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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Herobrine&action=history] \| [TOKENS: 68]
Herobrine: Revision history For any version listed below, click on its date to view it. For more help, see Help:Page history and Help:Edit summary. (cur) = difference from current version, (prev) = difference from preceding version, m = minor edit, → = section edit, ← = automatic edit summary
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_legend] \| [TOKENS: 2322]
Contents Urban legend Urban legend (sometimes modern legend, urban myth, or simply legend) is a genre of folklore concerning stories about an unusual (usually scary) or humorous event that many people believe to be true but largely are not. These legends can be entertaining but often concern mysterious and troubling events, such as disappearances and strange objects or entities. Urban legends may confirm moral standards, reflect prejudices, or be a way to make sense of societal anxieties. In the past, urban legends were most often circulated orally, at gatherings and around the campfire for instance. Now, they can be spread by any media, including newspapers, mobile news apps, e-mail, and most often, social media. Some urban legends have passed through the years/decades with only minor changes, in where the time period takes place. Generic urban legends are often altered to suit regional variations, but the lesson or moral generally remains the same. Origin and structure The term "urban legend", as used by folklorists, has appeared in print since at least 1968, when it was used by Richard Dorson. Jan Harold Brunvand, professor of English at the University of Utah, introduced the term to the general public in a series of popular books published beginning in 1981. Brunvand used his collection of legends, The Vanishing Hitchhiker: American Urban Legends & Their Meanings (1981) to make two points: first, that legends and folklore do not occur exclusively in so-called primitive or traditional societies, and second, that one could learn much about urban and modern culture by studying such tales. Many urban legends are framed as complete stories with plot and characters. The compelling appeal of a typical urban legend is its elements of mystery, horror, fear, or humor. Often they serve as cautionary tales. Some urban legends are morality tales that depict someone acting in a disagreeable manner, only to wind up in trouble, hurt, or dead. Urban legends will often try to invoke a feeling of disgust in the reader which tends to make these stories more memorable and potent. Elements of shock value can be found in almost every form of urban legend and are partially what makes these tales so impactful. An urban legend may include elements of the supernatural or paranormal. Propagation and belief As Jan Brunvand points out, antecedent legends including some of the motifs, themes and symbolism of the urtexts can readily be identified. Cases that may have been at least partially inspired by real events include "The Death Car" (traced by Richard Dorson to Michigan, United States); "the Solid Cement Cadillac" and the possible origin of "The Hook" in the 1946 series of Lovers' Lane murders in Texarkana, Texas, United States. The urban legend that Coca-Cola developed the drink Fanta to sell in Nazi Germany without public backlash originated as the actual tale of German Max Keith, who invented the drink and ran Coca-Cola's operations in Germany during World War II. The narrator of an urban legend may claim it happened to a friend (or to a friend of a friend), which serves to personalize, authenticate and enhance the power of the narrative while distancing the teller from the tall tale. Many urban legends depict horrific crimes, contaminated foods, or other situations that would potentially affect many people. Anyone believing such stories might feel compelled to warn loved ones. On occasion, news organizations, school officials and even police departments have issued warnings concerning the latest threat. According to the "Lights Out" rumor, street gang members would drive without headlights until a compassionate motorist responded with the traditional flashing of headlights, whereupon a prospective new gang member would have to murder the citizen as a requirement of initiation. A fax retelling this legend received at the Nassau County, Florida, fire department was forwarded to police, and from there to all city departments. The Minister of Defence for Canada was taken in by it also; he forwarded an urgent security warning to all Ontario Members of Parliament. Urban legends typically include common elements: the tale is retold on behalf of the original witness or participant; dire warnings are often given for those who might not heed the advice or lesson contained therein (a typical element of many e-mail phishing scams); and the tale is often touted as "something a friend told me", the friend being identified by first name only or not identified at all. Such legends seem to be believable and even provocative, as some readers are led in turn to pass them on, including on social media platforms that instantly reach millions worldwide. Many are essentially extended jokes, told as if they were true events. Persistent urban legends do often maintain a degree of plausibility, as in the story a serial killer deliberately hiding in the back seat of a car. Another such example since the 1970s has been the recurring rumor that the Procter & Gamble Company was associated with Satan-worshippers because of details within its 19th-century "57" trademark. The legend interrupted the company's business to the point that it stopped using the trademark. Relation to mythology The earliest term by which these narratives were known, "urban belief tales", highlights what was then thought of as a key property: their tellers regarded the stories as true accounts, and the device of the FOAF (acronym for "Friend of a Friend" invented by English writer and folklorist Rodney Dale in 1976) was a spurious but significant effort at authentication. The coinage leads in turn to the terms "FOAFlore" and "FOAFtale". While at least one classic legend, the "Death Car", has been shown to have some basis in fact, folklorists have an interest in debunking those narratives only to the degree that establishing non-factuality warrants the assumption that there must be some other reason why the tales are told, re-told and believed. As in the case of myth, the narratives are believed because they construct and reinforce the worldview of the group within which they are told, or "because they provide us with coherent and convincing explanations of complex events". Social scientists have started to draw on urban legends in order to help explain complex socio-psychological beliefs, such as attitudes to crime, childcare, fast food, SUVs and other "family" choices. The authors make an explicit connection between urban legends and popular folklore, such as Grimm's Fairy Tales, where similar themes and motifs arise. For that reason, it is characteristic of groups within which a given narrative circulates to vehemently reject claims or demonstrations of non-factuality; an example would be the expressions of outrage by police officers who are told that adulteration of Halloween treats by strangers (the subject of periodic moral panics) occurs extremely rarely, if at all. Documentation The Internet has made it easier both to spread and to debunk urban legends. For instance, the Usenet newsgroup alt.folklore.urban and several other websites, most notably snopes.com, focus on discussing, tracking, and analyzing urban legends. The United States Department of Energy had a now-discontinued service called Hoaxbusters that dealt with computer-distributed hoaxes and legends. The most notable such hoaxes are known as creepypastas, which are typically horror stories written anonymously. Although most are regarded as obviously false, some, such as the Slender Man, have gained a following of people that do believe in them. Television shows such as Urban Legends, Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction, and later Mostly True Stories: Urban Legends Revealed, feature re-enactments of urban legends, detailing the accounts of the tales and (typically later in an episode) revealing any factual basis they may have. The Discovery Channel TV show MythBusters (2003–2016) tried to prove or disprove several urban legends by attempting to reproduce them using the scientific method. The 1998 film Urban Legend featured students discussing popular urban legends while at the same time falling victim to killings re-enacting them. The 1999 film The Blair Witch Project purposefully positioned itself as an urban legend to gain viral hype and succeeded in fooling many that it was based on a real disappearance. The lack of widespread social media and search engines helped it proliferate in the months leading up to its release. Between 1992 and 1998 The Guardian newspaper "Weekend" section published the illustrated "Urban Myths" column by Phil Healey and Rick Glanvill, with content taken from a series of four books: Urban Myths, The Return of Urban Myths, Urban Myths Unplugged, and Now! That's What I Call Urban Myths. The 1994 comics anthology the Big Book of Urban Legends, written by Robert Boyd, Jan Harold Brunvand, and Robert Loren Fleming, featured 200 urban legends, displayed as comics.[citation needed] The British writer Tony Barrell has explored urban legends in a long-running column in The Sunday Times. These include the story that Orson Welles began work on a Batman movie in the 1940s, which was to feature James Cagney as the Riddler and Marlene Dietrich as Catwoman; the persistent rumour that the rock singer Courtney Love is the granddaughter of Marlon Brando; and the idea that a famous 1970s poster of Farrah Fawcett contains a subliminal sexual message concealed in the actress's hair. Genres As with traditional urban legends, many internet rumors are about crimes or crime waves – either fictional or based on real events that have been largely exaggerated. Such stories can be problematic, both because they purport to be relevant modern news and because they do not follow the typical patterns of urban legends. Some legends are medical folklore, such as the claim that eating watermelon seeds will result in a watermelon growing in the stomach, or that going outdoors just after showering will result in catching a cold. Many old wives' tales have grown around the identification of ailments, real and imagined, and the recommended remedies, rituals, and home-grown medical treatments to treat them.[citation needed] Internet urban legends are those spread through the internet, as through Usenet or email or more recently through other social media. They can also be linked to viral online content. Some take the form of chain letters and spread by e-mail, directing the reader to share them or to meet a terrible fate, and following a recognizable outline of hook, threat, and finally request. Paranormal urban-legend stories usually involve someone encountering something supernatural, such as a cryptid—for instance, Bigfoot or Mothman, legendary creatures for which evidence is lacking but which have legions of believers. Research shows that people experiencing sudden or surprising events (such as a Bigfoot sighting) may significantly overestimate the duration of the event. Companies have been accused of hiding "secret messages" behind their logos or packaging, as in the case of the old Procter & Gamble symbol, supposedly an occult figure that gave panache to the brand. (If the thirteen stars in the symbol were connected a certain way, it would show three sixes in a row or looked at the 3 curls at the bottom they form the inverted 6s.) Similarly, a video of a Christian woman "exposing" Monster Energy for using the Hebrew letter vav ( ו ), forming the letter "M", to disguise the number 666 went viral on Facebook. See also References Further reading External links California drought manipulation
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texture_mapping] \| [TOKENS: 4408]
Contents Texture mapping Texture mapping is a term used in computer graphics to describe how 2D images are projected onto 3D models. The most common variant is the UV unwrap, which can be described as an inverse paper cutout, where the surfaces of a 3D model are cut apart so that it can be unfolded into a 2D coordinate space (UV space). Semantic Texture mapping can multiply refer to (1) the task of unwrapping a 3D model (converting the surface of a 3D model into a 2D texture map), (2) applying a 2D texture map onto the surface of a 3D model, and (3) the 3D software algorithm that performs both tasks. A texture map refers to a 2D image ("texture") that adds visual detail to a 3D model. The image can be stored as a raster graphic. A texture that stores a specific property—such as bumpiness, reflectivity, or transparency—is also referred to as a color map or roughness map. The coordinate space that converts from a 3D model's 3D space into a 2D space for sampling from the texture map is variously called UV space, UV coordinates, or texture space. Algorithm The following is a simplified explanation of how an algorithm could work to render an image: History The original technique was pioneered by Edwin Catmull in 1974 as part of his doctoral thesis. Texture mapping originally referred to diffuse mapping, a method that simply mapped pixels from a texture to a 3D surface ("wrapping" the image around the object). In recent decades, the advent of multi-pass rendering, multitexturing, mipmaps, and more complex mappings such as height mapping, bump mapping, normal mapping, displacement mapping, reflection mapping, specular mapping, occlusion mapping, and many other variations on the technique (controlled by a materials system) have made it possible to simulate near-photorealism in real time by vastly reducing the number of polygons and lighting calculations needed to construct a realistic and functional 3D scene. Texture maps A texture map is an image applied ("mapped") to the surface of a shape or polygon. This may be a bitmap image or a procedural texture. They may be stored in common image file formats, referenced by 3D model formats or material definitions, and assembled into resource bundles. They may have one to three dimensions, although two dimensions are most common for visible surfaces. For use with modern hardware, texture map data may be stored in swizzled or tiled orderings to improve cache coherency. Rendering APIs typically manage texture map resources (which may be located in device memory) as buffers or surfaces, and may allow 'render to texture' for additional effects such as post processing or environment mapping. Texture maps usually contain RGB color data (either stored as direct color, compressed formats, or indexed color), and sometimes an additional channel for alpha blending (RGBA) especially for billboards and decal overlay textures. It is possible to use the alpha channel (which may be convenient to store in formats parsed by hardware) for other uses such as specularity. Multiple texture maps (or channels) may be combined for control over specularity, normals, displacement, or subsurface scattering, e.g. for skin rendering. Multiple texture images may be combined in texture atlases or array textures to reduce state changes for modern hardware. (They may be considered a modern evolution of tile map graphics). Modern hardware often supports cube map textures with multiple faces for environment mapping. Texture maps may be acquired by scanning or digital photography, designed in image manipulation software such as GIMP or Photoshop, or painted onto 3D surfaces directly in a 3D paint tool such as Mudbox or ZBrush. This process is akin to applying patterned paper to a plain white box. Every vertex in a polygon is assigned a texture coordinate (which in the 2D case is also known as UV coordinates). This may be done through explicit assignment of vertex attributes, manually edited in a 3D modelling package through UV unwrapping tools. It is also possible to associate a procedural transformation from 3D space to texture space with the material. This might be accomplished via planar projection or, alternatively, cylindrical or spherical mapping. More complex mappings may consider the distance along a surface to minimize distortion. These coordinates are interpolated across the faces of polygons to sample the texture map during rendering. Textures may be repeated or mirrored to extend a finite rectangular bitmap over a larger area, or they may have a one-to-one unique "injective" mapping from every piece of a surface (which is important for render mapping and light mapping, also known as baking). Texture mapping maps the model surface (or screen space during rasterization) into texture space; in this space, the texture map is visible in its undistorted form. UV unwrapping tools typically provide a view in texture space for manual editing of texture coordinates. Some rendering techniques such as subsurface scattering may be performed approximately by texture-space operations. Multitexturing is the use of more than one texture at a time on a polygon. For instance, a light map texture may be used to light a surface as an alternative to recalculating that lighting every time the surface is rendered. Microtextures or detail textures are used to add higher frequency details, and dirt maps add weathering and variation; this can greatly reduce the apparent periodicity of repeating textures. Modern graphics may use more than 10 layers, which are combined using shaders, for greater fidelity. Another multitexture technique is bump mapping, which allows a texture to directly control the facing direction of a surface for the purposes of its lighting calculations; it can give a very good appearance of a complex surface (such as tree bark or rough concrete) that takes on lighting detail in addition to the usual detailed coloring. Bump mapping has become popular in video games, as graphics hardware has become powerful enough to accommodate it in real-time. The way that samples (e.g. when viewed as pixels on the screen) are calculated from the texels (texture pixels) is governed by texture filtering. The cheapest method is to use the nearest-neighbour interpolation, but bilinear interpolation or trilinear interpolation between mipmaps are two commonly used alternatives which reduce aliasing or jaggies. In the event of a texture coordinate being outside the texture, it is either clamped or wrapped. Anisotropic filtering better eliminates directional artefacts when viewing textures from oblique viewing angles. Texture streaming is a means of using data streams for textures, where each texture is available in two or more different resolutions, as to determine which texture should be loaded into memory and used based on draw distance from the viewer and how much memory is available for textures. Texture streaming allows a rendering engine to use low resolution textures for objects far away from the viewer's camera, and resolve those into more detailed textures, read from a data source, as the point of view nears the objects. As an optimization, it is possible to render detail from a complex, high-resolution model or expensive process (such as global illumination) into a surface texture (possibly on a low-resolution model). This technique is called baking (or render mapping) and is most commonly used for light maps, but may also be used to generate normal maps and displacement maps. Some computer games (e.g. Messiah) have used this technique. The original Quake software engine used on-the-fly baking to combine light maps and colour maps in a process called surface caching. Baking can be used as a form of level of detail generation, where a complex scene with many different elements and materials may be approximated by a single element with a single texture, which is then algorithmically reduced for lower rendering cost and fewer drawcalls. It is also used to take high-detail models from 3D sculpting software and point cloud scanning and approximate them with meshes more suitable for realtime rendering. Rasterisation algorithms Various techniques have evolved in software and hardware implementations. Each offers different trade-offs in precision, versatility, and performance. Affine texture mapping linearly interpolates texture coordinates across a surface, making it the fastest form of texture mapping. Some software and hardware (such as the original PlayStation) project vertices in 3D space onto the screen during rendering and linearly interpolate the texture coordinates in screen space between them. This may be done by incrementing fixed-point UV coordinates or by an incremental error algorithm akin to Bresenham's line algorithm. In contrast to perpendicular polygons, this leads to noticeable distortion with perspective transformations (as shown in the figure: the checker box texture appears bent), especially as primitives near the camera. This