The current thing that's taking the internet by storm. As a Pokemon fan it catches my interest, but at the same time, not.
For those who don't know what Twitch Plays Pokemon is...
There's a website called Twitch.tv, which allows people to stream videos and games. An anonymous Australian man decided to put a modified version of Pokemon Red on this thing, but with a twist. Instead of chatting, anyone who enters this room can input a command into the game.
And so it was that over nine thousand people struggled to control a single character. And needless to say it wasn't pretty. A better word is complete and utter chaos.
To quote a youtube blogger "Nagivating the menu is a nightmare, leading to many items being thrown away, catching pokemon is a nightmare, teaching moves is often a disaster, and don't even get my started on the PC."
Twitch got so popular and ridiculous that people started creating a fictional mythology for everything that happens.
Due to the struggle of a thousand people trying to control a single game (which will henceforth be known as "twitching") the pokemon ended up getting quirky, near unreadable nicknames, leading them to receive further nicknames from the fandom.
ABBBBBBK(, the Charmeleon was referred to as "Abby K"
JLVWNNOOOO the Rattata became "Jay Leno"
AATTVVV the Venomoth became "ATV" or "All Terrain Venomoth"
The original Twitch Plays Pokemon Red was such a hilarious screw-up. Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong, including accidentally using Dig to leave the Rocket Hideout without the Silph Scope.
Speaking of the Rocket Hideout, when the game got stalled for over 24 hours in there, the creator made a second mode of the game. They named the original twitching mode "Anarchy" and the new mode "Democracy"
Democracy mode is exactly what it sounds like. The game votes on actions, though one at a time every thirty seconds. Thirty seconds just to take a single step, or press the A button. The players hated it so much they started spamming "start9" which causes the start button to be pressed 9 times, until the creator updated the system to allow Anarchy and Democracy to voted on.
But aside from the chaos, a few crazy things happened. They actually managed to catch Zapdos, while in anarchy mode. I can't even criticize that they used the Master Ball, the mere fact that they hadn't thrown the ball away accidentally, and actually were able to use it on said Zapdos is amazing.
...Then they tried to get Zapdos out of the PC and into their team, resulting in over 12 Pokemon being accidentally released. So yea. A nightmare.
Twitch Plays Pokemon has officially ruined Flareon for me. For those who don't know what the story is with Flareon, it goes like this.
The players had five Pokemon in their party, and since catching Pokemon is such a nightmare, they decided to avoid catching anything until Silph co, so they could get Lapras, which could learn surf.
But since over 10,000 players tends to result in things happening against the wishes of the people posting on Reddit, tumblr and forums, they ended up grabbing Celedon's Eevee instead.
No big deal, we'll just get Vaporeon, right? WRONG. Fire Stone. Then at about this point, Abby K and Jay Leno were accidentally released into the PC (I think they were trying to deposit Eevee/Flareon).
Remember when I said they were making up a mythology for all the craziness? Flareon became labeled as a False Prophet, whose very purpose was to sway the player onto a road to ruin.
The whole thing got pretty religeousy...
The Helix Fossil has become sort of a god figure among the fandom. Since the Helix Fossil could never be thrown away, the twitching often found the player examining or trying to use it. It soon became kind of a joke that the player was consulting the Helix Fossil on what to do next.
The Dome Fossil meanwhile became a symbol of the ultimate evil, with Flareon being considered a follower of the dome.
The team's Pidgeot, with the nickname "aaabaaajss" became known as "Bird Jesus".
http://danbooru.donmai.us/posts/1617885
And now some fan art that perfectly sums up the experience.
They did Crystal Version too, which was kind of unremarkable as level grinding is darn near impossible in that one. Feraligator ended up being far more overpowered than the others. The best thing about this was when the crew got to Mt. Silver and battled Red... and much to the surprise of the fandom, his entire team had been modded to be what our twitchers had when they defeated the league in Red version, including Zapdos.
By now the twitchies have moved on to Emerald Version, but I haven't seen as much posting or interest in that one. They have an Azumarill that has reached lv 100, that's about all I know. I can't see how they're gonna get through the last gym, what with the ice floor puzzle. From what I heard democracy mode was completely removed, so...