Mob Mentality

So this is going on right now: http://www.twitch.tv/twitchplayspokemon

It's an interesting concept. Set up Pokemon so that people in the chat window can input commands to control the character one step at a time. Based off the FAQ, TwitchPlaysPokemon is: "TwitchPlaysPokemon is a social experiment, it is a stream of the Gameboy version of Pokemon Red (151 romhack) running on an emulator. An IRC [internet relay chat] bot translates buttons said in chat into keypresses (simulated in software, no fancy typist robots)." For example, if someone wanted the character to move down, they would type "down" and the character would go down one step. Now it seems simple, but when you get thousands upon thousands of people inputting commands at once, it can get hectic. Which you can see in the livestream right now (if it's still up by the time of this posting.)

So why does this interest me so much? Well, it's an experiment that involves a video game I loved so much as a child. And second, it seems to be a microcosm of the internet community as a whole. It also shows how a community built of millions (if not billions) of people has become. I think it shows how slowly progress can be achieved by a community that can dictate ideas at lightning speed. It's sort of ironic in a sense. But below are just some ideas I noticed while watching albeit, too much of this experiment.

1. The Battle Between The Good-Natured and The Trolls....or Maybe Everyone's Trolls

There is definitely some mad dedication going on in this livestream. I mean it's been going on for over 5 days now and they are actually halfway through the game. I mean if you think about it, it's like having 10,000 people in a room and trying to get them to count to 1,000 without anyone talking over another person. It's literally insane. But it's not without it's pain. As of 10PM PST they have been stuck in a maze for over 6 hours, which I feel looks like the end for our brave adventurers. I'm sure there are some poor souls who have probably had a 9-5 job on this thing trying to steer the game in the right direction.

But there are also trolls. And boy, do some of these guys have an agenda. It feels like some people are definitely trying to steer the game in the  opposite direction. We could blame this on the technological limitations but there are moments where the path is as straightforward as it could be to anyone. There are probably times where the only direction to go is right yet some person is probably typing left or down and makes the avatar go in circles. I'm sure this was intended so that progress would be restricted.

And yet, this is how I think internet discussion and forums seem to play out. We start discussions and yet seem to go in circles rather quickly. People are frustrated, mad, annoyed and sadly, the community as whole hasn't progressed any further. And in a forum where everyone wants their voices heard, trolls will play devil's advocate just for kicks. Or people will just spew complete and utter nonsense. I guess most of the internet is just complete and utter nonsense. I mean look at the comments on this livestream. People are still trying to post long blocks of texts that only appear for like five milliseconds. Some people are trying to initiate plans that disappear in a moment. It's insane. There is progress, but if you think about it, it's like that one idea that if you put a bunch of monkeys in a room with typewriters, they'll eventually write one of Shakespeare's plays. Sure, they'll eventually write a brilliant play, but is it really worth it?

2. Unwritten Rules Develop in Cyberspace

I think in the times of yore, culture developed slowly. It took time for things to sink in and then eventually get phased out. Once computers got introduced into the mainstream culture, society developed quite quickly. With the age of the internet and video games, we seem to develop systems and cultures very quickly. Reddit was unknown back in 2005 and didn't really even get much mention until maybe 2008. Now in 2014, it's the most popular underground website on the net. There is an unique culture and humor that is "popular" on the site which delves a bit into the inappropriate and nonsensical. It's also a community that prides itself on posting content that will make them popular in some odd, unique way (or re-post the same content once every year). But it's a culture that basically describes the internet in general. Sure, the term meme didn't necessarily originate from Reddit, but Reddit definitely is the most popular place for them now.

Mechanic systems have been established early in Twitch Plays Pokemon(TPP). The people playing TPP know that pressing start as much as possible is the best way to help guide movement since things become slightly slowed down. This allows some mitigation of the chaos that can be unleashed when a script file has to take in 1,000 commands every second.

And they have already developed inside jokes. Since trying to have a thousand people guide one character to the end of a game is almost impossible, collecting all the items in the game would be a punishment given somewhere in the seventh circle of hell. I think they have collected five items total since the game started. And I have no idea how they even have a full team of Pokemon. One of the items they obtained was the "Helix Fossil" which people on TPP will reference from time to time. Think of it as the Magic Conch Shell from Spongebob Squarepants (if you don't know what I'm referring to, look it up). I mean good lord, a site has already popped up for it too.

And memes have already been created. Enough said. I think I found out about the "project" from a meme.

3. It's like the Truman Show...only crappier

I can't help but keep thinking about the Truman Show or Gamer in regards to these shenanigans. I mean essentially I am watching a whole community play one single-player game. I'm constantly skeptical if they'll ever get anywhere, yet I can't seem to stop watching. Small steps of progress in TPP seem like mountains of achievements. And if you spent a few hours watching this car crash, you'd see where I'm coming from. Just like Facebook notifications, I'll click on the link repeatedly throughout the day to see if they made it any further. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. Millions of people have already tuned in to watch this ridiculous disaster.

Or maybe it's like the Price is Right, except everyone can bid on the prizes. And everyone is overbidding just because it would be funny.



Either way, this post may not vibe with many people, but this got me back into thinking and writing again. For the few followers that still follow this, I'm sorry for the hiatus but there are more important things in life right now. Though I will definitely still find the time to keep updating this blog. Thanks for reading.


Update: the moderator of the livestream has implemented a democracy vs. anarchy system to make it so that moves can be put to a vote. This can also queue combos of the moves (like go up then left or something). YET THEY ARE STILL STUCK IN THE SAME TOWN.