distortion can be reduced by subdividing polygons into smaller polygons. Using quad primitives for rectangular objects can look less incorrect than if those rectangles were split into triangles. However, since interpolating four points adds complexity to the rasterization, most early implementations preferred triangles only. Some hardware, such as the forward texture mapping used by the Nvidia NV1, offered efficient quad primitives. With perspective correction, triangles become equivalent to quad primitives and this advantage disappears. For rectangular objects that are at right angles to the viewer (like floors and walls), the perspective only needs to be corrected in one direction across the screen rather than both. The correct perspective mapping can be calculated at the left and right edges of the floor. Affine linear interpolation across that horizontal span will look correct because every pixel along that line is the same distance from the viewer. Perspective correct texturing accounts for the vertices' positions in 3D space rather than simply interpolating coordinates in 2D screen space. While achieving the correct visual effect, perspective correct texturing is more expensive to calculate. To perform perspective correction of the texture coordinates u {\displaystyle u} and v {\displaystyle v} , with z {\displaystyle z} being the depth component from the viewer's point of view, it is possible to take advantage of the fact that the values 1 z {\displaystyle {\frac {1}{z}}} , u z {\displaystyle {\frac {u}{z}}} , and v z {\displaystyle {\frac {v}{z}}} are linear in screen space across the surface being textured. In contrast, the original z {\displaystyle z} , u {\displaystyle u} , and v {\displaystyle v} , before the division, are not linear across the surface in screen space. It is therefore possible to linearly interpolate these reciprocals across the surface, computing corrected values at each pixel, to produce a perspective correct texture mapping. To do this, the reciprocals at each vertex of the geometry (three points for a triangle) are calculated. Vertex n {\displaystyle n} has reciprocals u n z n {\displaystyle {\frac {u_{n}}{z_{n}}}} , v n z n {\displaystyle {\frac {v_{n}}{z_{n}}}} , and 1 z n {\displaystyle {\frac {1}{z_{n}}}} . Then, linear interpolation can be done on these reciprocals between the n {\displaystyle n} vertices (e.g., using barycentric coordinates), resulting in interpolated values across the surface. At a given point, this yields the interpolated u i , v i {\displaystyle u_{i},v_{i}} and 1 z i {\displaystyle {\frac {1}{z_{i}}}} (reciprocal z i {\displaystyle z_{i}} ). However, as our division by z {\displaystyle z} altered their coordinate system, this u i , v i {\displaystyle u_{i},v_{i}} cannot be used as texture coordinates. To correct back to the u , v {\displaystyle u,v} space, the corrected z {\displaystyle z} is calculated by taking the reciprocal once again: z c o r r e c t = 1 1 z i {\displaystyle z_{correct}={\frac {1}{\frac {1}{z_{i}}}}} . This is then used to correct the u i , v i {\displaystyle u_{i},v_{i}} coordinates: u c o r r e c t = u i ⋅ z i {\displaystyle u_{correct}=u_{i}\cdot z_{i}} and v c o r r e c t = v i ⋅ z i {\displaystyle v_{correct}=v_{i}\cdot z_{i}} . This correction makes it so that the difference from pixel to pixel between texture coordinates is smaller in parts of the polygon that are closer to the viewer (stretching the texture wider) and is larger in parts that are farther away (compressing the texture). Affine texture mapping directly interpolates a texture coordinate u α {\displaystyle u_{\alpha }} between two endpoints u 0 {\displaystyle u_{0}} and u 1 {\displaystyle u_{1}} : u α = ( 1 − α ) u 0 + α u 1 {\displaystyle u_{\alpha }=(1-\alpha )u_{0}+\alpha u_{1}} where 0 ≤ α ≤ 1 {\displaystyle 0\leq \alpha \leq 1} . Perspective correct mapping interpolates after dividing by depth z {\displaystyle z} , then uses its interpolated reciprocal to recover the correct coordinate: u α = ( 1 − α ) u 0 z 0 + α u 1 z 1 ( 1 − α ) 1 z 0 + α 1 z 1 {\displaystyle u_{\alpha }={\frac {(1-\alpha ){\frac {u_{0}}{z_{0}}}+\alpha {\frac {u_{1}}{z_{1}}}}{(1-\alpha ){\frac {1}{z_{0}}}+\alpha {\frac {1}{z_{1}}}}}} 3D graphics hardware typically supports perspective correct texturing. Various techniques have evolved for rendering texture mapped geometry into images with different quality and precision trade-offs, which can be applied to both software and hardware. Classic software texture mappers generally only performed simple texture mapping with one lighting effect at most (typically applied through a lookup table), and the perspective correctness was about 16 times more expensive.[compared to?] The Doom engine restricted the world to vertical walls and horizontal floors and ceilings, with a camera that could only rotate about the vertical axis. This meant the walls would be a constant depth coordinate along a vertical line and the floors and ceilings would have a constant depth along a horizontal line. After performing one perspective correction calculation for the depth, the rest of the line could use fast affine mapping. Some later renderers of this era simulated a small amount of camera pitch with shearing which allowed the appearance of greater freedom while using the same rendering technique. Some engines were able to render texture mapped heightmaps (e.g. Nova Logic's Voxel Space, and the engine for Outcast) via Bresenham-like incremental algorithms, producing the appearance of a texture mapped landscape without the use of traditional geometric primitives. Every triangle can be further subdivided into groups of about 16 pixels in order to achieve two goals: keeping the arithmetic mill busy at all times and producing faster arithmetic results.[vague] For perspective texture mapping without hardware support, a triangle is broken down into smaller triangles for rendering and affine mapping is used on them. The reason this technique works is that the distortion of affine mapping becomes much less noticeable on smaller polygons. The Sony PlayStation made extensive use of this because it only supported affine mapping in hardware and had a relatively high triangle throughput compared to its peers. Software renderers generally prefer screen subdivision because it has less overhead. Additionally, they try to do linear interpolation along a line of pixels to simplify the set-up (compared to 2D affine interpolation), thus lessening the overhead further. Another reason is that affine texture mapping does not fit into the low number of CPU registers of the x86 CPU; the 68000 and RISC processors are much more suited for that approach. A different approach was taken for Quake, which would calculate perspective correct coordinates only once every 16 pixels of a scanline and linearly interpolate between them, effectively running at the speed of linear interpolation because the perspective correct calculation runs in parallel on the co-processor. As the polygons are rendered independently, it may be possible to switch between spans and columns or diagonal directions depending on the orientation of the polygon normal to achieve a more constant z, but the effort seems not to be worth it.[original research?] One other technique is to approximate the perspective with a faster calculation, such as a polynomial. A second uses the 1 z i {\textstyle {\frac {1}{z_{i}}}} value of the last two drawn pixels to linearly extrapolate the next value. For the latter, the division is then done starting from those values so that all that has to be divided is a small remainder. However, the amount of bookkeeping needed makes this technique too slow on most systems.[citation needed] A third technique, used by the Build Engine (used, most notably, in Duke Nukem 3D), builds on the constant distance trick used by the Doom engine by finding and rendering along the line of constant distance for arbitrary polygons. Texture mapping hardware was originally developed for simulation (e.g. as implemented in the Evans and Sutherland ESIG and Singer-Link Digital Image Generators DIG) and professional graphics workstations (such as Silicon Graphics) and broadcast digital video effects machines such as the Ampex ADO. Texture mapping hardware later appeared in arcade cabinets, consumer video game consoles, and PC video cards in the mid-1990s. In flight simulations, texture mapping provided important motion and altitude cues necessary for pilot training not available on untextured surfaces. Additionally, texture mapping was implemented so that real-time processing of prefiltered texture patterns stored in memory could be accessed by the video processor in real-time. Modern graphics processing units (GPUs) provide specialised fixed function units called texture samplers, or texture mapping units, to perform texture mapping, usually with trilinear filtering or better multi-tap anisotropic filtering and hardware for decoding specific formats such as DXTn. As of 2016, texture mapping hardware is ubiquitous as most SOCs contain a suitable GPU. Some hardware implementations combine texture mapping with hidden-surface determination in tile-based deferred rendering or scanline rendering; such systems only fetch the visible texels at the expense of using greater workspace for transformed vertices. Most systems have settled on the z-buffering approach, which can still reduce the texture mapping workload with front-to-back sorting. On earlier graphics hardware, there were two competing paradigms of how to deliver a texture to the screen: Of these methods, inverse texture mapping has become standard in modern hardware. With this method, a pixel on the screen is mapped to a point on the texture. Each vertex of a rendering primitive is projected to a point on the screen, and each of these points is mapped to a u,v texel coordinate on the texture. A rasterizer will interpolate between these points to fill in each pixel covered by the primitive. The primary advantage of this method is that each pixel covered by a primitive will be traversed exactly once. Once a primitive's vertices are transformed, the amount of remaining work scales directly with how many pixels it covers on the screen. The main disadvantage is that the memory access pattern in the texture space will not be linear if the texture is at an angle to the screen. This disadvantage is often addressed by texture caching techniques, such as the swizzled texture memory arrangement. The linear interpolation can be used directly for simple and efficient affine texture mapping, but can also be adapted for perspective correctness. Forward texture mapping maps each texel of the texture to a pixel on the screen. After transforming a rectangular primitive to a place on the screen, a forward texture mapping renderer iterates through each texel on the texture, splatting each one onto a pixel of the frame buffer. This was used by some hardware, such as the 3DO, the Sega Saturn and the NV1. The primary advantage is that the texture will be accessed in a simple linear order, allowing very efficient caching of the texture data. However, this benefit is also its disadvantage: as a primitive gets smaller on screen, it still has to iterate over every texel in the texture, causing many pixels to be overdrawn redundantly. This method is also well suited for rendering quad primitives rather than reducing them to triangles, which provided an advantage when perspective correct texturing was not available in hardware. This is because the affine distortion of a quad looks less incorrect than the same quad split into two triangles (see the § Affine texture mapping section above). The NV1 hardware also allowed a quadratic interpolation mode to provide an even better approximation of perspective correctness. UV mapping became an important technique for 3D modelling and assisted in clipping the texture correctly when the primitive went past the edge of the screen, but existing hardware did not provide effective implementations of this. These shortcomings could have been addressed with further development, but GPU design has mostly shifted toward using the inverse mapping technique. Applications Beyond 3D rendering, the availability of texture mapping hardware has inspired its use for accelerating other tasks: It is possible to use texture mapping hardware to accelerate both the reconstruction of voxel data sets from tomographic scans, and to visualize the results. Many user interfaces use texture mapping to accelerate animated transitions of screen elements, e.g. Exposé in Mac OS X. See also References Software External links
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Protection_policy#semi] \| [TOKENS: 5211]
Contents Wikipedia:Protection policy In some circumstances, pages may need to be protected from modification by certain groups of editors. Pages are protected when there is disruption that cannot be prevented through other means, such as blocks. Wikipedia is built on the principle that anyone can edit, and therefore aims to have as many pages open for public editing as possible so that anyone can add material and correct issues. This policy states in detail the protection types and procedures for page protection and unprotection, and when each protection should and should not be applied. Protection is a technical restriction applied only by administrators, although any user may request protection. Protection can be indefinite or expire after a specified time. The various levels of protection can be applied to the page edit, page move, page create, and file upload actions. Even when a page is protected from editing, the source wikitext of the page can still be viewed and copied by anyone. A protected page is marked at its top right by a padlock icon, usually added by the {{pp-protected}} template. The {{pp-protected}} template is automatically added by the {{documentation}} template used in template space. Overview of page protection Any protection applied to a page involves setting a type, level, and duration as follows: Preemptive protection Applying page protection solely as a preemptive measure is contrary to the open nature of Wikipedia and is generally not allowed. Instead, protection is used when vandalism, disruption, or abuse by multiple users is occurring at a frequency that warrants protection. The duration of protection should be as short as possible and at the lowest protection level sufficient to stop the disruption, allowing edits from as many productive users as possible. Exceptions include the Main Page, along with its templates and images, which are indefinitely fully protected. Additionally, Today's Featured Article is typically semi-protected from the day before its scheduled appearance on the Main Page until the day after it leaves. Finally, pages subject to Arbitration Committee remedies that permit or require preemptive protection may be protected accordingly. Requesting protection Page protection can be requested at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection. Changes to a protected page should be proposed on the corresponding talk page, and then (if necessary) requested by adding an edit request. From there, if the requested changes are uncontroversial or if there is consensus for them, the changes can be carried out by a user who can edit the page. Except in the case of office actions (see below), Arbitration Committee remedies, or pages in the MediaWiki namespace (see below), administrators may unprotect a page if the reason for its protection no longer applies, a reasonable period has elapsed, and there is no consensus that continued protection is necessary. Users can request unprotection or a reduction in protection level by asking the administrator who applied the protection on the administrator's user talk page. If the administrator is inactive, no longer an administrator, or does not respond, then a request for reduction in protection level may be filed. Note that such requests will normally be declined if the protecting administrator is active and was not consulted first. A log of protections and unprotections is available at Special:Log/protect. Summary table Protection types Edit protection restricts editing of a page, often due to vandalism or disputes, ensuring only experienced users can make changes (see above for more information). Administrators can prevent the creation of pages. This type of protection is useful for pages that have been deleted but repeatedly recreated. Such protection is case-sensitive. There are several levels of creation protection that can be applied to pages, identical to the levels for edit protection. A list of protected titles can be found at Special:ProtectedTitles (see also historical lists). Preemptive restrictions on new article titles are instituted through the title blacklist system, which allows for more flexible protection with support for substrings and regular expressions. Pages that have been creation-protected are sometimes referred to as "salted". Editors wishing to re-create a salted title with appropriate content should either contact an administrator (preferably the protecting administrator), file a request for reduction in protection level, or use the deletion review process. To make a convincing case for re-creation, it is helpful to show a draft version of the intended article when filing a request. Create protection of any duration may be applied to pages being repeatedly recreated in violation of policy using the lowest protection level sufficient to stop the disruption (autoconfirmed, extended-confirmed, or full). Due to the implementation of ACPERM, non-confirmed editors cannot create pages in mainspace; thus, semi-creation protection should be used only for protection of pages outside of mainspace. While creation-protection is usually permanent, temporary creation protection can be applied if a page is repeatedly recreated by a single user (or sockpuppets of that user, if applicable). Move-protected pages, or more technically, fully move-protected pages, cannot be moved to a new title except by an administrator. Move protection is commonly applied to: Move protection of any duration may be applied to pages being repeatedly moved in violation of policy using the lowest protection level sufficient to stop the disruption (extended-confirmed or full). Non-confirmed editors cannot move pages so semi-move protection has no effect. Fully edit-protected pages are also implicitly move-protected. As with full edit protection, protection because of edit warring should not be considered an endorsement of the current name. When move protection is applied during a requested move discussion, the page should be protected at the location it was at when the move request was started. All files and categories are implicitly move-protected, requiring file movers or administrators to rename files, and page movers or administrators to rename categories. Upload-protected files, or more technically, fully upload-protected files, cannot be replaced with new versions except by an administrator. Upload protection does not protect file pages from editing. It can be applied by an administrator to: Protection levels Pending changes protection allows unregistered and new users to edit pages, while keeping their edits hidden from unregistered users (who make up the vast majority of visitors to Wikipedia articles) until those changes are accepted by a pending changes reviewer or an administrator. An alternative to semi-protection, it is used to suppress vandalism and certain other persistent problems, while allowing all users to continue to submit edits. Pending changes is technically implemented as a separate option, with its own duration, and it yields to other edit protection levels in cases of overlap. When a page under pending changes protection is edited by an unregistered editor or a new user, the edit is not directly visible to the majority of Wikipedia readers, until it is reviewed and accepted by an editor with the pending changes reviewer right. When a page under pending changes protection is edited by an autoconfirmed user, the edit will be immediately visible to Wikipedia readers, unless there are pending edits waiting to be reviewed. Pending changes are visible in the page history, where they are marked as "pending review". Readers who are not logged in (the vast majority of readers) are shown the latest accepted version of the page; logged-in users see the latest version of the page, with all changes (reviewed or not) applied. When editors who are not reviewers make changes to an article with unreviewed pending changes, their edits are also marked as pending and are not visible to most readers. A user who clicks "edit this page" is always, at that point, shown the latest version of the page for editing regardless of whether the user is logged in or not. Pending changes are typically reviewed within several hours. Pending changes can be used to protect articles against: Pending changes protection should not be used as a preemptive measure against violations that have not yet occurred. Like