10/8/2014

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

blog.devicerandom

somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known

About

Subtle. Its so subtle. Its the tip of taste, the smallest touch. Its the fleeting
glance, slightest smell and most subtle feeling ever. You cant even sense it with
just one sense. You have to combine the senses. Mix the senses together in a big
sensory soup.
USER LLAMA66613 ON /R/SEVENTHWORLDPROBLEMS

A summary of Reddit cosmology or, on the

forum as a work of art

t is very probable that my readers know what Reddit is. In case instead
you lived the last five years under a rock, it is basically one of the most
successful forum communities on the Internet. It is a container for
bazillions of subforums on every possible subject. Clicking the random link
a few times gives me for example things as diverse as forums on socialism, on
what is your first impression of me, Runescape (the videogame), law, Linux,
tales of people who work in tech support, paranomal, sexy cosplay girls and
India. And thats just a minuscule random sample of thousands of forums.

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)

The first world

Reddit cultivates its own sense of humour, and among humorous
subforums there is, famous, /r/firstworldproblems. Here, first world is
intended as meaning developed nations. The first world problems are
frustrations and complaints that are only experienced by privileged individuals
in wealthy countries. It is typically used as a tongue-in-cheek comedic device to
make light of trivial inconveniences.

A typical First World problem

The Second, Third and Fourth World

Of course the original subdivision included the Second world, the (most
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famous of all) Third world and the Fourth world. All of them are represented
on 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 World

Until so, nothing more than banter and satire on current world issues and
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division. But the Reddit hivemind soon asked itself: well, why should we limit
to the classical four worlds? What is beyond that?
Enter now the Fifth World, which is a true through-the-looking-glass
experience. You traveled the world from first to fourth: now you go forward
and 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 surreality
below. Its opening your door and finding yourself in a painting of Magritte,
or worse.
This is how an usual discussion on /r/fifthworld develops:

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

Although its likely that it ceased to exist once you left, perhaps you
should try returning to the universe you existed within before creating
this peach-only universebring a peach with you it may just become an
apple

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

Of course youre right, but if youd like to get off your high horse
for a second: For many transcends, creating a universe is a onetime deal. I know the upper-echelon of Overlord Zangarths
court may be able to create dimensions left and right, but think
of those of us who can only catch a glimpse of the horrors in the
multiscape once.

There are no common notions of space and time in the fifth world. It seems

it is a general denomination that in truth encompasses several universes (that

can 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 least
convenient moment. Or, sometimes, more weird and less comprehensible
stuff altogether happens, and it seems the forum has interesting members.
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There is only a constant in the fifth world, apparently, and its that
everybody is named Stephen (apparently due to this unfortunate time travel
incident).
We dont need to stretch our imagination to know how the Fifth World
looks like, the Reddit community is nice enough to have provided a whole
subforum dedicated to fifth world pics. Such images seem to confirm that
the whole concepts of logic, dimensionality and spacetime are, somehow,
different out there.

Fifth world inhabitant.

Other fifth world dwellers on a perfectly normal day

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Commuting in the Fifth World during a winter day

The Sixth World

What could possibly be beyond the mind-bending vastities of the Fifth
World? Nobody really knows, but it must be terrible, because all we have
from 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 fifth
was 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 screaming
can be had.

The Seventh World

What is beyond madness? Peace, and a new state of mind. And here we
enter the most bizarre and fascinating level of the Reddit cosmology, the
Seventh 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 see
the dominating image of a serene, sunlit tower, somehow metaphysical, De
Chirico-esque.

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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 simply
Home). Not even the tower picture seems a clear clue -there is basically no
talk 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 this
could mean.

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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 often

interact however with a huge swarm of machines. Their purpose is unknown
but from the posts they seem to be quietly pervasive. There are also
disturbing clues of some form of mind control going on.

