hungarian flag, spanning over 160 pixels in height. Meanwhile, PlaceRO server got an exponential growth in membership count, reaching 400 members.

Images

2022

Many great pictures of the progress of the drawing were posted on r/pMegu's Discord server, but due to an admin's account being hacked, it was deleted and many pictures were lost or left out of order.

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  A plan of the drawing uploaded by @pavvypav (Discord moderator of r/pMegu).