semi-protection, pending changes protection should never be used in genuine content disputes, where there is a risk of placing a particular group of editors (unregistered users) at a disadvantage. Semi-protection is generally a better option for articles with a high edit rate as well as articles affected by issues difficult for pending changes reviewers to detect, such as non-obvious vandalism, plausible-sounding misinformation, and hard-to-detect copyright violations. In addition, administrators may apply temporary pending changes protection on pages that are subject to significant but temporary vandalism or disruption (for example, due to media attention) when blocking individual users is not a feasible option. As with other forms of protection, the time frame of the protection should be proportional to the problem. Indefinite PC protection should be used only in cases of severe long-term disruption. Removal of pending changes protection can be requested to any administrator, or at requests for unprotection. The reviewing process is described in detail at Wikipedia:Reviewing pending changes. Semi-protected pages may be edited only by registered users who are confirmed or autoconfirmed (accounts that are at least 4 days old and with at least 10 edits on English Wikipedia). Semi-protection is useful when there is a significant amount of disruption or vandalism from new or unregistered users, or to prevent sockpuppets of blocked or banned users from editing, especially when it occurs on biographies of living persons who have had a recent high level of media interest. An alternative to semi-protection is pending changes, which is sometimes favored when an article is being vandalized regularly, but otherwise receives a low amount of editing. Such users can request edits to a semi-protected page by proposing them on its talk page, using the {{Edit semi-protected}} template if necessary to gain attention. If the page in question and its talk page are both protected, the edit request should be made at Wikipedia:Requests for page protection instead. New users may also request the confirmed user right at Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Confirmed. Semi-protection should not be used as a preemptive measure against vandalism that has not yet occurred or to privilege registered users over unregistered users in (valid) content disputes. Administrators may apply temporary semi-protection on pages that are: In addition, administrators may apply indefinite semi-protection to pages that are subject to heavy and persistent vandalism or violations of content policy (such as Wikipedia's biographies of living persons or neutral point of view policies). A page and its talk page should not normally be protected at the same time. In exceptional cases, if a page and its talk page are both protected, the talk page should direct affected editors to Wikipedia:Request for edit through the use of a non-iconified page protection template, to ensure that no editor is entirely prevented from contributing. Today's featured article is, since 2023, always semi-protected. However, this was historically not the case. Extended confirmed protection, previously known as 30/500 protection, restricts editing to users with the extended confirmed user access level, administrators, and bots. Extended confirmed is automatically granted to users one edit after their account has existed for at least 30 days and has made at least 500 edits. Where semi-protection has proven to be ineffective, administrators may use extended confirmed protection to combat disruption (vandalism, abusive sockpuppetry, edit wars, etc.) on any topic. Extended confirmed protection should not be used as a preemptive measure against disruption that has not yet occurred, nor should it be used to privilege extended confirmed users over unregistered/new users in valid content disputes (except as general sanction enforcement; see below). When necessary to prevent disruption in designated contentious topic areas, administrators are authorized to make protections at any level. (This is distinct from the extended confirmed restriction below.) Community-designated contentious topics grant similar authorizations. Some topic areas are under Arbitration Committee extended confirmed restriction as a general sanction. When such a restriction is in effect in a topic area, only extended-confirmed users may make edits related to the topic area. Enforcement of the restriction on articles primarily in the topic area is preferably done with extended confirmed protection, but it is not required (other enforcement methods are outlined in the policy). As always, review the policy before enforcing it. Community general sanctions, applying a similar extended confirmed restriction, have also been authorized by the community. General sanctions has a list of the active general sanctions that incorporate the extended confirmed restriction. High-risk templates can be extended confirmed–protected at administrator discretion when template protection would be too restrictive and semi-protection would be ineffective to stop widespread disruption. Extended confirmed protection can be applied at the discretion of an administrator when creation-protecting a page. A bot maintains a report of pages recently put under extended confirmed protection. Any protection made as arbitration enforcement will be automatically logged at Wikipedia:Arbitration enforcement log/Protections. Community-authorized discretionary sanctions must be logged on a page specific to the topic area. A full list of the 14975 pages under extended confirmed protection can be found here. Users can request edits to an extended confirmed–protected page by proposing them on its talk page, using the {{Edit extended-protected}} template if necessary to gain attention. A template-protected page can be edited only by administrators or users in the Template editors group. This protection level should be used almost exclusively on high-risk templates and modules. In cases where pages in other namespaces become transcluded to a very high degree, this protection level is also valid. This is a protection level that replaces full protection on pages that are merely protected due to high transclusion rates, rather than content disputes. It should be used on templates whose risk factor would have otherwise warranted full protection. It should not be used on less risky templates on the grounds that the template editor user right exists—the existence of the right should not result in more templates becoming uneditable for the general editing community. In borderline cases, extended confirmed protection or lower can be applied to high risk templates that the general editing community still needs to edit regularly. A full list of the pages under template protection can be found here. Editors may request edits to a template-protected page by proposing them on its talk page, using the {{Edit template-protected}} template if necessary to gain attention. A fully protected page cannot be edited or moved by anyone except administrators. Modifications to a fully protected page can be proposed on its talk page (or at another appropriate forum) for discussion. Administrators can make changes to the protected article reflecting consensus. Placing the {{Edit fully-protected}} template on the talk page will draw the attention of administrators for implementing uncontroversial changes. While content disputes and edit warring can be addressed with user blocks issued by uninvolved administrators, allowing normal page editing by other editors at the same time, the protection policy provides an alternative approach as administrators have the discretion to temporarily fully protect an article to end an ongoing edit war. This approach may better suit multi-party disputes and contentious content, as it makes talk page consensus a requirement for implementation of requested edits. When protecting a page because of a content dispute, administrators have a duty to avoid protecting a version that contains policy-violating content, such as vandalism, copyright violations, defamation, or poor-quality coverage of living people. Administrators are deemed to remain uninvolved when exercising discretion on whether to apply protection to the current version of an article, or to an older, stable, or pre-edit-war version. Fully protected pages may not be edited except to make changes that are uncontroversial or for which there is clear consensus. Editors convinced that the protected version of an article contains policy-violating content, or that protection has rewarded edit warring or disruption by establishing a contentious revision, may identify a stable version prior to the edit war and request reversion to that version. Before making such a request, editors should consider how independent editors might view the suggestion and recognize that continuing an edit war is grounds for being blocked. Administrators who have made substantive content changes to an article are considered involved and must not use their advanced permissions to further their own positions. When involved in a dispute, it is almost always wisest to respect the editing policies that bind all editors and call for input from an uninvolved administrator, rather than to invite controversy by acting unilaterally. If a deleted page is going through deletion review, only administrators are normally capable of viewing the former content of the page. If they feel it would benefit the discussion to allow other users to view the page content, administrators may restore the page, replace the contents with the {{Temporarily undeleted}} template or a similar notice, and fully protect the page to prevent further editing. The previous contents of the page are then accessible to everyone via the page history. Generic file names such as File:Photo.jpg, File:Example.jpg, File:Map.jpg, and File:Sound.wav are fully protected to prevent new versions from being uploaded. Furthermore, File:Map.jpg and File:Sound.wav are salted. The following pages and templates are usually fully protected for an indefinite period of time: As with full edit protection, administrators should avoid favoring one version over another, and protection should not be considered an endorsement of the current version. An exception to this rule is when they are protected due to upload vandalism. Pages can be protected by Wikimedia Foundation staff in response to issues such as copyright infringement or libel as outlined in Foundation:Policy:Office actions § Use of advanced rights by Foundation staff. Such actions override community consensus. Administrators should not edit or unprotect such pages without permission from Wikimedia Foundation staff. Cascading protection fully protects a page, and extends that full protection automatically to any page that is transcluded onto the protected page, whether directly or indirectly. This includes templates, images and other media that are hosted on the English Wikipedia. Files stored on Commons are not protected by any other wiki's cascading protection and, if they are to be protected, must be either temporarily uploaded to the English Wikipedia or explicitly protected at Commons (whether manually or through cascading protection there). When operational, KrinkleBot cascade-protects Commons files transcluded at Wikipedia:Main Page/Tomorrow, Wikipedia:Main Page/Commons media protection and Main Page. As the bot's response time varies, media should not be transcluded on the main page (or its constituent templates) until after it has been protected. (This is particularly relevant to Template:In the news, for which upcoming images are not queued at Wikipedia:Main Page/Tomorrow.) Cascading protection: The list of cascading-protected pages can be found at Wikipedia:Cascade-protected items. Requests to add or remove cascading protection on a page should be made at Wikipedia talk:Cascade-protected items as an edit request. Operational pages principally used by software, including bots and user scripts, may be protected based on the type of use, content, and other considerations. This includes configuration pages, data pages, log pages, status pages, and other pages specific to the operation of software. However, personal CSS, personal JavaScript, and personal JSON are automatically protected and should not be protected for this reason. Some pages on Wikipedia are subject to software-enforced protection that administrators cannot change or remove. This is called permanent or indefinite protection, and interface protection in the case of CSS and JavaScript pages. Specifically, this applies to: Protection by namespace Modifications to a protected page can be proposed on its talk page (or at another appropriate forum) for discussion. Administrators can make changes to the protected article reflecting consensus. Placing the {{Edit protected}} template on the talk page will draw the attention of administrators for implementing uncontroversial changes. Talk pages are not usually protected, and are semi-protected only for a limited duration in the most severe cases of disruption. User talk pages are rarely protected. However, protection can be applied if there is severe vandalism or abuse. Users whose talk pages are protected may wish to have an unprotected user talk subpage linked conspicuously from their main talk page to allow good-faith comments from users that the protection restricts editing from. A user's request to have their own talk page protected is not a sufficient rationale by itself to protect the page, although requests can be considered if a reason is provided. Blocked users' user talk pages should not ordinarily be protected, as this interferes with the user's ability to contest their block through the normal process. It also prevents others from being able to use the talk page to communicate with the blocked editor. In extreme cases of abuse by the blocked user, such as abuse of the {{unblock}} template, re-blocking the user with talk page access removed should be preferred over applying protection to the page. If the user has been blocked and with the ability to edit their user talk page disabled, they should be informed of this in a block notice, subsequent notice, or message, and it should include information and instructions for appealing their block off-wiki, such as through the UTRS tool interface or, as a last recourse, the Arbitration Committee. When required, protection should be implemented for only a brief period, not exceeding the duration of the block. Confirmed socks of registered users should be dealt with in accordance with Wikipedia:Sockpuppetry; their pages are not normally protected. Base user pages (for example, the page User:Example, and not User:Example/Lipsum or User talk:Example) are automatically protected from creation or editing by unconfirmed accounts and anonymous temporary account users. An exception is that unconfirmed registered users are allowed to create or edit their own user page. Temporary account editors and unconfirmed accounts are also unable to create or edit user pages that do not belong to a currently registered account. This protection is enforced by an edit filter. Users may opt-out of this protection by placing {{unlocked userpage}} anywhere on their own user page. User pages and subpages within their own user space can be protected upon a request from the user, as long as a need exists. Pages within the user space should not be automatically or preemptively protected without good reason or cause. Requests for protection specifically at uncommon levels (such as template protection) can be granted if the user has expressed a genuine and realistic need. When a filter is insufficient to stop user page vandalism, a user may choose to create a ".css" subpage (e.g., User:Example/monobook.css), copy all the contents of their user page onto the subpage, transclude the subpage by putting {{User:Example/monobook.css}} on their user page, and then ask an administrator to fully protect their user page. Because user space pages that end in ".css" and ".js" are editable only by the user to which that user space belongs and interface administrators, this will protect one's user page from further vandalism. In the event of the confirmed death of an editor, their user page (but not the user talk page) should be fully protected. Highly visible templates – those used on a large number of pages or frequently substituted – are often protected based on the degree of visibility, type of use, content, and other considerations. Protected templates should normally have the {{documentation}} template. It loads the unprotected /doc page, so that non-admins and IP-users can edit the documentation, categories and interwiki links. It also automatically adds {{pp-template}} to protected templates, which displays a small padlock in the top right corner and categorizes the template as protected. Only manually add {{pp-template}} to protected templates that do not use {{documentation}} (mostly the flag templates). Cascading protection should generally not be applied directly to templates, as it will not protect transclusions inside <includeonly> tags or transclusions that depend on template parameters, but will protect the template's documentation subpage. Instead, consider either of the following: Note: All editnotice templates (except those in userspace) are already protected via MediaWiki:Titleblacklist. They can be edited by admins, template editors and page movers only. Sandboxes should not ordinarily be protected since their purpose is to let new users test and experiment with wiki syntax. Most sandboxes are automatically cleaned every 12 hours, although they are frequently overwritten by other testing users. The Wikipedia:Sandbox is cleaned every hour. Those who use sandboxes for malicious purposes, or to violate policies such as no personal attacks, civility, or copyrights, should instead be warned and/or blocked. Available templates The following templates can be added at the very top of a page to indicate that it is protected: On redirect pages, use the {{Redirect category shell}} template, which automatically categorizes by protection level, below the redirect line. A protection template may also be added below the redirect line, but it will serve only to categorize the page, as it will not be visible on the page, and it will have to be manually removed when protection is removed. Retired protections Superprotect was a level of protection, allowing editing only by Wikimedia Foundation employees who were in the Staff global group. It was implemented on August 10, 2014 and removed on November 5, 2015. It was never used on the English Wikipedia. For several years, the Gadget namespace (which no longer exists) could only be edited by WMF staff, which has sometimes been referred to as superprotection even though it is unrelated to the above use. Cascading semi-protection was formerly possible, but it was disabled in 2007 after users noticed that non-administrators could fully protect any page by transcluding it onto the page to which cascading semi-protection had been applied by an administrator. Originally, two levels of pending changes protection existed, where level 2 required edits by all users who were not pending changes reviewers to be reviewed. Following a community discussion, level 2 was retired from the English Wikipedia in January 2017. Since that change, "pending changes level 1" is generally referred to as just "pending changes". See also Notes
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinness_World_Records] \| [TOKENS: 3908]
