a summary of reddit cosmology or, on the forum as a work of art

10/8/2014 A summary of Reddit cosmology or, on the forum as a work of art blog.devicerandom

http://blog.devicerandom.org/2012/01/15/reddit-cosmology/ 1/11

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blog.devicerandomsomewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known

Subtle. Its so subtle. Its the tip of taste, the smallest touch. Its the fleetingglance, slightest smell and most subtle feeling ever. You cant even sense it withjust one sense. You have to combine the senses. Mix the senses together in a bigsensory soup.

USER LLAMA66613 ON /R/SEVENTHWORLDPROBLEMS

IA summary of Reddit cosmology or, on theforum as a work of art

t is very probable that my readers know what Reddit is. In case insteadyou lived the last five years under a rock, it is basically one of the mostsuccessful forum communities on the Internet. It is a container for

bazillions of subforums on every possible subject. Clicking the random linka few times gives me for example things as diverse as forums on socialism, onwhat is your first impression of me, Runescape (the videogame), law, Linux,tales of people who work in tech support, paranomal, sexy cosplay girls andIndia. And thats just a minuscule random sample of thousands of forums.

The first worldReddit cultivates its own sense of humour, and among humorous

subforums there is, famous, /r/firstworldproblems. Here, first world isintended as meaning developed nations. The first world problems arefrustrations and complaints that are only experienced by privileged individualsin wealthy countries. It is typically used as a tongue-in-cheek comedic device tomake light of trivial inconveniences.

A typical First World problem

The Second, Third and Fourth WorldOf course the original subdivision included the Second world, the (most

January 15, 2012 11:32 pm

By devicerandom

Posted in internet, lolwut

Tagged art, culture, fifthworldproblems,firstworldproblems, forum,fourthworldproblems, infiniteworldproblems,memes, problems, reddit,secondworldproblems, seventhworldproblems,sixthworldproblems, thirdworldproblems,worlds

Comments (12)



famous of all) Third world and the Fourth world. All of them are representedon Reddit (click on image to reach the forum):

Threads in /r/secondworldproblems. The shiny daily life in socialist countries.

Typical /r/thirldworldproblems. I have no idea of where third world problems are discussed seriously on Reddit.

Usual /r/fourthworldproblems: the happy and simple life of tribes.

The Fifth WorldUntil so, nothing more than banter and satire on current world issues and



division. But the Reddit hivemind soon asked itself: well, why should we limitto the classical four worlds? What is beyond that?

Enter now the Fifth World, which is a true through-the-looking-glassexperience. You traveled the world from first to fourth: now you go forwardand see whats beyond.

/r/fifthworldproblems : everyday problems beyond your usual dimensions

The fifth world is all about the everyday inconveniences of transcendence.Its peeling the veil of logic and rules and being puzzled by the surrealitybelow. Its opening your door and finding yourself in a painting of Magritte,or worse.

This is how an usual discussion on /r/fifthworld develops:

There are no common notions of space and time in the fifth world. It seemsit is a general denomination that in truth encompasses several universes (thatcan be created and destroyed at will) and several dimensionalities, or none.Laws of physics or math seem to exist only to bother you at the very leastconvenient moment. Or, sometimes, more weird and less comprehensiblestuff altogether happens, and it seems the forum has interesting members.

I wanted to make an apple pie from scratch, but the universe I created onlyspawns peaches

Although its likely that it ceased to exist once you left, perhaps youshould try returning to the universe you existed within before creatingthis peach-only universebring a peach with you it may just become anapple

No, no, no. The only way an external object being brought throughspacetime unto another plane could be physically changed is ifanother parallel universe is created from the peach universe. Its asthough you want him to suffer from inter-dimensional paradox fever.

Of course youre right, but if youd like to get off your high horsefor a second: For many transcends, creating a universe is a one-time deal. I know the upper-echelon of Overlord Zangarthscourt may be able to create dimensions left and right, but thinkof those of us who can only catch a glimpse of the horrors in themultiscape once.



There is only a constant in the fifth world, apparently, and its thateverybody is named Stephen (apparently due to this unfortunate time travelincident).

We dont need to stretch our imagination to know how the Fifth Worldlooks like, the Reddit community is nice enough to have provided a wholesubforum dedicated to fifth world pics. Such images seem to confirm thatthe whole concepts of logic, dimensionality and spacetime are, somehow,different out there.

Fifth world inhabitant.

Other fifth world dwellers on a perfectly normal day



Commuting in the Fifth World during a winter day

The Sixth WorldWhat could possibly be beyond the mind-bending vastities of the Fifth

World? Nobody really knows, but it must be terrible, because all we havefrom the Sixth World are screams of various nature.

/r/sixthworldproblems. Whatever it is the Sixth World, it looks like pain

There is practically nothing intelligible about the sixth world. If the fifthwas surreal and logic-twisting, but after all still describable in human words,this cant be said for the sixth world. Only madness is there; only screamingcan be had.

The Seventh WorldWhat is beyond madness? Peace, and a new state of mind. And here we

enter the most bizarre and fascinating level of the Reddit cosmology, theSeventh World -the one that actually drove me to write this lengthy post.

The Seventh World is another world true. When we enter it, we first seethe dominating image of a serene, sunlit tower, somehow metaphysical, DeChirico-esque.



The opening image of /r/seventhworldproblems

There is no documentation, no guide to the Seventh World: all we know,we know from the posts of its inhabitants (which tend to call it simplyHome). Not even the tower picture seems a clear clue -there is basically notalk of a tower in all the forum. We know that Home has several inhabitants,and some of them feature a number, but nothing is known about what thiscould mean.



Threads on /r/seventhworldproblems. The terse or otherwise enigmatic titles are a clue of the general mood of the forum.

