Brony r/Place 2023
My video about 2023's event
My video about the preparation leading up to 2023's failed launch.
Welcome to my landing page which was originally made for on-boarding people to assist bronies during r/Place 2023. This page also contains pre-event speculation and details.
It remains preserved as it was in the final hours of the event.
Archive
We are free. r/Place 2023 has ended.
Bronies saw immense success, even after seeing more aggression from Twitch bullies this year as well as the threat of massive bot attacks. Our nuke counter topped out somewhere around 30, but we always continued to rebuild and make peaceful expansions across the canvas. We had an amazing team of diplomats working hard to befriend other factions.
While some bronies chose to forge their own path during r/Place, the central faction is proud to have been bot-free this year. This ended up being a great call as bots became one of the biggest and most hated factions on all of r/Place, plus the victory for those participating manually tastes so much sweeter for it.
Thank you to the countless volunteers, be they officially on the team or not, who sacrificed many long hours to assist in this event. You are what makes this community so amazing.
r/Place Bronies Discord Server Message to our friends
We on behalf of the My Little Pony community wanted to extend our warmest and most sincere thanks to each and every one of you who left us a helping hand during our time on r/place. Your collaboration was extraordinary and we are truly overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity you've shown us.
The magic of friendship that we value so heartily in our beloved series isn't just fictional. We might not be able to shoot actual orbital friendship rainbows, but it has a real impact on the lives of those around us. United, we helped each other create something truly special on the canvas. United, we painted something wonderful. United, we all combined our skills. From the hard work of developers, the dedication of the moderators and faction leaders, the teamwork of each faction, and the creativity of all the artists should be commended.
No matter how many times it happens, seeing our beloved characters come to life amidst the chaos and the streamers was not a testament to our strength as a community, but from the bonds we formed, and the help we recieved. So for every selfless pixel that was sent our way, we are grateful, and we hope our allies feel the same for us. We not only made art, but perhaps, if you'll allow it, forged a lasting friendship between our communities, and that will be our greatest contribution.
Once again, we extend our gratitude to every single person who played a part in creating art of any kind. You are part of the reason so many people even bothered this year, despite the controversy regarding reddit. So thank you. Your loyalty to your community, and the honesty you provided to us is heartwarming, and I hope we can maintain this relationship.
Yours sincerely,
The My Little Pony community
Here's my stream recording for day 1
My stream recording for day 2
Skipping ahead, this is my stream recording for the very end of the event on day 6!
What we know:
Last updated July 20th 9:00 AM EDT.
Join the brony Pixel Stage! Either on our Discord, or via a brony streamer. Links below.
Bronies have been preparing for this event since March. If you'd like to join us or conduct diplomacy as a representative of another group, join our r/Place-dedicated Discord server.
If the Discord server is on lockdown [due to streamer raids] seek out a brony streamer who is listening to the Stage call! Links below.
Remember that bully streamers are expected. We were attacked by them more than 20 times last year. We will rebuild. Just be patient, and know lots of discussion and diplomacy is always ongoing.
Reddit surprised everyone by changing up the coordinate system and initial color palette. This caused some confusion for us and our neighbors, but we were able to get established!
Later on the 2nd day, we were wiped out after a typical Twitch bully raid, but we will always continue to rebuild.
Pre-July
Information below this point may be outdated!
Check out my video about the events leading up to June 23rd's non-event.
Scroll to the bottom of this page for videos about 2017 and 2022's events!
June 23rd message
It didn't happen June 23rd as expected.
Read the pre-event information below if you'd like to learn why so many people were so sure it was going to happen. As for why it didn't happen, my speculation is that Place was canceled relatively last minute due to the API protests.
Consider watching my 2022 deep dive, or check out the recording of my June 23rd live stream which went on for almost nine hours.
Message to the Discord server:
Hey all, it’s been a wild journey.
This server was created March 16th after numerous findings relating to r/Place’s return. I think most of us weren’t really looking forward to another event so soon, but our dedication and passion for ponies and community led us to get to work anyway. I know I spent countless hours stressing over details and getting things set up. Coaster was the one to take the initiative of creating the server in the first place. Countless mods volunteered their time. And of course we have an amazing team of devs. I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone and offer my appreciation for the passion we share.
For the record, we have evidence r/Place was in the works. We have evidence they planned to launch it June 23rd. None of the people involved with datamining or clue hunting deceived or faked anything. It really is just looking like a scrapped plan we happened to stumble upon. Companies like Reddit probably have all sorts of plans behind the scenes that never come to fruition. We were unlucky to find this one.
As you have probably figured out, it doesn’t look like r/Place is happening today at all. My personal speculation is that they canceled it before it was even announced, possibly due to the API protests. Now would be bad timing for r/Place anyway. It might be the end of an era if Reddit continues down this road, but that’s a whole other discussion.
Feel free to coordinate plans for other pixel clones as well. This server isn’t disappearing any time soon, nor are the friendships forged over the course of these past months. I don’t think we have immediate plans for the sever, but we might shift focus and organize other events or activities. We’ll need a few days of rest before figuring that out though. Point is, we’d love it if you stuck around. Especially if anyone wants to hold out hope for a Place event months or years in the future. We can continue to be one of the most prepared and most dedicated Place factions in existence.
Thanks for being part of this amazing community. We as bronies are very fortunate that this doesn’t mark the end for us, as we’ll always have some new pony thing to get excited about. Whether it’s conventions, online events, or meeting friends; friendship is still magic.