Contents Guinness World Records Page version status This is an accepted version of this page Guinness World Records, known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as The Guinness Book of Records and in previous United States editions as The Guinness Book of World Records, is a British reference book published annually, listing world records both of human achievements and the extremes of the natural world. Sir Hugh Beaver created the concept in order to settle arguments debated in pubs, and twin brothers Norris and Ross McWhirter co-founded the book in London in late August 1955. The first edition topped the bestseller list in the United Kingdom by Christmas 1955. The following year the book was launched internationally, and as of the 2026 edition, it is now in its 71st year of publication, published in 100 countries and 40 languages, and maintains over 53,000 records in its database. The international franchise has extended beyond print to include television series and museums. The popularity of the franchise has resulted in Guinness World Records becoming the primary international source for cataloguing and verification of a huge number of world records. The organization employs record adjudicators to verify the authenticity of the setting and breaking of records. Following a series of owners, the franchise has been owned by the Jim Pattison Group since 2008, with its headquarters moved to South Quay Plaza, Canary Wharf, London, in 2017. Since 2008, Guinness World Records has orientated its business model away from selling books, and towards creating new world records as publicity exercises for individuals and organizations, which has attracted criticism. History On 10 November 1951, Sir Hugh Beaver, then the managing director of the Guinness Breweries, went on a shooting party in the North Slob, by the River Slaney in County Wexford, Ireland. After missing a shot at a golden plover, he became involved in an argument over whether the golden plover or the red grouse was the fastest game bird in Europe (the plover is faster, but neither is the fastest game bird in Europe). That evening at Castlebridge House, he realized that it was impossible to confirm in reference books whether or not the golden plover was Europe's fastest game bird. Beaver knew that there must have been numerous other questions debated nightly among the public, but there was no book in the world with which to settle arguments about records. He realized then that a book supplying the answers to this sort of question might prove successful. Beaver's idea became a reality when Guinness employee Christopher Chataway recommended university friends Norris and Ross McWhirter, who had been running a fact-finding agency in London. The twin brothers were commissioned in August 1954 to compile what became The Guinness Book of (Superlatives and now) Records.[clarification needed] A thousand copies were distributed for free to pubs across Britain and Ireland as a promotional asset for the Guinness brand, and they became immensely popular with customers. After the founding of The Guinness Book of Records office at the top of Ludgate House, 107 Fleet Street, London, the first 198-page edition was bound on 27 August 1955 and went to the top of the British bestseller list by Christmas. The following year, it was introduced into the United States by New York publisher David Boehm and sold 70,000 copies. Since then, Guinness World Records has sold more than 150 million copies in 100 countries and 40 languages. Due to the book's surprise success, many further editions were printed, eventually settling into a pattern of one revision a year, published in September/October, in time for Christmas. The McWhirters continued to compile it for many years. Both brothers had an encyclopedic memory; on the British children's television series Record Breakers (based upon the book), which was broadcast on the BBC from 1972 to 2001, they would take questions posed by children in the audience on various world records and were able to give the correct answer. Ross McWhirter was assassinated by two members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army in 1975, in response to offering a £50,000 reward for information that would lead to the capture of members of the organization. Following Ross's assassination, the feature on the show where questions about records posed by children were answered was called Norris on the Spot. Norris carried on as the book's sole editor. Guinness Superlatives, later Guinness World Records Limited, was incorporated in London in 1954 to publish the first book. Sterling Publishing owned the rights to the Guinness book in the US for decades until it was repurchased by Guinness in 1989 after an 18-month long lawsuit. The group was owned by Guinness PLC and subsequently Diageo until 2001, when it was purchased by Gullane Entertainment for £45.5 million ($65 million). Gullane was itself purchased by HIT Entertainment in 2002. In 2006, Apax Partners purchased HIT and subsequently sold Guinness World Records in early 2008 to the Jim Pattison Group, the parent company of Ripley Entertainment, which is licensed to operate Guinness World Records' Attractions. With offices in New York City and Tokyo, Guinness World Records' global headquarters remain in South Quay Plaza in Canary Wharf, London, while its museum attractions are based at Ripley headquarters in Orlando, Florida. Recent editions have focused on record feats by individuals. Competitions range from obvious ones such as Olympic weightlifting to the longest egg tossing distances, or for the longest time spent playing Grand Theft Auto IV or the largest number of hot dogs consumed in three minutes. Besides records about competitions, it contains such facts such as the heaviest tumor, the most poisonous fungus, the longest-running soap opera and the most valuable life-insurance policy, among others. Many records also relate to the youngest people to have achieved something, such as the youngest person to visit all nations of the world, currently held by Maurizio Giuliano. Each edition contains a selection of the records from the Guinness World Records database, as well as select new records, with the criteria for inclusion changing from year to year. The latest edition is the 72nd, published in August 2025. The retirement of Norris McWhirter from his consulting role in 1995 and the subsequent decision by Diageo Plc to sell The Guinness Book of Records brand have shifted the focus of the books from text-oriented to illustrated reference. A selection of records are curated for the book from the full archive but all existing Guinness World Records titles can be accessed by creating a login on the company's website. Applications made by individuals for existing record categories are free of charge. There is an administration fee of £5 (or $5) to propose a new record title. A number of spin-off books and television series have also been produced. Guinness World Records bestowed the record of "Person with the most records" on Ashrita Furman of Queens, New York, in April 2009; at that time, he held 100 records. In 2005, Guinness designated 9 November as International Guinness World Records Day to encourage breaking of world records. In 2006, an estimated 100,000 people participated in over 10 countries. Guinness reported 2,244 new records in 12 months, which was a 173% increase over the previous year. In February 2008, NBC aired The Top 100 Guinness World Records of All Time and Guinness World Records made the complete list available on their website. The popularity of the franchise has resulted in Guinness World Records becoming the primary international authority on the cataloguing and verification of a huge number of world records. Over its history, numerous world record categories have been discontinued. This list may include that the record poses a threat to health or the environment. Defining records For many records, Guinness World Records is the effective authority on the exact requirements for them and with whom records reside, the company providing adjudicators to events to determine the veracity of record attempts. The list of records which the Guinness World Records covers is not fixed, records may be added and also removed for various reasons. The public is invited to submit applications for records, which can be either the bettering of existing records or substantial achievements which could constitute a new record. The company also provides corporate services for companies to "harness the power of record-breaking to deliver tangible success for their businesses." Guinness World Records states several types of records it will not accept for ethical reasons, such as those related to the killing or harming of animals. In the 2006 Guinness Book of World Records, Colombian serial killer Pedro López was listed as the "most prolific serial killer", having murdered at least 110 people (with Lopez himself claiming he murdered over 300 people) in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru in the late 1960s to 1980s. This was later removed after complaints that it made a competition out of murder, however the record was reinstated in the 2026 edition. Several world records that were once included in the book have been removed for ethical reasons, including concerns for the well-being of potential record breakers. For example, following publication of the "heaviest pet" record, many owners overfed their pets beyond the bounds of what was healthy, and therefore such entries were removed. The Guinness Book also dropped records within their "eating and drinking records" section of Human Achievements in 1991 over concerns that potential competitors could harm themselves and expose the publisher to potential litigation. These changes included the removal of all spirit, wine and beer drinking records, along with other unusual records for consuming such unlikely things as bicycles and trees. Other records, such as sword swallowing and rally driving (on public roads), were closed from further entry as the current holders had performed beyond what are considered safe human tolerance levels. There have been instances of closed categories being reopened. For example, the sword swallowing category was listed as closed in the 1990 Guinness Book of World Records, but has since been reopened with Johnny Strange breaking a sword swallowing record on Guinness World Records Live. Similarly, the speed beer drinking records which were dropped from the book in 1991, reappeared 17 years later in the 2008 edition, but were moved from the "Human Achievements" section of the older book to the "Modern Society" section of the newer edition. As of 2011[update], it is required in the guidelines of all "large food" type records that the item be fully edible, and distributed to the public for consumption, to prevent food wastage. Chain letters are also not allowed: "Guinness World Records does not accept any records relating to chain letters, sent by post or e-mail." After Roger Guy English set the record for sleeplessness in 1974, the category was discontinued for being too dangerous. At the request of the U.S. Mint, in 1984, the book stopped accepting claims of large hoardings of pennies or other currency. Environmentally unfriendly records (such as the releasing of sky lanterns and party balloons) are no longer accepted or monitored, in addition to records relating to tobacco or cannabis consumption or preparation. In 2024, Guinness World Records was accused of laundering the reputation of the oppressive governments as it set world records for the UAE's police forces and Egypt's military. By 2024, the UAE achieved 526 records, of which 21 were credited to the Emirates' police force. Matthew Hedges, a British academic who was forced to sign a false confession, asked the records body to take down the Abu Dhabi police department's certificate for "most signatures on a scroll", along with other such titles. Concerns were also raised around the activities around Egypt, which moved from 22 records to 110 within a decade until 2024. James Lynch, co-founder of FairSquare, said the records were legitimizing Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's regime. The Guinness World Records stated that its record titles "cannot be purchased". Guinness World Records has been accused of romanticizing diseases, such as Graves' Disease and Pica. For some potential categories, Guinness World Records has declined to list some records that are too difficult or impossible to determine. For example, its website states: "We do not accept any claims for beauty as it is not objectively measurable." On 10 December 2010, Guinness World Records stopped accepting submissions for the "dreadlock" category after an investigation of its first and only female title holder, Asha Mandela, determining it was impossible to judge this record accurately. Change in business model Traditionally, the company made a large amount of its revenue via book sales to interested readers, especially children. The rise of the Internet began to cut into book sales starting in the 2000s, part of a general decline in the book industry. According to a 2017 story by Planet Money of NPR, Guinness began to realize that a lucrative new revenue source to replace falling book sales was the would-be record-holders themselves. While any person can theoretically send in a record to be verified for free, the approval process is slow. Would-be record breakers that paid fees ranging from US$12,000 to US$500,000 would be given advisors, adjudicators, help in finding good records to break as well as suggestions for how to do it, prompt service, and so on. In particular, corporations and celebrities seeking a publicity stunt to launch a new product or draw attention to themselves began to hire Guinness World Records, paying them for finding a record to break or to create a new category just for them. As such, they have been described as a native advertising company, with no clear distinction between content and advertisement. Television talk show host John Oliver criticized Guinness World Records on the programme Last Week Tonight with John Oliver in August 2019, during an episode about President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow. Oliver said Guinness took money from authoritarian governments for pointless vanity projects such as Berdimuhamedow's. Oliver asked Guinness to work with Last Week Tonight to adjudicate a record for "Largest cake featuring a picture of someone falling off a horse", but according to Oliver, the offer did not work out after Guinness insisted on a non-disparagement clause. Guinness World Records denied the accusations and stated that they declined Oliver's offer to participate because "it was merely an opportunity to mock one of our record-holders," and that Oliver did not specifically request the record for the largest marble cake. As of 2021, the Guinness World Record for "Largest marble cake" remains with Betty Crocker Middle East in Saudi Arabia. Following Oliver's episode, Guinness World Records' ethics were called into question by human rights groups. Museums In 1976, a Guinness Book of World Records museum opened in the Empire State Building. Speed shooter Bob Munden then went on tour promoting The Guinness Book of World Records by performing his record fast draws with a standard weight single-action revolver from a Western movie-type holster. His fastest time for a draw was 0.02 seconds. Among exhibits were life-size statues of the world's tallest man, Robert Wadlow, and world's largest earthworm, an X-ray photo of a sword swallower, repeated lightning strike victim Roy Sullivan's hat complete with lightning holes and a pair of gem-studded golf shoes on sale for $6,500. The museum closed in 1995. In more recent years, the Guinness company has permitted the franchising of small museums with displays based on the book, all currently (as of 2010[update]) located in towns popular with tourists: Tokyo, Copenhagen, San Antonio. There were once Guinness World Records museums and exhibitions at the London Trocadero, Bangalore, San Francisco, Myrtle Beach, Orlando, Atlantic City, and Las Vegas. The Orlando museum, which closed in 2002, was branded The Guinness Records Experience; the Hollywood, Niagara Falls, Copenhagen, and Gatlinburg museums also previously featured this branding. Retail and merchandise Guinness World Records operates an official online shop, the Guinness World Records Store, which offers items related to record-breaking achievements, including certificates of participation, apparel, and the annual Guinness World Records book. The shop provides record-holders and the general public with access to official Guinness World Records materials. Merchandise is part of the organization's broader engagement efforts beyond its publications and events. Television series Guinness World Records has commissioned various television series documenting world record breaking attempts, including: Rhianna Loren (2025) Specials: Gamer's edition In 2008, Guinness World Records released its gamer's edition, a supplement that keeps records for popular video game high scores, codes and feats in association with Twin Galaxies. The Gamer's Edition used to contain 258 pages, over 1,236 video game related world records and four interviews including one with Twin Galaxies founder Walter Day. Editions were published for the years 2008 through 2020, with the 2009 edition in hardcover. The 2025 edition is the first since 2020, returning after a five-year hiatus. Since 2020, the supplement has had 192 pages. The Guinness Book of British Hit Singles The Guinness Book of British Hit Singles was a music reference book first published in 1977. It was compiled by BBC Radio 1 DJs Paul Gambaccini and Mike Read with brothers Tim Rice and Jonathan Rice. It was the first in a number of music reference books that were to be published by Guinness Publishing with sister publication The Guinness Book of British Hit Albums coming in 1983. After being sold to Hit Entertainment, the data concerning the Official Chart Company's singles and albums charts were combined under the title British Hit Singles & Albums, with Hit Entertainment publishing the book from 2003 to 2006 (under the Guinness World Records brand). After Guinness World Records was sold to The Jim Pattison Group, it was effectively replaced by a series of books published by Ebury Publishing/Random House with the Virgin Book of British Hit Singles first being published in 2007 and with a Hit Albums book following two years later. Other media and products In 1975, Parker Brothers marketed a board game, The Guinness Game of World Records, based on the book. Players compete by setting and breaking records for activities such as the longest streak of rolling dice before rolling doubles, stacking plastic pieces, and bouncing a ball off alternating sides of a card, as well as answering trivia questions based on the listings in the Guinness Book of World Records. A video game, Guinness World Records: The Videogame, was developed by TT Fusion and released for Nintendo DS, Wii and iOS in November 2008. In 2012, Warner Bros. announced the development of a live-action film version of Guinness World Records with Daniel Chun as scriptwriter. The film, however, never entered production. Dr. Sunil Gupta is listed in the Guinness World Records for participating in the largest multi-location diabetic neuropathy screening conducted on World Diabetes Day, 14 November 2013, during which 1,676 screenings were performed across 27 locations in India. References
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herobrine#cite_note-:4-6] \| [TOKENS: 1629]