There doesnt seem to be much interaction between them; they ofteninteract however with a huge swarm of machines. Their purpose is unknownbut from the posts they seem to be quietly pervasive. There are alsodisturbing clues of some form of mind control going on.



A thread of /r/seventhworldproblems discussing machines, and giving some mind control hint

It seems there are some kind of leader entities within Home, which arecalled the Colours -in particular two are known, who also interact (andmoderate) in the forum, Blue and Green. What is the exact nature of theColours, is unknown.

That is the beauty of the Seventh World: it is unknown. It is somethingthat could only be reconstructed from the vague, contradictory and implicitclaims of the forum posts. Its like being an alien reading a single Internetforum of ours: they could reconstruct something but most posts would be tooimplicit, referring to things they cant have knowledge of, or too alien, tomake sense. /r/seventhworldproblems is not a world building exercise, it is anartefact that asks us to be interpreted as describing a world.

As such, /r/seventhworldproblems is a unique work of collective art. It isthe Internet forum version of Arthur C. Clarkes Rama from Rendezvous withRama, or of Luigi Serafinis Codex Seraphinianus: an interpretation devicethat yields no coherent interpretation. As Shelley Jackson remarked about theCodex, with words apt here as well:

its probably meant to hover on the verge of scrutability, to constantly holdforth the possibility of being read but stay resistant at the same time. Itsimportant that it bothers you with the feeling that there is some content thatyou ought to be able to extract from it in a normal discursive kind of way. Itsmeant to appeal to the rational or exegetical urge. It wants to be interpretedbut it wont let you, and its very interesting the way it teasingly asks to beread and then refuses. You could see this as a really really elaborate inkblot.Its never going to completely yield to you in the sense of giving you insightinto the artists intentions, so it kind of reverts you back on yourself and



12 Comments

The difference is that here, instead of the asemic writing of the Codex, wehave actual writing and concepts. It is possible that one day the SeventhWorld will collapse into a definite, meaningful narrative. It is also possiblethat it will dissolve and split, or that it will stay on the verge of vaguenessforever, like the memory of a dream or the outlines of a hill from the mist. Itsan ongoing collective work of art -nobody knows what will happen out ofthat. The Reddit author who conceived /r/seventhworldproblems wrote tome in an email:

And beyond?Is there something beyond the Seventh World? There are a few, but none

has really taken off. There is however /r/infiniteworldproblems, which ispure madness. You have to see it (and come back with retinas burned, mostprobably, if only from the stylesheet).

A sum up of the cosmologyThere is a nice post that sums up the Reddit cosmology pretty well:

The worlds of Reddit -and especially /r/seventhworldproblems look like asimple and bewildering usage of the forum to create a collective work of art.A discussion venue which is not about something, but that is something, andalive and open. Take a look, and see if you can call it Home.

makes you notice what youre noticing and notice the associations that youmake. Its a kind of springboard for your own creative musings.

Hah no, the vagueness of it is the coolest thing. The latest interest inmachines is great [...] and what Blue has become since the beginning istotally amazing. Truthfully, I wish there were some way I could thank theactive members of this community for being so cool, and creating such aninteresting world.

Theres method behind the madness.

Firstworldproblems the woes of the western entitled

Secondworldproblems the woes of the eastern poor

Thirdworldproblems the woes of the developing untouchables

Fourthworldproblems the woes of the unrecognised and lost

Each ascending number abstracts the subjects standing, and by four theresnothing left materialistically. The only thing a fourthworlder has is theirperception of reaity, which is subsequently abstracted in the fifth world. Thesixth world abstracts the abstract, leaving you with nonsense, and the seventhworld abstracts the abstraction of the abstract, bringing you to a bizzarostarting point.

http://www.reddit.com/r/ggggget wrote:February 21, 2012 at 4:56pm

I know it devicerandom wrote:February 21, 2012 at 5:14pm

It seems that when you put a million monkeys to hit as manykeyboards, sooner or later you will get something interesting,after all.

Maija wrote:October 14, 2012 at 10:58am

Dont forget aboutIsee wrote:November 5, 2012 at 5:49



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http://www.reddit.com/r/negativeworldproblems/pm

http://www.reddit.com/r/45thworldproblemsAnders wrote:December 10, 2012 at 9:55am

Theres also /r/45thworldproblems and /r/54thworldproblemsHamish wrote:March 19, 2013 at 7:55 pm

I found 45th world problems first through a reverse image searchand now, after hours of wading through subreddits, here I am,and now Im not so lost

Zultan wrote:April 29, 2013 at 4:41 am

[...] A guide to this labyrinthine Reddit cosmology can be found here. [...]Ultraculture | Toolsfor a Better Futurewrote:May 8, 2013 at 5:53 pm

What if the posts from some forums (like the/r/sixthworldproblems or /r/infiniteworldproblems) aregenerated by bots?

A Reddit bot can be easily written (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4718397/programatically-posting-a-comment-in-reddit-using-python ), so it is not hard toimagine that someone did this in /r/*worldproblems subreddits

johnnot wrote:May 18, 2013 at 8:27 am

[...] und um die Interaktionen von reddit auf eine andere Weisevorzustellen, mchte ich auerdem auf diesen Blogartikel verweisen, der dieEntwicklung eines Unterforums zu einem Stck reiner surrealer Kunst [...]

ber mein Lern- undWissensmanagement| Secal wrote:June 16, 2013 at 8:17 pm

This just made my week.Michael wrote:August 3, 2013 at 8:31 pm

I was trying to make sense of some of these weird subreddits andstumbled upon your blog. Thank you, it made me feel little moresane. And /r/infiniteworldproblems was quite a bizarre trip!

Marisa wrote:February 24, 2014 at 5:24pm

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