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QuickTake:
The collaborative, map-based website called wplace lets users place a pixel every 30 seconds. Users in Eugene and Springfield are putting our region on the map with jokes, cartoons and more.
A large being resides in Fern Ridge Lake, nearly two miles tall.
It’s not a Nessie-style monster: it’s a drawing of the fictional Japanese pop idol Hatsune Miku on the website wplace, which invites users to “Paint the world” by drawing on top of a global map updated in real time.
The technology news website The Verge said the website is “like Google Maps plus MS Paint.” It has grown so quickly since launch, The Verge notes, that its servers struggle to keep up with demand. (It’s inspired by a recurring Reddit feature, r/place, where users add to a collaborative work of pixel art; r/place doesn’t have a map and is only open for a few days at a time.)
Each pixel is one point of color, forming an overall image in a digital version of the art technique pointillism. Artists can either work collaboratively, pooling together their pixels to make one image, or individually over time while hoping no one draws over their work.
On wplace, which launched in late July, users have a total of 30 pixels they can place. Every 30 seconds, users get another pixel to use to add another point of color to a global grid. The more someone draws, the more total pixels they get to add to the overall map.
Major metropolitan areas like New York or Paris are constantly shifting as thousands of people pitch in edits twice a minute. But in a region like Eugene-Springfield, the pixel art lasts as different contributors stake out claims to different pockets of streets and neighborhoods.
For the uninitiated, it’s a chaotic scrum of cartoons, anime references, pride flags and political messages. There are plenty of Pokémon and characters from the webcomic “Homestuck” and the independent video game “Undertale,” as well as its spinoff series “Deltarune.”
(The Lookout Eugene-Springfield office in downtown Eugene is situated behind a large L, a reference to a character in the anime “Death Note.”)
A playlist, updated periodically on Spotify to reflect new additions, started at the corner of West 25th and Hawkins Avenue. It now stretches south to Camas Swale Road, west of Creswell. (North of the playlist, an argument broke out on the merits of the band Primus.)
We have a Latias, a legendary flying Pokémon styled after a plane, parked out at the Eugene Airport.
On the University of Oregon campus, someone took time to spell out “Hayward magic” close to the field:
Another took time to pixel out some protest against Nike’s influence on campus:
Coburg caught a stray for being “boring”:
And then there are the oodles of Simpsons over by Springfield:
You can explore wplace more for yourself on its website, while it’s still up and running.
(Don’t be alarmed by the message off of Crow Road reads that “MANKIND IS DEAD. BLOOD IS FUEL. HELL IS FULL” — it’s not an omen, it’s in-universe writing from a retro-themed video game.)