Contents Herobrine Herobrine is an urban legend and creepypasta from the sandbox video game Minecraft. He is often depicted as a version of the Minecraft character Steve, but with solid white eyes that lack pupils, and behavior that primarily involves destroying the player's world. The story originated from an anonymous post on 4chan's /v/ board in 2010, where the author reported encountering a strange figure in a single-player world, followed by their messages being deleted when they attempted to talk to other players about the sighting. The story was further popularized after livestreamers Copeland and Patimuss created their own versions. Herobrine has become a popular part of the online culture surrounding Minecraft, as well as effectively an internet meme. Interest in the character inspired many to create their own stories and alleged sightings centered around Herobrine, as well as create Minecraft mods that add him to the game. Interest in the character continued into the 2020s, leading to the rediscovery of formerly lost media related to the original sightings. Herobrine has been considered one of the most notable legends in video games, with his popularity leading to him ranking on a Guinness World Records poll for the best video game villains despite never truly existing within Minecraft. The character has been referenced several times by the developers of Minecraft, appearing on official artwork as well. Origins and characteristics In 2010, during Minecraft's alpha stage of development, an anonymous post was made on 4chan's /v/ board, where the author claimed to encounter a mysterious entity while playing the game. The post claimed that shortly after starting a new world, the author saw what they believed to be a cow in the distance, which they approached in order to kill it. Upon approaching it, they instead saw a second player character with solid white eyes staring at them from the fog before vanishing. After the encounter, the author noticed numerous strange structures that they did not create. They claimed that when trying to contact other players about the event, they found their posts removed, eventually receiving a message from a user named "Herobrine" that simply said "stop." The anonymous post went on to claim that other players informed him that Herobrine was the alias of the brother of Notch, the creator of Minecraft. The 4chan post claimed that Notch said, in response to queries about whether he had a brother, "I did, but he is no longer with us." Around the same time, another anonymous post on 4chan wrote about another entity the author seemingly encountered in a cave after listening to the in-game music disc "13", which also had white eyes that lurked in the fog. This encounter was simply named "White Eyes", and was believed to be related to Herobrine. Shortly after the original stories were published, livestreamers Copeland and Patimuss, the former of which saw and liked the original posts, staged Herobrine encounters of their own. In Copeland's stream, he played in a survival world with a custom texture pack for around two hours while working on a house. After entering a room he was planning on furnishing, he saw Herobrine staring at him and he quickly left the house and exited the game, before ending the livestream. This encounter was created by Copeland modifying in-game textures to make Herobrine appear. Afterwards, viewers of the livestream were redirected to a GIF depicting Herobrine with moving, realistic eyes. In Patimuss' stream, he encountered Herobrine walking on lava while playing the game, before promptly shutting the game down. After Copeland's stream, he claimed that his computer crashed when trying to go live again afterwards. He then shared a webpage with the title "him.html". The page featured a gif of Steve, the default skin of Minecraft, with his pixelated eyes replaced with realistic, moving ones, as well as text at the bottom that wrote about how the reader was "living in a fantasy world inside their mind" and needed to "wake up." This granted Herobrine the additional nickname "HIM." After these streams, the popularity of Herobrine spread across the Minecraft community, with people creating their own alleged sightings, as well as developing Minecraft mods to add the character to the game themselves. Most claimed sightings of Herobrine are accompanied by red text annotations and eerie music. In stories and mods centered around Herobrine, he is typically summoned through the creation of a structure made up of gold and other in-game materials. His most common traits include constructing abnormal structures and causing destruction, such as by digging random tunnels throughout the world and removing the leaves from trees. Reception and legacy Herobrine gained widespread popularity in the 2010s, becoming a notable part of the Minecraft community and an internet meme. Several other Minecraft creepypastas have been created by fans, such as Entity 303, though none were able to reach similar levels of notoriety as Herobrine. VG247 writer Nadia Oxford described Herobrine as one of the Minecraft fan works, and IGN writer Paul Dean wrote Herobrine to be the "most popular example of a game haunting ever." Lauren Morton of PC Gamer wrote that, despite Herobrine never having truly existed, the character "lives on in the minds of plenty of Minecraft players" who were interested in him when younger. Gabriel Menotti cited Herobrine as an example of how user-generated recordings for video games could change player's imaginations, and view the game beyond its original scope. Some players believed Herobrine to be real despite the character never existing, which caused employees of Mojang to comment on the character. Notch in particular has denied the existence of Herobrine numerous times, and tweeted that he never had a brother in 2011. Despite this, Mojang has made many references to Herobrine; in numerous versions of Minecraft, the update logs have included the term "Removed Herobrine" as a joke. "We don't usually talk about Herobrine," Minecraft lead designer Jens "Jeb" Bergensten told G1. "It's a mystery [...] And we don't quite confirm if it's true or false.": 00:21–46 Minecraft director Agnes Larsson added that a creature in the game called the Warden takes inspiration from the community's horror "myths". In A Minecraft Movie (2025), a film adaptation of Minecraft, a scene depicts Steve (portrayed by Jack Black) with glowing white eyes, during a hallucination from an enderman. This scene was widely interpreted by fans as a reference to Herobrine, although creative director Torfi Frans Olafsson stated that the white eyes were actually a visual effects glitch that was left in due to time constraints. Several viewed this as an ironic coincidence due to Herobrine's nature as a figure that haunts the game and doesn't truly exist. In 2013, Herobrine ranked 46th on a poll for the Top 50 Video Game Villains of All Time, which was organized by Guinness World Records. Fan-made books based on Herobrine have been published, such as The Legend of Herobrine. In 2021, continued interest in the story resulted in the world seed of the original Herobrine sighting being discovered by a group of players known as the Minecraft@Home project. Similarly, in 2020, a Minecraft player known as Enderboss25 gained contact with Copeland in an effort to recover the footage of the original livestream that caused Herobrine's popularity. While the original footage was long gone, the original world file was recovered, and a recreation of the livestream was made in a joint effort by the two. In July 2024, the original livestream was uploaded to YouTube by user brutallillfjomp, who had saved the stream in 2010 and was unaware that it was considered lost until watching a video on it the previous day. References External links
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herobrine#cite_note-:1-7] \| [TOKENS: 1629]
Contents Herobrine Herobrine is an urban legend and creepypasta from the sandbox video game Minecraft. He is often depicted as a version of the Minecraft character Steve, but with solid white eyes that lack pupils, and behavior that primarily involves destroying the player's world. The story originated from an anonymous post on 4chan's /v/ board in 2010, where the author reported encountering a strange figure in a single-player world, followed by their messages being deleted when they attempted to talk to other players about the sighting. The story was further popularized after livestreamers Copeland and Patimuss created their own versions. Herobrine has become a popular part of the online culture surrounding Minecraft, as well as effectively an internet meme. Interest in the character inspired many to create their own stories and alleged sightings centered around Herobrine, as well as create Minecraft mods that add him to the game. Interest in the character continued into the 2020s, leading to the rediscovery of formerly lost media related to the original sightings. Herobrine has been considered one of the most notable legends in video games, with his popularity leading to him ranking on a Guinness World Records poll for the best video game villains despite never truly existing within Minecraft. The character has been referenced several times by the developers of Minecraft, appearing on official artwork as well. Origins and characteristics In 2010, during Minecraft's alpha stage of development, an anonymous post was made on 4chan's /v/ board, where the author claimed to encounter a mysterious entity while playing the game. The post claimed that shortly after starting a new world, the author saw what they believed to be a cow in the distance, which they approached in order to kill it. Upon approaching it, they instead saw a second player character with solid white eyes staring at them from the fog before vanishing. After the encounter, the author noticed numerous strange structures that they did not create. They claimed that when trying to contact other players about the event, they found their posts removed, eventually receiving a message from a user named "Herobrine" that simply said "stop." The anonymous post went on to claim that other players informed him that Herobrine was the alias of the brother of Notch, the creator of Minecraft. The 4chan post claimed that Notch said, in response to queries about whether he had a brother, "I did, but he is no longer with us." Around the same time, another anonymous post on 4chan wrote about another entity the author seemingly encountered in a cave after listening to the in-game music disc "13", which also had white eyes that lurked in the fog. This encounter was simply named "White Eyes", and was believed to be related to Herobrine. Shortly after the original stories were published, livestreamers Copeland and Patimuss, the former of which saw and liked the original posts, staged Herobrine encounters of their own. In Copeland's stream, he played in a survival world with a custom texture pack for around two hours while working on a house. After entering a room he was planning on furnishing, he saw Herobrine staring at him and he quickly left the house and exited the game, before ending the livestream. This encounter was created by Copeland modifying in-game textures to make Herobrine appear. Afterwards, viewers of the livestream were redirected to a GIF depicting Herobrine with moving, realistic eyes. In Patimuss' stream, he encountered Herobrine walking on lava while playing the game, before promptly shutting the game down. After Copeland's stream, he claimed that his computer crashed when trying to go live again afterwards. He then shared a webpage with the title "him.html". The page featured a gif of Steve, the default skin of Minecraft, with his pixelated eyes replaced with realistic, moving ones, as well as text at the bottom that wrote about how the reader was "living in a fantasy world inside their mind" and needed to "wake up." This granted Herobrine the additional nickname "HIM." After these streams, the popularity of Herobrine spread across the Minecraft community, with people creating their own alleged sightings, as well as developing Minecraft mods to add the character to the game themselves. Most claimed sightings of Herobrine are accompanied by red text annotations and eerie music. In stories and mods centered around Herobrine, he is typically summoned through the creation of a structure made up of gold and other in-game materials. His most common traits include constructing abnormal structures and causing destruction, such as by digging random tunnels throughout the world and removing the leaves from trees. Reception and legacy Herobrine gained widespread popularity in the 2010s, becoming a notable part of the Minecraft community and an internet meme. Several other Minecraft creepypastas have been created by fans, such as Entity 303, though none were able to reach similar levels of notoriety as Herobrine. VG247 writer Nadia Oxford described Herobrine as one of the Minecraft fan works, and IGN writer Paul Dean wrote Herobrine to be the "most popular example of a game haunting ever." Lauren Morton of PC Gamer wrote that, despite Herobrine never having truly existed, the character "lives on in the minds of plenty of Minecraft players" who were interested in him when younger. Gabriel Menotti cited Herobrine as an example of how user-generated recordings for video games could change player's imaginations, and view the game beyond its original scope. Some players believed Herobrine to be real despite the character never existing, which caused employees of Mojang to comment on the character. Notch in particular has denied the existence of Herobrine numerous times, and tweeted that he never had a brother in 2011. Despite this, Mojang has made many references to Herobrine; in numerous versions of Minecraft, the update logs have included the term "Removed Herobrine" as a joke. "We don't usually talk about Herobrine," Minecraft lead designer Jens "Jeb" Bergensten told G1. "It's a mystery [...] And we don't quite confirm if it's true or false.": 00:21–46 Minecraft director Agnes Larsson added that a creature in the game called the Warden takes inspiration from the community's horror "myths". In A Minecraft Movie (2025), a film adaptation of Minecraft, a scene depicts Steve (portrayed by Jack Black) with glowing white eyes, during a hallucination from an enderman. This scene was widely interpreted by fans as a reference to Herobrine, although creative director Torfi Frans Olafsson stated that the white eyes were actually a visual effects glitch that was left in due to time constraints. Several viewed this as an ironic coincidence due to Herobrine's nature as a figure that haunts the game and doesn't truly exist. In 2013, Herobrine ranked 46th on a poll for the Top 50 Video Game Villains of All Time, which was organized by Guinness World Records. Fan-made books based on Herobrine have been published, such as The Legend of Herobrine. In 2021, continued interest in the story resulted in the world seed of the original Herobrine sighting being discovered by a group of players known as the Minecraft@Home project. Similarly, in 2020, a Minecraft player known as Enderboss25 gained contact with Copeland in an effort to recover the footage of the original livestream that caused Herobrine's popularity. While the original footage was long gone, the original world file was recovered, and a recreation of the livestream was made in a joint effort by the two. In July 2024, the original livestream was uploaded to YouTube by user brutallillfjomp, who had saved the stream in 2010 and was unaware that it was considered lost until watching a video on it the previous day. References External links
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G1_(website)] \| [TOKENS: 301]
Contents G1 (website) G1, stylized as g1, is a Brazilian news portal maintained by Grupo Globo and under the guidance of Central Globo de Jornalismo. It was released on 18 September 2006, the same date as Rede Globo's anniversary. The portal provides journalistic content from various companies of Grupo Globo – TV Globo, Globo News, Radios CBN and Globo, the newspapers O Globo, Extra, Expresso and Valor Econômico, Época and Globo Rural magazines, among others – besides its own reports in the form of text, photographs, audio and video. In addition to five editorial offices in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Brasília, Belo Horizonte and Recife, affiliates of Rede Globo, newspapers, magazines, radio stations and news agencies Agência Estado, Agence France Presse, Associated Press, EFE, The New York Times, Lusa and Reuters feed the news portal, which is updated 24 hours a day. Versions in English and Spanish were released on 11 June 2010, and had videos subtitled in both languages, but both have since been discontinued. The portal also has the mobile version and applications for Android and iOS. In September 2021, to celebrate its 15th anniversary, the portal changed its logo to a new style, also changing the stylizing of the name, changing the G to be lowercase. References External links
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosplayer] \| [TOKENS: 6859]
Contents Cosplay Cosplay, a blend word of "costume play", is an activity and performance art in which participants called cosplayers wear costumes and fashion accessories to represent a specific character. Cosplayers often interact to create a subculture, and a broader use of the term "cosplay" applies to any costumed role-playing in venues apart from the stage. Any entity that lends itself to dramatic interpretation may be taken up as a subject. Favorite sources include anime, cartoons, manga, comic books, television series, musical artists, video games, memes, and in some cases, original characters. The term has been adopted as slang, often in politics, to mean someone pretending to play a role or take on a personality disingenuously. Cosplay grew out of the practice of fan costuming at science fiction conventions, beginning with Morojo's "futuristicostumes" created for the 1st World Science Fiction Convention held in New York City, United States, in 1939. The Japanese term "cosplay" (コスプレ, kosupure) was coined in 1983. A rapid growth in the number of people cosplaying as a hobby since the 1990s has made the phenomenon a significant aspect of popular culture in Japan, as well as in other parts of East Asia and in the Western world. Cosplay events are common features of fan conventions, and today there are many dedicated conventions and competitions, as well as social networks, websites, and other forms of media centered on cosplay activities. Cosplay is very popular among all genders, and it is not unusual to see crossplay, also referred to as gender-bending. Etymology The term "cosplay" is a Japanese blend word of the English terms costume and play. The term was coined by Nobuyuki Takahashi [ja] of Studio Hard in an article for the Japanese magazine My Anime [ja] in June 1983. Takahashi decided to coin a new word rather than use the existing translation of the English term "masquerade" because it implied nobility and was old-fashioned. The coinage reflects a common Japanese method of abbreviation in which the first two moras of a pair of words are used to form an independent compound: 'costume' becomes kosu (コス) and 'play' becomes pure (プレ). History Masquerade balls were a feature of the Carnival season in the 15th century, and involved increasingly elaborate allegorical Royal Entries, pageants, and triumphal processions celebrating marriages and other dynastic events of late medieval court life. They were extended into costumed public festivities in Italy during the 16th century Renaissance, generally elaborate dances held for members of the upper classes, which were particularly popular in Venice. In April 1877, French novelist Jules Verne sent out almost 700 invitations for an elaborate costume ball, where several of the guests showed up dressed as characters from Verne's novels. Costume parties (American English) or fancy dress parties (British English) were popular from the 19th century onwards. Costuming guides of the period, such as Samuel Miller's Male Character Costumes (1884) or Ardern Holt's Fancy Dresses Described (1887), feature mostly generic costumes, whether that be period costumes, national costumes, objects or abstract concepts such as "Autumn" or "Night". Most specific costumes described therein are for historical figures although some are sourced from fiction, like Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers or William Shakespeare's characters. By March 1891, a literal call by one Herbert Tibbits for what would today be described as "cosplayers" was advertised for an event held from 5–10 March that year at the Royal Albert Hall in London, for the so-named Vril-Ya Bazaar and Fete based on a science fiction novel and its characters, published two decades earlier. A.D. Condo's science fiction comic strip character Mr. Skygack, from Mars (a Martian ethnographer who comically misunderstands many Earthly affairs) is arguably the first fictional character that people emulated by wearing costumes, as in 1908 Mr. and Mrs. William Fell of Cincinnati, Ohio, are reported to have attended a masquerade at a skating rink wearing Mr. Skygack and Miss Dillpickles costumes. Later, in 1910, an unnamed woman won first prize at masquerade ball in Tacoma, Washington, wearing another Skygack costume. The first people to wear costumes to attend a convention were science fiction fans Forrest J Ackerman and Myrtle R. Douglas, known in fandom as Morojo. They attended the 1939 1st World Science Fiction Convention (Nycon or 1st Worldcon) in the Caravan Hall, New York, US dressed in "futuristicostumes", including green cape and breeches, based on the pulp magazine artwork of Frank R. Paul and the 1936 film Things to Come, designed and created by Douglas. Ackerman later stated that he thought everyone was supposed to wear a costume at a science fiction convention, although only he and Douglas did. Fan costuming caught on, however, and the 2nd Worldcon (1940) had both an unofficial masquerade held in Douglas' room and an official masquerade as part of the programme. David Kyle won the masquerade wearing a Ming the Merciless costume created by Leslie Perri, while Robert A. W. Lowndes received second place with a Bar Senestro costume (from the novel The Blind Spot by Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint). Other costumed attendees included guest of honor E. E. Smith as Northwest Smith (from C. L. Moore's series of short stories) and both Ackerman and Douglas wearing their futuristicostumes again. Masquerades and costume balls continued to be part of World Science Fiction Convention tradition thereafter. Early Worldcon masquerade balls featured a band, dancing, food and drinks. Contestants either walked across a stage or a cleared area of the dance floor. Ackerman wore a "Hunchbackerman of Notre Dame" costume to the 3rd Worldcon (1941), which included a mask designed and created by Ray Harryhausen, but soon stopped wearing costumes to conventions. Douglas wore an Akka costume (from A. Merritt's novel The Moon Pool), the mask again made by Harryhausen, to the 3rd Worldcon and a Snake Mother costume (another Merritt costume, from The Snake Mother) to the 4th Worldcon (1946). Terminology was yet unsettled; the 1944 edition of Jack Speer's Fancyclopedia used the term costume party. Rules governing costumes became established in response to specific costumes and costuming trends. The first nude contestant at a Worldcon masquerade was in 1952; but the height of this trend was in the 1970s and early 1980s, with a few every year. This eventually led to "No Costume is No Costume" rule, which banned full nudity, although partial nudity was still allowed as long as it was a legitimate representation of the character. Mike Resnick describes the best of the nude costumes as Kris Lundi wearing a harpy costume to the 32nd Worldcon (1974) (she received an honorable mention in the competition). Another costume that instigated a rule change was an attendee at the 20th Worldcon (1962) whose blaster prop fired a jet of real flame; which led to fire being banned. At the 30th WorldCon (1972), artist Scott Shaw wore a costume composed largely of peanut butter to represent his own underground comix character called "The Turd". The peanut butter rubbed off, doing damage to soft furnishings and other peoples' costumes, and then began to go rancid under the heat of the lighting. Food, odious, and messy substances were banned as costume elements after that event. Costuming spread with the science fiction conventions and the interaction of fandom. The earliest known instance of costuming at a convention in the United Kingdom was at the London Science Fiction Convention (1953) but this was only as part of a play. However, members of the Liverpool Science Fantasy Society attended the 1st Cytricon (1955), in Kettering, wearing costumes and continued to do so in subsequent years. The 15th Worldcon (1957) brought the first official convention masquerade to the UK. The 1960 Eastercon in London may have been the first British-based convention to hold an official fancy dress party as part of its programme. The joint winners were Ethel Lindsay and Ina Shorrock as two of the titular witches from the novel The Witches of Karres by James H. Schmitz. Star Trek conventions began in 1969 and major conventions began in 1972 and they have featured cosplay throughout. In Japan, costuming at conventions was a fan activity from at least the 1970s, especially after the launch of the Comiket convention in December 1975. Costuming at this time was known as kasō (仮装). The first documented case of costuming at a fan event in Japan was at Ashinocon (1978), in Hakone, at which future science fiction critic Mari Kotani wore a costume based on the cover art for Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel A Fighting Man of Mars.