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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 are
called the Colours -in particular two are known, who also interact (and
moderate) in the forum, Blue and Green. What is the exact nature of the
Colours, is unknown.
That is the beauty of the Seventh World: it is unknown. It is something
that could only be reconstructed from the vague, contradictory and implicit
claims of the forum posts. Its like being an alien reading a single Internet
forum of ours: they could reconstruct something but most posts would be too
implicit, referring to things they cant have knowledge of, or too alien, to
make sense. /r/seventhworldproblems is not a world building exercise, it is an
artefact that asks us to be interpreted as describing a world.
As such, /r/seventhworldproblems is a unique work of collective art. It is
the Internet forum version of Arthur C. Clarkes Rama from Rendezvous with
Rama, or of Luigi Serafinis Codex Seraphinianus: an interpretation device
that yields no coherent interpretation. As Shelley Jackson remarked about the
Codex, with words apt here as well:

its probably meant to hover on the verge of scrutability, to constantly hold

forth the possibility of being read but stay resistant at the same time. Its
important that it bothers you with the feeling that there is some content that
you ought to be able to extract from it in a normal discursive kind of way. Its
meant to appeal to the rational or exegetical urge. It wants to be interpreted
but it wont let you, and its very interesting the way it teasingly asks to be
read 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 insight
into the artists intentions, so it kind of reverts you back on yourself and

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

The difference is that here, instead of the asemic writing of the Codex, we
have actual writing and concepts. It is possible that one day the Seventh

World will collapse into a definite, meaningful narrative. It is also possible

that it will dissolve and split, or that it will stay on the verge of vagueness
forever, like the memory of a dream or the outlines of a hill from the mist. Its
an ongoing collective work of art -nobody knows what will happen out of
that. The Reddit author who conceived /r/seventhworldproblems wrote to
me in an email:

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

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 is
pure madness. You have to see it (and come back with retinas burned, most
probably, if only from the stylesheet).

A sum up of the cosmology

There is a nice post that sums up the Reddit cosmology pretty well:

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 theres
nothing left materialistically. The only thing a fourthworlder has is their
perception of reaity, which is subsequently abstracted in the fifth world. The
sixth world abstracts the abstract, leaving you with nonsense, and the seventh
world abstracts the abstraction of the abstract, bringing you to a bizzaro
starting point.

The worlds of Reddit -and especially /r/seventhworldproblems look like a

simple 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, and
alive and open. Take a look, and see if you can call it Home.

1 2 C om m en ts
get wrote:

http://www.reddit.com/r/gggg

February 21, 2012 at 4:56

pm

devicerandom wrote:

I know it

February 21, 2012 at 5:14

pm

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

It seems that when you put a million monkeys to hit as many

keyboards, sooner or later you will get something interesting,
after all.

Isee wrote:

Dont forget about

November 5, 2012 at 5:49

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pm

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

Anders wrote:

http://www.reddit.com/r/45thworldproblems

December 10, 2012 at 9:55

am

Hamish wrote:

Theres also /r/45thworldproblems and /r/54thworldproblems

March 19, 2013 at 7:55 pm

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

Ultraculture | Tools
for a Better Future
wrote:

I found 45th world problems first through a reverse image search

and now, after hours of wading through subreddits, here I am,
and now Im not so lost
[...] A guide to this labyrinthine Reddit cosmology can be found here. [...]

May 8, 2013 at 5:53 pm

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

What if the posts from some forums (like the

/r/sixthworldproblems or /r/infiniteworldproblems) are
generated by bots?
A Reddit bot can be easily written (
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4718397/programaticallyposting-a-comment-in-reddit-using-python ), so it is not hard to
imagine that someone did this in /r/*worldproblems subreddits

ber mein Lern- und

Wissensmanagement
| Secal wrote:
June 16, 2013 at 8:17 pm

Michael wrote:

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

This just made my week.

August 3, 2013 at 8:31 pm

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

I was trying to make sense of some of these weird subreddits and

stumbled upon your blog. Thank you, it made me feel little more
sane. And /r/infiniteworldproblems was quite a bizarre trip!

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