The r/place Romanian Trollface

The r/place Romanian Trollface was an event held by OkPrietenRetardat, between April 1 and April 4, 2022, and again between July 20 and July 26, 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, leading to the creation of PlaceRO.

Megumin and Romanian Trollface on r/place canvas in 2022

The Romanian flag made by PlaceRO with the Romanian Trollface on r/place canvas in 2023

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 (1000x1000) 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 (2000x2000) 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 original 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 by an OKPR member of the trollface's drawing progress.

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 due to the high risk of being griefed again.

Canvas expansion & r/pMegu alliance

On the second day at around 16:30 UTC, following the huge wave of redditors joining r/place, the canvas expanded to the right, adding another 1000x1000 pixels. This was the perfect opportunity to revive the project and draw the trollface once again. It was redrawn at coordinates 1690,175 and the second attempt finished in an hour, but this achievement did not last long as a new challenge arose.

r/pMegu, a Reddit subreddit focused on recreating Megumin (one of the main characters from the anime series Konosuba) on r/place canvas, decided to draw her next to the trollface. The initial plan provided for Megumin's staff to be drawn right to the coordinates where OKPR's artwork was located. Thus it followed a series of attacks from r/pMegu that OKPR members faced for several hours, until around 20:30 UTC when the latter gave up and the artwork was completely griefed.

As a result of this troubled situation, OKPR members tried to keep in touch with r/pMegu members, with some of the former joining the latter's server as diplomats. There were some long discussions with pMegu members that ended well due to the peaceful intentions of both communities, eventually leading to the formation of an alliance that lasted throughout the rest of the event. Following this agreement, on the third day, at about 9:30 UTC, the third attempt of drawing the trollface started with the support of pMegu members, being finished in less than an hour.

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 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.

PlaceRO

Unexpectedly, the server membership count grew at an exponential rate, bringing with it both Romanian and foreign members from tens of different comunities and subreddits involved in r/place. Some of the Romanian communities that helped were r/placeromania, the PixelRO Discord server, the IRaphahell fandom and r/Romania. The server focused on maintaining the Romanian flag and protecting the artworks of the allied communities, without it being easy for them. The server faced many challenges, such as the Brazilian and 'Fuck spez' assault of the first flag or Bratishkinoff griefing the second flag. The server also got much more popularity thanks to Romanian streamers like IRaphahell and Highman, although they weren't helping the PlaceRO's cause.

The return of the trollface

After many ups and downs, the OKPR's long awaited wish was granted, thanks to Edward and RT. At midnight on June 24, around 1:00 AM local time, it was announced that the Romanian trollface shall be the next artwork drawn on the flag, in order to secure the Romanian piece of canvas with more artworks. After half an hour, the already tired online members managed to recreate the OKPR symbol at the coordinates -287,80, which will stand mostly untouched for the rest of the event.

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).