Those who preferred Anarchy were on the side of Helix, and anyone promoting a switch to Democracy was labeled on the side of Dome. They eventually got through the maze with Democracy, but despite this, many believed the game should only be played in Anarchy mode, as that was the way it was originally designed. If enough users typed "anarchy" into the chat, the game would reenter the mode it was originally in. After a timer of 20 seconds, whichever move had the most tallies would be the action Red took. The creator of Twitch Plays Pokémon (who still remains anonymous) created a system where if enough people type "democracy" into the Twitch chat, the game would enter Democracy mode, whereby users could vote for the move (up, down, left, right, a, b, or start) they wanted Red to make. At one point in the game, there was a maze that was so hard to get through that the chat had tried and failed for over 24 hours to succeed. These binaries between Helix and Dome became somewhat more nuanced when the Democracy/Anarchy system was introduced. Those who wanted the Pokémon trainer to succeed worshipped Helix and on those who wanted failure were followers of the Dome. With the Helix Fossil and Bird Jesus assigned to the roles of good, the chat naturally created the narrative that the Dome Fossil was the source of evil. He became labeled as a savior figure and was coined the affectionate nickname of referred to as Bird Jesus, a warrior and savior in the name of Helix. Pidgeot became the party’s strongest Pokémon by far, and was beloved by the chat for winning battles by himself multiple times when the rest of the party had fainted. Without a clear actual person to follow, the chat chose a symbol to follow, and an online cult was born.Įarly in the stream, a Pidgey was caught, which quickly evolved into Pidgeotto and then into Pidgeot. It follows that they would want a leader to champion their cause, but the entire community is comprised of anonymous Internet users. The Twitch Plays Pokémon chat quickly became a community as a bunch of users all invested in a common idea. Usually a leader is decided upon because he/she is strong, charismatic, or has some other trait to be admired. Anthropology also tells us most, if not all, communities have a leader or alpha male of the group, whether that group is a tribe or a city. Symbols are what guide a group of people agreed-upon symbols are what help form a community. Pretty soon, it grew past the point of a gag, and Lord Helix took on the status of a god to be praised by the chat.Īnthropology 101 tells us that everything we do revolves around symbols. As the stream kept progressing and Red kept defeating trainers despite the handicap of the input delay, the worship of the Helix Fossil grew stronger, and it was dubbed Lord Helix. This happened so often it became a running gag that the Helix Fossil was being consulted for guidance every time it was selected. Despite the Helix Fossil having no use in combat, it became very common to select the Helix Fossil during battles. The Helix Fossil can eventually be restored into the Pokemon Omanyte far later in the game, but up until that point, it serves no purpose.ĭue to the large volume of chat commands being input at once, random selection of items quickly became a constant occurrence during battles. Here, Red, the chat-controlled player, faced a “Super Nerd,” who rewarded Red with a choice of two fossils after defeating him: the Helix Fossil or the Dome Fossil. Moon, the cave area after defeating Brock in Pewter City. The mythology that culminated over the course of the live stream all began at Mt. Let’s explore how and why such a thing happened. That such a mythos could form over the Internet and take on multiple narratives over the course of a few weeks was both an incredible and hilarious thing to watch. Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the stream was that internet users formed a whole mythology involving a deity made out of a shell, Pokémon lost to evil trickery, and more. For those unaware, some crazy stuff happened during the stream of Twitch Plays Pokémon, the Twitch channel that lets you play Pokémon with a lot of other people by typing commands into chat.
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