[Notes 1] In an interview Kotani states that there were about twenty costumed attendees at the convention's costume party—made up of members of her Triton of the Sea fan club and Kansai Entertainers (関西芸人, Kansai Geinin), antecedent of the Gainax anime studio—with most attendees in ordinary clothing. One of the Kansai group, an unnamed friend of Yasuhiro Takeda, wore an impromptu Tusken Raider costume (from the film Star Wars) made from one of the host-hotel's rolls of toilet paper. Costume contests became a permanent part of the Nihon SF Taikai conventions from Tokon VII in 1980. Possibly the first costume contest held at a comic book convention was at the 1st Academy Con held at Broadway Central Hotel in New York in August 1965. Roy Thomas, future editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics but then just transitioning from a fanzine editor to a professional comic book writer, attended in a Plastic Man costume. The first Masquerade Ball held at San Diego Comic-Con was in 1974 during the convention's 6th event. Voice actress June Foray was the master of ceremonies. Future scream queen Brinke Stevens won first place wearing a Vampirella costume. Ackerman (who was the creator of Vampirella) was in attendance and posed with Stevens for photographs. They became friends and, according to Stevens "Forry and his wife, Wendayne, soon became like my god parents." Photographer Dan Golden saw a photograph of Stevens in the Vampirella costume while visiting Ackerman's house, leading to him hiring her for a non-speaking role in her first student film, Zyzak is King (1980), and later photographing her for the cover of the first issue of Femme Fatales (1992). Stevens attributes these events to launching her acting career. As early as a year after the 1975 release of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, audience members began dressing as characters from the movie and role-playing (although the initial incentive for dressing-up was free admission) in often highly accurate costumes. Costume-Con, a conference dedicated to costuming, was first held in January 1983. The International Costumers Guild, Inc., originally known as the Greater Columbia Fantasy Costumer's Guild, was launched after the 3rd Costume-Con (1985) as a parent organization and to support costuming. Costuming had been a fan activity in Japan from the 1970s, and it became much more popular in the wake of Takahashi's report. The new term did not catch on immediately, however. It was a year or two after the article was published before it was in common use among fans at conventions. It was in the 1990s, after exposure on television and in magazines, that the term and practice of cosplaying became common knowledge in Japan. The first cosplay cafés appeared in the Akihabara area of Tokyo in the late 1990s. A temporary maid café was set up at the Tokyo Character Collection event in August 1998 to promote the video game Welcome to Pia Carrot 2 (1997). An occasional Pia Carrot Restaurant was held at the shop Gamers in Akihabara in the years up to 2000. Being linked to specific intellectual properties limited the lifespan of these cafés, which was solved by using generic maids, leading to the first permanent establishment, Cure Maid Café, which opened in March 2001. The first World Cosplay Summit was held on 12 October 2003 at the Rose Court Hotel in Nagoya, Japan, with five cosplayers invited from Germany, France and Italy. There was no contest until 2005, when the World Cosplay Championship began. The first winners were the Italian team of Giorgia Vecchini [it], Francesca Dani and Emilia Fata Livia. Worldcon masquerade attendance peaked in the 1980s and started to fall thereafter. This trend was reversed when the concept of cosplay was re-imported from Japan. Practice of cosplay Cosplay costumes vary greatly and can range from simple themed clothing to highly detailed costumes. It is generally considered different from Halloween and Mardi Gras costume wear, as the intention is to replicate a specific character, rather than to reflect the culture and symbolism of a holiday event. As such, when in costume, some cosplayers often seek to adopt the affect, mannerisms, and body language of the characters they portray (with "out of character" breaks). The characters chosen to be cosplayed may be sourced from any movie, TV series, book, comic book, video game, musical artist, anime, or manga. Some cosplayers even choose to cosplay an original character of their own design or a fusion of different genres (e.g., a steampunk version of a character), and it is a part of the ethos of cosplay that anybody can be anything, as with genderbending, crossplay, or drag, a cosplayer playing a character of another ethnicity, or a hijabi portraying Captain America. Cosplayers obtain their apparel through many different methods. Manufacturers produce and sell packaged outfits for use in cosplay, with varying levels of quality. These costumes are often sold online, but also can be purchased from dealers at conventions. Japanese manufacturers of cosplay costumes reported a profit of 35 billion yen in 2008. A number of individuals also work on commission, creating custom costumes, props, or wigs designed and fitted to the individual. Other cosplayers, who prefer to create their own costumes, still provide a market for individual elements, and various raw materials, such as unstyled wigs, hair dye, cloth and sewing notions, liquid latex, body paint, costume jewelry, and prop weapons. Cosplay represents an act of embodiment. Cosplay has been closely linked to the presentation of self, yet cosplayers' ability to perform is limited by their physical features. The accuracy of a cosplay is judged based on the ability to accurately represent a character through the body, and individual cosplayers frequently are faced by their own "bodily limits" such as level of attractiveness, body size, and disability that often restrict and confine how accurate the cosplay is perceived to be. Authenticity is measured by a cosplayer's individual ability to translate on-screen manifestation to the cosplay itself. Some have argued that cosplay can never be a true representation of the character; instead, it can only be read through the body, and that true embodiment of a character is judged based on nearness to the original character form. Cosplaying can also help some of those with self-esteem problems. Many cosplayers create their own outfits, referencing images of the characters in the process. In the creation of the outfits, much time is given to detail and qualities, thus the skill of a cosplayer may be measured by how difficult the details of the outfit are and how well they have been replicated. Because of the difficulty of replicating some details and materials, cosplayers often educate themselves in crafting specialties such as textiles, sculpture, face paint, fiberglass, fashion design, woodworking, and other uses of materials in the effort to render the look and texture of a costume accurately. Cosplayers often wear wigs in conjunction with their outfit to further improve the resemblance to the character. This is especially necessary for anime and manga or video-game characters who often have unnaturally colored and uniquely styled hair. Simpler outfits may be compensated for their lack of complexity by paying attention to material choice and overall high quality. To look more like the characters they are portraying, cosplayers might also engage in various forms of body modification. Cosplayers may opt to change their skin color utilizing make-up to more simulate the race of the character they are adopting. Contact lenses that match the color of their character's eyes are a common form of this, especially in the case of characters with particularly unique eyes as part of their trademark look. Contact lenses that make the pupil look enlarged to visually echo the large eyes of anime and manga characters are also used. Another form of body modification in which cosplayers engage is to copy any tattoos or special markings their character might have. Temporary tattoos, permanent marker, body paint, and in rare cases, permanent tattoos, are all methods used by cosplayers to achieve the desired look. Permanent and temporary hair dye, spray-in hair coloring, and specialized extreme styling products are all used by some cosplayers whose natural hair can achieve the desired hairstyle. It is also commonplace for them to shave off their eyebrows to gain a more accurate look. Some anime and video game characters have weapons or other accessories that are hard to replicate, and conventions have strict rules regarding those weapons, but most cosplayers engage in some combination of methods to obtain all the items necessary for their costumes; for example, they may commission a prop weapon, sew their own clothing, buy character jewelry from a cosplay accessory manufacturer, or buy a pair of off-the-rack shoes, and modify them to match the desired look. Cosplay may be presented in a number of ways and places. A subset of cosplay culture is centered on sex appeal, with cosplayers specifically choosing characters known for their attractiveness or revealing costumes. However, wearing a revealing costume can be a sensitive issue while appearing in public. People appearing naked at American science fiction fandom conventions during the 1970s were so common, a "no costume is no costume" rule was introduced. Some conventions throughout the United States, such as Phoenix Comicon (now known as Phoenix Fan Fusion) and Penny Arcade Expo, have also issued rules upon which they reserve the right to ask attendees to leave or change their costumes if deemed to be inappropriate to a family-friendly environment or something of a similar nature. The most popular form of presenting a cosplay publicly is by wearing it to a fan convention. Multiple conventions dedicated to anime and manga, comics, TV shows, video games, science fiction, and fantasy may be found all around the world. Cosplay-centered conventions include Cosplay Mania in the Philippines and EOY Cosplay Festival in Singapore. The single largest event featuring cosplay is the semiannual doujinshi market, Comic Market (Comiket), held in Japan during summer and winter. Comiket attracts hundreds of thousands of manga and anime fans, where thousands of cosplayers congregate on the roof of the exhibition center. In North America, the highest-attended fan conventions featuring cosplayers are San Diego Comic-Con and New York Comic Con held in the United States, and the anime-specific Anime North in Toronto, Otakon held in Washington, D.C. and Anime Expo held in Los Angeles. Europe's largest event is Japan Expo held in Paris, while the London MCM Expo and the London Super Comic Convention are the most notable in the UK. Supanova Pop Culture Expo is Australia's biggest event. Star Trek conventions have featured cosplay for many decades. These include Destination Star Trek, a UK convention, and Star Trek Las Vegas, a US convention. In different comic fairs, "Thematic Areas" are set up where cosplayers can take photos in an environment that follows that of the game or animation product from which they are taken. Sometimes the cosplayers are part of the area, playing the role of staff with the task of entertaining the other visitors. Some examples are the thematic areas dedicated to Star Wars or to Fallout. The areas are set up by not for profit associations of fans, but in some major fairs it is possible to visit areas set up directly by the developers of the video games or the producers of the anime. The appearance of cosplayers at public events makes them a popular draw for photographers. As this became apparent in the late 1980s, a new variant of cosplay developed in which cosplayers attended events mainly for the purpose of modeling their characters for still photography rather than engaging in continuous role play. Rules of etiquette were developed to minimize awkward situations involving boundaries. Cosplayers pose for photographers and photographers do not press them for personal contact information or private sessions, follow them out of the area, or take photos without permission. The rules allow the collaborative relationship between photographers and cosplayers to continue with the least inconvenience to each other. Some cosplayers choose to have a professional photographer take high quality images of them in their costumes posing as the character. Cosplayers and photographers frequently exhibit their work online and sometimes sell their images. As the popularity of cosplay has grown, many conventions have come to feature a contest surrounding cosplay that may be the main feature of the convention. Contestants present their cosplay, and often to be judged for an award, the cosplay must be self-made. The contestants may choose to perform a skit, which may consist of a short performed script or dance with optional accompanying audio, video, or images shown on a screen overhead. Other contestants may simply choose to pose as their characters. Often, contestants are briefly interviewed on stage by a master of ceremonies. The audience is given a chance to take photos of the cosplayers. Cosplayers may compete solo or in a group. Awards are presented, and these awards may vary greatly. Generally, a best cosplayer award, a best group award, and runner-up prizes are given. Awards may also go to the best skit and a number of cosplay skill subcategories, such as master tailor, master weapon-maker, master armorer, and so forth. The most well-known cosplay contest event is the World Cosplay Summit, selecting cosplayers from 40 countries to compete in the final round in Nagoya, Japan. Some other international events include European Cosplay Gathering (finals taking place at Japan Expo in Paris), EuroCosplay (finals taking place at London MCM Comic Con), and the Nordic Cosplay Championship (finals taking place at NärCon in Linköping, Sweden). This table contains a list of the most common cosplay competition judging criteria, as seen from World Cosplay Summit, Cyprus Comic Con, and ReplayFX. Portraying a character of the opposite sex is called crossplay. The practicality of crossplay and cross-dress stems in part from the abundance in manga of male characters with delicate and somewhat androgynous features. Such characters, known as bishōnen (lit. 'pretty boy'), are Asian equivalent of the elfin boy archetype represented in Western tradition by figures such as Peter Pan and Ariel. Male to female cosplayers may experience issues when trying to portray a female character because it is hard to maintain the sexualized femininity of a character. Male cosplayers may also be subjected to discrimination, including homophobic comments and being touched without permission. This affects men possibly even more often than it affects women, despite inappropriate contact already being a problem for women who cosplay, as is "slut-shaming". Animegao kigurumi players, a niche group in the realm of cosplay, are often male cosplayers who use zentai and stylized masks to represent female anime characters. These cosplayers completely hide their real features so the original appearance of their characters may be reproduced as literally as possible, and to display all the abstractions and stylizations such as oversized eyes and tiny mouths often seen in Japanese cartoon art. This does not mean that only males perform animegao or that masks are only female. "Cosplay Is Not Consent", a movement started in 2013 by Rochelle Keyhan, Erin Filson, and Anna Kegler, brought attention to the issue of sexual harassment in the convention attending cosplay community. Harassment of cosplayers include photography without permission, verbal abuse, touching, and groping. Harassment is not limited to women in provocative outfits as male cosplayers talked about being bullied for not fitting certain costume and characters. Starting in 2014, New York Comic Con placed large signs at the entrance stating that "Cosplay is Not Consent". Attendees were reminded to ask permission for photos and respect the person's right to say no. The movement against sexual harassment against cosplayers has continued to gain momentum and awareness since being publicized. Traditional mainstream news media like The Mercury News and Los Angeles Times have reported on the topic, bringing awareness of sexual harassment to those outside of the cosplay community. As cosplay has entered more mainstream media, ethnicity becomes a controversial point. Cosplayers of different skin color than the character are often ridiculed for not being 'accurate' or 'faithful'. Many cosplayers feel as if anyone can cosplay any character, but it becomes complicated when cosplayers are not respectful of the character's ethnicity. These views against non-white cosplayers within the community have been attributed to the lack of representation in the industry and in media. Issues such as blackface, brownface, and yellowface are still controversial since a large part of the cosplay community see these as separate problems, or simply an acceptable part of cosplay.[citation needed] Cosplay has influenced the advertising industry, in which cosplayers are often used for event work previously assigned to agency models. Some cosplayers have thus transformed their hobby into profitable, professional careers. Japan's entertainment industry has been home to the professional cosplayers since the rise of Comiket and Tokyo Game Show. The phenomenon is most apparent in Japan but exists to some degree in other countries as well. Professional cosplayers who profit from their art may experience problems related to copyright infringement. A cosplay model, also known as a cosplay idol, cosplays costumes for anime and manga or video game companies. Good cosplayers are viewed as fictional characters in the flesh, in much the same way that film actors come to be identified in the public mind with specific roles. Cosplayers have modeled for print magazines like Cosmode and a successful cosplay model can become the brand ambassador for companies like Cospa. Some cosplay models can achieve significant recognition. While there are many significant cosplay models, Yaya Han was described as having emerged "as a well-recognized figure both within and outside cosplay circuits". Jessica Nigri, used her recognition in cosplay to gain other opportunities such as voice acting and her own documentary on Rooster Teeth. Liz Katz used her fanbase to take her cosplay from a hobby to a successful business venture, sparking debate through the cosplay community whether cosplayers should be allowed to fund and profit from their work. In the 2000s, cosplayers started to push the boundaries of cosplay into eroticism paving the way to "erocosplay". The advent of social media coupled with crowdfunding platforms like Patreon and OnlyFans have allowed cosplay models to turn cosplay into profitable full-time careers. During protests During various protests, cosplaying as a satirization of important people and political events. In Myanmar various protests after the 2021 coup d'état various protests occurred with cosplayers. Youth groups protested on the roads by wearing cosplay costumes, skirts, wedding dresses, and other unusual clothing for daily life while holding signboards and vinyl banners that break with the country's more traditional protest messages for the purpose of grabbing attention from both domestic and international press media. Other times fictional characters are used to convey a message such as women dressing like characters from The Handmaid's Tale to protest bodily restrictions in the United States. Cosplay by country or region Cosplayers in Japan formerly referred to themselves as reiyā (レイヤー), pronounced "layer". In contemporary Japan, however, cosplayers are more commonly referred to as kosupure (コスプレ), pronounced "ko-su-pray", as the term reiyā is now more frequently used to describe literal layers (for example, hair or clothing). Words such as kawaii (可愛い) (lit. 