Pre-Event information
What we know:
Reddit is currently burning to the ground due to protests not directly related to r/Place, but they will certainly have an effect on the event. The future of Reddit as a whole, let alone r/Place, is uncertain.
Despite no official announcement, r/Place 2023 is definitely in the works.
A leak strongly suggests r/Place will return June 23rd; Reddit's anniversary.
Bronies have joined the P3ACE alliance, meaning we're already working with countless large factions and have staked claim to a location on the hypothetical canvas.
Bronies have been preparing for this event since March. If you'd like to join us or conduct diplomacy as a representative of another group, join our r/Place-dedicated Discord server linked below.
Pre-Event Timeline:
Last updated June 18th 9:30 PM EDT.
June 17th: Bronies are formally voted into the P3ACE alliance! This is a group of factions representing a desire to work together and to support non-aggression, peace, and friendship. Almost half of the hypothetical canvas is already claimed by this alliance and it presents exciting new opportunities for bronies to work together with so many other groups so early on. Bronies have already claimed territory on the canvas thanks to this alliance!
June 12th: Thousands of subreddits, including many of the largest ones, go private as part of the protest. Many which remain open also participate by sharing PSAs and memes related to the matter.
Early June: Reddit metaphorically catches on fire as thousands of large subs join in to protest Reddit's sudden changes to API access. Reddit is demanding millions of dollars from third party app developers and are potentially cutting off accessibility and moderation tools. Countless subreddits, including groups from last year's event, are shutting down in protest. This relates to r/Place due to the timing and the widespread calls for protests to take place on the canvas itself.
May: Mikarific continues to find new updates and references to r/Place in the mobile apps.
One of many discoveries is a new, unused prompt asking users to enable notifications to "know about canvas expansions and other significant updates."
The subreddit pin feature as leaked March 24th was also found. This further strengthens the claim of a June 23rd date.
May 22nd: Mikarific discovers a new, unused r/Place icon has been updated to a pixelated version of Reddit's mascot with a party hat. This also points to Reddit's anniversary being launch day.
May 8th: Mikarific creates a new Discord server to share and discuss updates to the code. It's not a brony server, but you may wish to join if you want to dive into the nitty gritty details. The announcement channel is also relayed in the brony server linked below.
April 25th: The previously dubious German leak now sees new evidence of its credibility as more updates are made to the app including a new UI style previously seen in the leak. The theory is that if the leak predicted this new UI style, then its prediction about the June 23rd date is also likely true.
April 2nd: It doesn't seem like there was an April Fools event this year at all. Reddit ran a puzzle-based ARG but there was no grand social experiment and certainly no r/Place.
March 31st: After weeks of discussion, art submissions, and today's poll; we have decided that our initial art will be Salute Dashie & Elements of Harmony Book. There were many other great artworks proposed which we hope to include as stretch goals and peaceful expansions. The plan is to put more focus on the book this time around and animate it over time if possible. Details can be found in the Discord server.
March 31st: Reddit announces that there is no April 1st event. However, the first letter of each line of the announcement spells "FIND IT". There's also a new subreddit made by Reddit with various ARG-like elements and references to past April Fools' events including Place. For those holding out hope that Place is returning, it could be a "secret" hidden version of Place or a Red Herring. Otherwise, the event is likely to be some new ARG or other game.
March 28th: Reddit did not post an announcement to their blog like they did last year.
March 27th update: Some amount of Garlic Bread assets have vanished. This doesn't really prove anything one way or the other since the leading theory is that they might plan to use last year's Hot Potato experiment [r/Place] as pushed to the mobile app anyway. The mobile app still refers to Hot Potato.
March 24th: A Reddit user who claims to be part of a moderator council leaks [now-deleted] UI mockups showing a new Place event and how moderators can pin r/Place to their subreddits. They also claim the event is happening to celebrate Reddit's anniversary June 23rd, NOT April 1st. This leak is not confirmed, but they do appear to be a moderator of other subs and the sub show in the alleged mockup is run by a Reddit UX designer. This opens up a new theory that the evidence of r/Place's return could be pointing to a re-launch unrelated to the April Fools event, but nothing is solid yet.
April 25th update: The aforementioned leaked UI mockup was discovered in an app update. This gives credibility to the leak and its claim of a June 23rd date.
It is also worth noting that Reddit has an IPO coming soon, so it would make sense for them to want to build investor hype around this time of year.
March 20th update: Snakeroom datamines the newest version of the Reddit mobile app and finds new references to last year's experiment codenamed "hot potato" aka r/Place. These references could be some kind of unused placeholder, or this could be further evidence of r/Place's return.
March 16th: The new r/Place Bronies Discord server is created.
March 14th: Snakeroom finds code related to Reddit's upcoming event code-named "garlic bread." Snakeroom seems very confident and they also have an established history of predicting past events.
The suspected loading icon for this year's event can be found at this link. As of this writing, it is using last year's Place logo as reported by Snakeroom. March 20th update: The Garlic Bread loading logo changed from r/Place 2022 to r/Pan from August 2019. The r/Place logo and references can still be found elsewhere in this year's code. Exactly why the one image was changed to a defunct Reddit feature is unknown and most likely a joke or red herring.
Video explanation of Snakeroom's initial findings:
Bronies will not be making their home on Manechat again this year.
Join the new r/Place brony Discord server if you'd like to help!
Stay tuned to this webpage for information as the event develops!
