As you would possibly anticipate, customers are already using the announcement post to air their grievances towards the corporate. The present high remark in reply to the publish simply says “fuck u/spez” (“spez” is CEO Steve Huffman’s Reddit username), and most of the different feedback say solely “API,” so I wouldn’t be stunned to see that sentiment present up not directly on this yr’s r/Place canvas.
I believe even Reddit is likely to be conscious that the timing isn’t nice. In a brief announcement video, the corporate’s tagline for the occasion is “proper place, improper time.” In a different post, a Reddit admin (worker) shared a collection of pushed dates for when r/Place would kick off — it was speculated to go dwell at the start of April however stored getting delayed:
Previous r/Place experiments passed off in 2017 and 2022. (Josh Wardle, who would later go on to create and then sell Wordle, thought up the thought for r/Place, according to Newsweek.) The ultimate canvases for every (2017, 2022) are truthfully fascinating items of labor, with issues like artwork, nation flags, memes, and online game iconography all smashed collectively into colourful pixel collages.
For the 2023 version, Reddit is letting subreddit moderators “pin” coordinates on the canvas to assist group members extra simply navigate to sure areas. Whereas that does sound helpful, I think about some communities will use the function to assist focus their protest efforts.
Reddit declined to remark. It’s unclear precisely how lengthy this yr’s model of r/Place will likely be open to contributions; the 2017 model passed off over 72 hours, whereas the 2022 version was made over four days.
By the best way, this announcement helped me remedy the place the ugly pixelated Reddit app logo is from: you possibly can see it in Reddit’s r/Place announcement video. For some motive, that video additionally contains pixelated photographs of a fireplace in a rubbish can.