'cute') and kakko ī (かっこいい) (lit. 'cool') were often used to describe these changes, expressions that were closely tied to notions of femininity and masculinity. Those who photograph players are known as cameko (カメコ), a shortened form of camera kozō (カメラ小僧) (lit. 'camera boy'). Originally, cameko would give printed photographs to players as gifts. Growing interest in cosplay events—both among photographers and cosplayers willing to model—has led to the formalization of procedures at events such as Comiket. Photography is conducted in designated areas separate from the exhibit halls. In Japan, wearing costumes outside of conventions or other designated areas is generally discouraged. Since 1998, Tokyo's Akihabara district has contained a number of cosplay restaurants catering to devoted anime and manga fans, in which waitresses dress as characters from video games, anime, or manga; maid cafés are particularly popular. In Japan, Tokyo's Harajuku district serves as a favored informal gathering place for engaging in cosplay in public. Events held in Akihabara also attract large numbers of cosplayers. Ishoku-hada (異色肌) is a form of Japanese cosplay in which players use body paint to alter their skin color to match that of the character they portray. This practice allows for the representation of anime or manga characters, as well as video game characters, with non-human skin tones. A 2014 survey conducted for the Comiket convention in Japan reported that approximately 75% of cosplayers attending the event were female. Cosplay is common in many East Asian countries. For example, it is a major part of the Comic World conventions taking place regularly in South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Historically, the practice of dressing up as characters from works of fiction can be traced as far as the 17th century late Ming dynasty China. Western cosplay developed primarily from science fiction and fantasy fandoms. Compared with Japan, Western cosplayers are more likely to portray characters originating from live-action television series and films. Western costuming traditions also encompass a variety of related hobbyist subcultures, including participants in Renaissance faires, live action role-playing games, and historical reenactments. Costume competitions at science fiction conventions commonly feature masquerades, in which costumes are formally judged during stage presentations, as well as hall costumes that are evaluated informally throughout the event. The growing international popularity of Japanese cartoon during the late 2000s contributed to a rise in American and other Western cosplayers portraying characters from manga and anime. Over the following decade, anime conventions became increasingly common across Western countries, often rivaling long-established science fiction, comic book, and historical conventions in terms of attendance. At these events, cosplayers—much like their Japanese counterparts—gather to display their costumes, be photographed, and participate in competitive costume events. Convention attendees also frequently choose to dress as characters from Western comic books, animated works, films, and video games. Despite increasing global exchange, cultural differences in taste remain evident. Certain costume styles that may be worn without hesitation by Japanese cosplayers are often avoided in Western contexts, particularly those that resemble Nazi uniforms. Western cosplayers may also encounter debates regarding legitimacy when portraying characters whose canonical racial backgrounds differ from their own, and instances of insensitivity toward cosplayers depicting characters of different skin tones have been documented. Western cosplayers who portray anime characters may likewise experience targeted ridicule or misunderstanding. In comparison with Japan, wearing costumes in public spaces is generally more socially accepted in countries such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States, and Canada. These regions possess longer-standing traditions of Halloween costuming, fan dress, and related practices. Consequently, it is not uncommon for convention attendees in costume to be seen in nearby restaurants and public venues outside the immediate boundaries of the event itself. Media Japan is home to two especially popular cosplay magazines, Cosmode (コスモード) and ASCII Media Works' Dengeki Layers (電撃Layers). Cosmode has the largest share in the market and an English-language digital edition. Another magazine, aimed at a broader, worldwide audience is CosplayGen. In the United States, Cosplay Culture began publication in February 2015. Other magazines include CosplayZine featuring cosplayers from all over the world since October 2015, and Cosplay Realm Magazine which was started in April 2017. There are many books on the subject of cosplay as well. Cosplay groups and organizations See also Notes References Bibliography External links
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IGN] \| [TOKENS: 3611]
Contents IGN IGN[b] is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former editor-in-chief, Peer Schneider. The IGN website was the brainchild of media entrepreneur Chris Anderson and launched on September 29, 1996. IGN features articles on games, films, anime, television, comics, technology, and other media. Originally a network of desktop websites, IGN is also distributed on mobile platforms, console programs available on the Xbox and PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, PC, Mobile, FireTV, Roku, and via YouTube, Twitch, Hulu, and Snapchat. Originally, IGN was the flagship website of IGN Entertainment, a website which owned and operated several other websites oriented towards players' interests, games, and entertainment, such as Rotten Tomatoes, GameSpy, GameStats, VE3D, TeamXbox, Vault Network, FilePlanet, and AskMen. IGN was sold to publishing company Ziff Davis in February 2013. History IGN was created in September 1996 as the Imagine Games Network, the IGN content network was founded by publishing executive Jonathan Simpson-Bint and began as five individual websites within Imagine Media: N64.com (later renamed ign64.com), PSXPower, Saturnworld, Next-Generation.com and Ultra Game Players Online. Imagine expanded on its owned-and-operated websites by creating an affiliate network that included a number of independent fansites such as PSX Nation.com, Sega-Saturn.com, Game Sages, and GameFAQs. In 1998, the network launched a new homepage that consolidated the individual sites as system channels under the IGN brand. The homepage exposed content from more than 30 different channels. Websites Next-Generation and Ultra Game Players Online were not part of this consolidation; U.G.P.O. dissolved with the cancellation of the magazine, and Next-Generation was put "on hold" when Imagine decided to concentrate on launching the short-lived Daily Radar brand. In February 1999, PC Magazine named IGN one of the hundred-best websites, alongside competitors GameSpot and CNET Gamecenter. That same month, Imagine Media incorporated a spin-off that included IGN and its affiliate channels as Affiliation Networks, while Simpson-Bint remained at the former company. In September, the newly spun-out standalone internet media company, changed its name to Snowball.com. At the same time, small entertainment website The Den merged into IGN and added non-gaming content to the growing network. Snowball held an IPO in 2000, but shed most of its other properties during the dot-com bubble. IGN prevailed with growing audience numbers and a newly established subscription service called IGN Insider (later IGN Prime), which led to the shedding of the name "Snowball" and adoption of IGN Entertainment on May 10, 2002. In June 2005, IGN reported having 24,000,000 unique visitors per month, with 4.8 million registered users through all departments of the site. IGN has been ranked among the top 500 most-visited websites according to Alexa. In September 2005, IGN was acquired by Rupert Murdoch's multimedia business empire, News Corporation, for $650 million. IGN celebrated its 10th anniversary on January 12, 2008. IGN was headquartered in the Marina Point Parkway office park in Brisbane, California, until it relocated to a smaller office building near AT&T Park in San Francisco on March 29, 2010. On May 25, 2011, IGN sold its Direct2Drive division to Gamefly for an undisclosed amount. In 2011, IGN Entertainment acquired its rival UGO Entertainment (owners of 1Up.com) from Hearst Corporation. Ultimately, News Corp. planned to spin off IGN Entertainment as a publicly traded company, continuing a string of divestitures for digital properties it had previously acquired (including MySpace and Photobucket). On February 4, 2013, after a failed attempt to spin off IGN as a separate company, News Corp. announced that it had sold IGN Entertainment to the publishing company Ziff Davis, which was recently acquired by J2 Global. Financial details regarding the purchase were not revealed. Prior to its acquisition by UGO, 1UP.com had previously been owned by Ziff Davis. Soon after the acquisition, IGN announced that it would be laying off staff and closing GameSpy, 1UP.com, and UGO in order to focus on its flagship brands, IGN and AskMen. The role-playing video game interest website Vault Network was acquired by IGN in 1999. GameStats, a review aggregation website, was founded by IGN in 2004. GameStats includes a "GPM" (Game Popularity Metric) rating system which incorporates an average press score and average gamer score, as well as the number of page hits for the game. However, the site is no longer being updated. The Xbox interest site, TeamXbox, and the PC game website VE3D (Voodoo Extreme 3D) were acquired in 2003. IGN Entertainment merged with GameSpy Industries in 2005. The merger also brought the game download site FilePlanet into the IGN group; as of 2011 both FilePlanet and the GameSpy website still operate as video game-related web sites. IGN Entertainment acquired the online male lifestyle magazine AskMen in 2005. In 2004, IGN acquired film review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes and in 2010, sold the website to Flixster. In October 2017, Humble Bundle announced that it was being acquired by IGN. IGN Entertainment acquired Gamer Network and its properties in May 2024 for an undisclosed sum. These included Eurogamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, VG247 and others. As a result, some layoffs were made due to redundancies. A member of the IGN staff writes a review for a game and gives it a score between 0.1 and 10.0, which is assigned by increments of 0.1 and determines how much the game is recommended. The score is given according to the "individual aspects of a game, like presentation, graphics, sound, gameplay and lasting appeal". Each game is given a score in each of these categories, but the overall score for the game is an independent evaluation, not an average of the scores in each category. On August 3, 2010, IGN announced that the site would be changing to a new scoring scale. Instead of a 100-point scale, where games are scored in increments of 0.1, all future reviews would use a 20-point scale where games are scored in increments of 0.5. Under both systems, the maximum possible score a game can receive is 10.0. The scoring change was not retroactive: all scores on reviews written before the change would remain the same. This change also did not affect the scoring system for reader reviews. On September 13, 2012, IGN revealed that as part of its new review format all future reviews would follow a 100-point scale again, but without using decimals, meaning a score of 8.5 would become an 85. Unlike the previous conversion to the 20-point scale, this latest scoring system change was retroactive and all previous IGN review scores were to be updated to follow the new system. However, despite the announcement, the article included a short addition, post-release; it stated that after much discussion, they had decided to retain the decimal point in all upcoming scores. In early 2014, IGN introduced a new policy, in which a game's review score can be re-reviewed and improved, provided that continuous updates form a significant change compared to the game at launch. Examples of games that have been re-reviewed were League of Legends, Heroes of the Storm, Warframe, and the pocket edition of Minecraft. In January 2020, IGN revealed that reviews would be reverted to a 10-point scale, from 1 to 10, finding that the finer distinction of the 100-point scale was difficult to maintain, whereas a 10-point scale would still be true to its reviews and would be easier to promote. IGN 'Best of' awards IGN's 'Best of' is an end-of-year event to annually honor the year's best games, films, television shows and comics. Winners of each award category are selected by IGN staff from a list of nominees, while readers are able to cast their own votes online to determine the 'People's Choice' award for each category. Other sections In 2000, Snowball.com purchased an E-federation called the Internet Wrestling Organization (IWO). Since Snowball owned both IWO and IGN, IWO would go on to become IGN's first official E-Fed, even doing a column on the website. The IGN For Men section officially closed down on October 2, 2001, and is no longer updated. IGN has sites such as IGN Stars and AskMen.com that fulfil much of the function of the old IGN For Men site. IGN Wrestling met its end in early 2002 when many of the staff departed. Interviews with professional wrestling personalities and coverage of wrestling games have been folded into IGN Sports, headed by Jon Robinson. IGN Sci-Fi: Largely dead since 2002, this section of the site included movie news, comic book reviews, anime coverage and other associated items. It has since been discontinued. The site, SciFI.ign.com redirects to the recently created SciFiBrain.ign.com, which covers some of the content of the old Sci-Fi site.[citation needed] In 2002, IGN launched a dedicated video game FAQs site specifically designed to host user-submitted guides. This was launched following the cancellation of affiliation with GameFAQs.[citation needed] In 2004, IGN launched GameStats, which was intended to be a more unbiased rating network, as it takes in scores from every corporate-owned game rating site and averages them all into one score to give a general idea of the quality of a game. IGN also launched Direct2Drive.com in 2004. Its primary focus is selling digital downloads of full PC and Mac video games, as well as anime, comics and game guides. In 2005, IGN launched its comics site, which is devoted to not just the staple Marvel and DC titles, but also manga, graphic novels, statues and toys.[citation needed] In 2006, IGN launched its television site. It provides interviews with various television celebrities, in addition to a TV schedule, TV trivia and TV news. Like the film section, IGN's TV section has a variety of exclusive clips from upcoming television shows.[citation needed] On May 30, 2006, IGN Dreamcast was restarted; however, none of the Dreamcast updates were posted on the main IGN webpage.[citation needed] In 2007, IGN launched its anime site. It provided features on anime and manga, including trailers and free episodes. It also included reviews of manga and anime from other sections of IGN, such as IGN Comics and IGN DVD. The anime channel was dropped after IGN redesigned the site. In 2008, the IGN Retro channel was launched to mark IGN's 10th anniversary. To coincide with the release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl, IGN created the Super Smash Bros. World site. On the site, people can submit their user-created stages from the game and download ones made by other people. IGN subsequently launched a similar website called GTA 'Hood on April 29, 2008, for Grand Theft Auto IV.[citation needed] Along with its popular website content, IGN also publishes many different podcasts on both its website and on iTunes. Some of its podcasts include console-oriented shows like the PlayStation-focused "Podcast Beyond" and the Xbox-oriented "Podcast Unlocked", the Nintendo-oriented "Nintendo Voice Chat", and Game Scoop!, a podcast where a variety of editors discuss news and topics surrounding the video game industry. Regional websites IGN has 28 editions in 25 languages, as of 2021. The US & Canada, UK & Ireland, and Australia & New Zealand editions are operated by Ziff Davis subsidiaries, with all others being franchised publishers. Since 2006, IGN Entertainment began launching regional versions of the website for various countries and pan-regions. Initially, IGN began opening new offices outside the United States in order to support those regional websites, but later IGN began franchising its brand as a more cost-effective means of globalization, wherein it licensed various media publishers in many countries to use the IGN brand and manage regional websites on their own. Licensed regional publishers work on their own servers, albeit can link to IGN's HQ database, where they can import or translate articles, and use videos uploaded on IGN's servers that use IGN's own hosted video player.[citation needed] When visiting www.ign.com from an IGN-supported region, the site automatically redirects visitors to their localized version using geolocation software, based on their countries' IP addresses. Each version of the site has a modified logo with their country's/region's respective flags near the IGN logo. However, it is still possible to access the original American website using a navigation bar above or below (depending on the regional website) the page's master template.[citation needed] IGN Con IGN Convention (IGN Con) is a video games, movies, comics and pop culture convention held in various cities in the Middle East. The event generally includes celebrities, video game tournaments, table top games, card games, movie previews, comic book stalls and a cosplay competition. A number of Middle Eastern artists and game developers also showcase their work at IGN Convention. This convention is owned and operated by IGN Middle East, the Middle Eastern edition of popular video games website IGN. IGN Convention is the spiritual successor to GameFest, a biannual, smaller scale gaming gallery which was originally hosted by IGN Middle East's parent company T-break Media between 2010 and 2012, before the hosting duties were subsequently taken over by AMD EMEA. The IGN Convention logo was designed by prominent Gulf based artist Ashraf Ghori. Conferences have included: IGN Pro League In 2011, IGN launched IGN Pro League, a professional esports circuit that ran tournaments for StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty, ShootMania Storm and League of Legends. On March 6, 2013, only weeks prior to the event, IGN abruptly canceled the finals of IPL 6—which were to be held in Las Vegas from March 28 through 31, and discontinued the league. IGN indicated that it was no longer in a position to commit to compete with the increasing number of esports events that were being held. On April 8, 2013, Blizzard Entertainment announced that it had acquired the staff and assets of the IPL from IGN; its former staff were reassigned to work on in-house esports productions. Controversies In 2007, Video Game Media Watch accused former IGN editor Doug Perry of "journalistic misconduct" for an exclusive review of Prey. In November 2017, some IGN employees refused to work to show solidarity with Kallie Plagge, a former editor who alleged that in 2016, another editor, Vince Ingenito, sexually harassed her and another female employee and made inappropriate comments. Human resources allegedly told her that she "needed to have better judgment about who [she] was 'friends' with" and that she was an "equal participant" in "inappropriate flirtation". This incident was widely circulated across social media. In August 2018, the owner of YouTube channel Boomstick Gaming accused the IGN reviewer Filip Miucin of plagiarizing his video review of the game Dead Cells. On August 7, IGN stated that it had found "substantial similarities" between the reviews, apologized, and announced that it had dismissed Miucin. On August 10, IGN published a new review by Brandin Tyrrel, which included an editor's note apologizing again and stating that "this review (and its score) represents solely the opinion of the new reviewer". In a subsequently unlisted video, Miucin responded that while he took "complete ownership over what happened", the similarity was not intentional. Kotaku found similarities between Miucin's other reviews, reviews on Nintendo Life and Engadget and material posted on the games discussion forum NeoGAF. On August 14, IGN announced that it would remove all of Miucin's work pending further review. On April 19, 2019, Miucin admitted plagiarism and issued an apology on his YouTube channel. During the 2021 Israel–Palestine crisis, the main IGN site posted an article on May 14 urging readers to donate to charities helping Palestinian civilians such as the Palestine Children's Relief Fund and linked to relevant news reporting. A Palestinian flag was also added besides the IGN logo. Shortly after the article went up IGN Israel made statements on social media condemning the article. The Palestinian flag was soon replaced with a Red Cross. On May 16, the article was deleted and a statement was made on the IGN Twitter account saying that it was wrong to only highlight one side of the conflict. A reposted version on South Africa-based IGN Africa was also removed. On May 17, over 60 members of IGN's staff signed an open letter condemning the article's removal for going against the site's editorial freedom and policies for retracting or correcting articles, as well as the lack of communication with IGN staff. IGN reinstated the article on August 24 under a new headline alongside a statement of newly formalized editorial policies. Television and films Notes References External links
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_effects] \| [TOKENS: 803]
Contents Visual effects Visual effects (sometimes abbreviated as VFX) is the process by which imagery is created or manipulated outside the context of a live-action shot in filmmaking and video production. The integration of live-action footage and other live-action footage or computer-generated imagery (CGI) elements to create realistic imagery is called VFX. VFX involves the integration of live-action footage (which may include in-camera special effects) and generated-imagery (digital or optics, animals or creatures) which look realistic, but would be dangerous, expensive, impractical, time-consuming or impossible to capture on film. Visual effects using CGI have more recently become accessible to the independent filmmaker with the introduction of affordable and relatively easy-to-use animation and compositing software. History In 1857, Oscar Rejlander created the world's first "special effects" image by combining different sections of 32 negatives into a single image, making a montaged combination print. In 1895, Alfred Clark created what is commonly accepted as the first-ever motion picture special effect. While filming a reenactment of the beheading of Mary, Queen of Scots, Clark instructed an actor to step up to the block in Mary's costume. As the executioner brought the axe above his head, Clark stopped the camera, had all the actors freeze, and had the person playing Mary step off the set. He placed a Mary dummy in the actor's place, restarted filming, and allowed the executioner to bring the axe down, severing the dummy's head. Techniques like these would dominate the production of special effects for a century. It was not only the first use of trickery in cinema, it was also the first type of photographic trickery that was only possible in a motion picture, and referred to as the "stop trick". Georges Méliès, an early motion picture pioneer, accidentally discovered the same "stop trick". According to Méliès, his camera jammed while filming a street scene in Paris. When he screened the film, he found that the "stop trick" had caused a truck to turn into a hearse, pedestrians to change direction, and men to turn into women. Méliès, the director of the Théâtre Robert-Houdin, was inspired to develop a series of more than 500 short films, between 1896 and 1913, in the process developing or inventing such techniques as multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand-painted color. Because of his ability to seemingly manipulate and transform reality with the cinematograph, the prolific Méliès is sometimes referred to as the "Cinemagician". His most famous film, Le Voyage dans la lune (1902), a whimsical parody of Jules Verne's From the Earth to the Moon, featured a combination of live action and animation, and also incorporated extensive miniature and matte painting work. VFX today is heavily used in almost all movies produced. Other than films, television series and web series are also known to utilize VFX. Techniques Production pipeline Visual effects are often integral to a movie's story and appeal. Although most visual effects work is completed during post-production, it usually must be carefully planned and choreographed in pre-production and production. While special effects such as explosions and car chases are made on set, visual effects are primarily executed in post-production with the use of multiple tools and technologies such as graphic design, modeling, animation and similar software. A visual effects supervisor is usually involved with the production from an early stage to work closely with production and the film's director to design, guide and lead the teams required to achieve the desired effects. Many studios specialize in visual effects; among them are Digital Domain, DreamWorks, DNEG, Framestore, Weta Digital, Industrial Light & Magic, Pixomondo, Moving Picture Company, Animal Logic, Reel FX Animation, Sony Pictures Imageworks and Jellyfish Pictures. See also References Sources
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herobrine#cite_note-:5-11] \| [TOKENS: 1629]
Contents Herobrine Herobrine is an urban legend and creepypasta from the sandbox video game Minecraft. He is often depicted as a version of the Minecraft character Steve, but with solid white eyes that lack pupils, and behavior that primarily involves destroying the player's world. The story originated from an anonymous post on 4chan's /v/ board in 2010, where the author reported encountering a strange figure in a single-player world, followed by their messages being deleted when they attempted to talk to other players about the sighting. The story was further popularized after livestreamers Copeland and Patimuss created their own versions. Herobrine has become a popular part of the online culture surrounding Minecraft, as well as effectively an internet meme. Interest in the character inspired many to create their own stories and alleged sightings centered around Herobrine, as well as create Minecraft mods that add him to the game. Interest in the character continued into the 2020s, leading to the rediscovery of formerly lost media related to the original sightings. Herobrine has been considered one of the most notable legends in video games, with his popularity leading to him ranking on a Guinness World Records poll for the best video game villains despite never truly existing within Minecraft. The character has been referenced several times by the developers of Minecraft, appearing on official artwork as well. Origins and characteristics In 2010, during Minecraft's alpha stage of development, an anonymous post was made on 4chan's /v/ board, where the author claimed to encounter a mysterious entity while playing the game. The post claimed that shortly after starting a new world, the author saw what they believed to be a cow in the distance, which they approached in order to kill it. Upon approaching it, they instead saw a second player character with solid white eyes staring at them from the fog before vanishing. After the encounter, the author noticed numerous strange structures that they did not create. They claimed that when trying to contact other players about the event, they found their posts removed, eventually receiving a message from a user named "Herobrine" that simply said "stop." The anonymous post went on to claim that other players informed him that Herobrine was the alias of the brother of Notch, the creator of Minecraft. The 4chan post claimed that Notch said, in response to queries about whether he had a brother, "I did, but he is no longer with us." Around the same time, another anonymous post on 4chan wrote about another entity the author seemingly encountered in a cave after listening to the in-game music disc "13", which also had white eyes that lurked in the fog. This encounter was simply named "White Eyes", and was believed to be related to Herobrine. Shortly after the original stories were published, livestreamers Copeland and Patimuss, the former of which saw and liked the original posts, staged Herobrine encounters of their own. In Copeland's stream, he played in a survival world with a custom texture pack for around two hours while working on a house. After entering a room he was planning on furnishing, he saw Herobrine staring at him and he quickly left the house and exited the game, before ending the livestream. This encounter was created by Copeland modifying in-game textures to make Herobrine appear. Afterwards, viewers of the livestream were redirected to a GIF depicting Herobrine with moving, realistic eyes. In Patimuss' stream, he encountered Herobrine walking on lava while playing the game, before promptly shutting the game down. After Copeland's stream, he claimed that his computer crashed when trying to go live again afterwards. He then shared a webpage with the title "him.html". The page featured a gif of Steve, the default skin of Minecraft, with his pixelated eyes replaced with realistic, moving ones, as well as text at the bottom that wrote about how the reader was "living in a fantasy world inside their mind" and needed to "wake up." This granted Herobrine the additional nickname "HIM." After these streams, the popularity of Herobrine spread across the Minecraft community, with people creating their own alleged sightings, as well as developing Minecraft mods to add the character to the game themselves. Most claimed sightings of Herobrine are accompanied by red text annotations and eerie music. In stories and mods centered around Herobrine, he is typically summoned through the creation of a structure made up of gold and other in-game materials. His most common traits include constructing abnormal structures and causing destruction, such as by digging random tunnels throughout the world and removing the leaves from trees. Reception and legacy Herobrine gained widespread popularity in the 2010s, becoming a notable part of the Minecraft community and an internet meme. Several other Minecraft creepypastas have been created by fans, such as Entity 303, though none were able to reach similar levels of notoriety as Herobrine. VG247 writer Nadia Oxford described Herobrine as one of the Minecraft fan works, and IGN writer Paul Dean wrote Herobrine to be the "most popular example of a game haunting ever." Lauren Morton of PC Gamer wrote that, despite Herobrine never having truly existed, the character "lives on in the minds of plenty of Minecraft players" who were interested in him when younger. Gabriel Menotti cited Herobrine as an example of how user-generated recordings for video games could change player's imaginations, and view the game beyond its original scope. Some players believed Herobrine to be real despite the character never existing, which caused employees of Mojang to comment on the character. Notch in particular has denied the existence of Herobrine numerous times, and tweeted that he never had a brother in 2011. Despite this, Mojang has made many references to Herobrine; in numerous versions of Minecraft, the update logs have included the term "Removed Herobrine" as a joke. "We don't usually talk about Herobrine," Minecraft lead designer Jens "Jeb" Bergensten told G1. "It's a mystery [...] And we don't quite confirm if it's true or false.": 00:21–46 Minecraft director Agnes Larsson added that a creature in the game called the Warden takes inspiration from the community's horror "myths". In A Minecraft Movie (2025), a film adaptation of Minecraft, a scene depicts Steve (portrayed by Jack Black) with glowing white eyes, during a hallucination from an enderman. This scene was widely interpreted by fans as a reference to Herobrine, although creative director Torfi Frans Olafsson stated that the white eyes were actually a visual effects glitch that was left in due to time constraints. Several viewed this as an ironic coincidence due to Herobrine's nature as a figure that haunts the game and doesn't truly exist. In 2013, Herobrine ranked 46th on a poll for the Top 50 Video Game Villains of All Time, which was organized by Guinness World Records. Fan-made books based on Herobrine have been published, such as The Legend of Herobrine. In 2021, continued interest in the story resulted in the world seed of the original Herobrine sighting being discovered by a group of players known as the Minecraft@Home project. Similarly, in 2020, a Minecraft player known as Enderboss25 gained contact with Copeland in an effort to recover the footage of the original livestream that caused Herobrine's popularity. While the original footage was long gone, the original world file was recovered, and a recreation of the livestream was made in a joint effort by the two. In July 2024, the original livestream was uploaded to YouTube by user brutallillfjomp, who had saved the stream in 2010 and was unaware that it was considered lost until watching a video on it the previous day. References External links
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herobrine#cite_note-14] \| [TOKENS: 1629]
Contents Herobrine Herobrine is an urban legend and creepypasta from the sandbox video game Minecraft. He is often depicted as a version of the Minecraft character Steve, but with solid white eyes that lack pupils, and behavior that primarily involves destroying the player's world. The story originated from an anonymous post on 4chan's /v/ board in 2010, where the author reported encountering a strange figure in a single-player world, followed by their messages being deleted when they attempted to talk to other players about the sighting. The story was further popularized after livestreamers Copeland and Patimuss created their own versions. Herobrine has become a popular part of the online culture surrounding Minecraft, as well as effectively an internet meme. Interest in the character inspired many to create their own stories and alleged sightings centered around Herobrine, as well as create Minecraft mods that add him to the game. Interest in the character continued into the 2020s, leading to the rediscovery of formerly lost media related to the original sightings. Herobrine has been considered one of the most notable legends in video games, with his popularity leading to him ranking on a Guinness World Records poll for the best video game villains despite never truly existing within Minecraft. The character has been referenced several times by the developers of Minecraft, appearing on official artwork as well. Origins and characteristics In 2010, during Minecraft's alpha stage of development, an anonymous post was made on 4chan's /v/ board, where the author claimed to encounter a mysterious entity while playing the game. The post claimed that shortly after starting a new world, the author saw what they believed to be a cow in the distance, which they approached in order to kill it. Upon approaching it, they instead saw a second player character with solid white eyes staring at them from the fog before vanishing. After the encounter, the author noticed numerous strange structures that they did not create. They claimed that when trying to contact other players about the event, they found their posts removed, eventually receiving a message from a user named "Herobrine" that simply said "stop." The anonymous post went on to claim that other players informed him that Herobrine was the alias of the brother of Notch, the creator of Minecraft. The 4chan post claimed that Notch said, in response to queries about whether he had a brother, "I did, but he is no longer with us." Around the same time, another anonymous post on 4chan wrote about another entity the author seemingly encountered in a cave after listening to the in-game music disc "13", which also had white eyes that lurked in the fog. This encounter was simply named "White Eyes", and was believed to be related to Herobrine. Shortly after the original stories were published, livestreamers Copeland and Patimuss, the former of which saw and liked the original posts, staged Herobrine encounters of their own. In Copeland's stream, he played in a survival world with a custom texture pack for around two hours while working on a house. After entering a room he was planning on furnishing, he saw Herobrine staring at him and he quickly left the house and exited the game, before ending the livestream. This encounter was created by Copeland modifying in-game textures to make Herobrine appear. Afterwards, viewers of the livestream were redirected to a GIF depicting Herobrine with moving, realistic eyes. In Patimuss' stream, he encountered Herobrine walking on lava while playing the game, before promptly shutting the game down. After Copeland's stream, he claimed that his computer crashed when trying to go live again afterwards. He then shared a webpage with the title "him.html". The page featured a gif of Steve, the default skin of Minecraft, with his pixelated eyes replaced with realistic, moving ones, as well as text at the bottom that wrote about how the reader was "living in a fantasy world inside their mind" and needed to "wake up." This granted Herobrine the additional nickname "HIM." After these streams, the popularity of Herobrine spread across the Minecraft community, with people creating their own alleged sightings, as well as developing Minecraft mods to add the character to the game themselves. Most claimed sightings of Herobrine are accompanied by red text annotations and eerie music. In stories and mods centered around Herobrine, he is typically summoned through the creation of a structure made up of gold and other in-game materials. His most common traits include constructing abnormal structures and causing destruction, such as by digging random tunnels throughout the world and removing the leaves from trees. Reception and legacy Herobrine gained widespread popularity in the 2010s, becoming a notable part of the Minecraft community and an internet meme. Several other Minecraft creepypastas have been created by fans, such as Entity 303, though none were able to reach similar levels of notoriety as Herobrine. VG247 writer Nadia Oxford described Herobrine as one of the Minecraft fan works, and IGN writer Paul Dean wrote Herobrine to be the "most popular example of a game haunting ever." Lauren Morton of PC Gamer wrote that, despite Herobrine never having truly existed, the character "lives on in the minds of plenty of Minecraft players" who were interested in him when younger. Gabriel Menotti cited Herobrine as an example of how user-generated recordings for video games could change player's imaginations, and view the game beyond its original scope. Some players believed Herobrine to be real despite the character never existing, which caused employees of Mojang to comment on the character. Notch in particular has denied the existence of Herobrine numerous times, and tweeted that he never had a brother in 2011. Despite this, Mojang has made many references to Herobrine; in numerous versions of Minecraft, the update logs have included the term "Removed Herobrine" as a joke. "We don't usually talk about Herobrine," Minecraft lead designer Jens "Jeb" Bergensten told G1. "It's a mystery [...] And we don't quite confirm if it's true or false.": 00:21–46 Minecraft director Agnes Larsson added that a creature in the game called the Warden takes inspiration from the community's horror "myths". In A Minecraft Movie (2025), a film adaptation of Minecraft, a scene depicts Steve (portrayed by Jack Black) with glowing white eyes, during a hallucination from an enderman. This scene was widely interpreted by fans as a reference to Herobrine, although creative director Torfi Frans Olafsson stated that the white eyes were actually a visual effects glitch that was left in due to time constraints. Several viewed this as an ironic coincidence due to Herobrine's nature as a figure that haunts the game and doesn't truly exist. In 2013, Herobrine ranked 46th on a poll for the Top 50 Video Game Villains of All Time, which was organized by Guinness World Records. Fan-made books based on Herobrine have been published, such as The Legend of Herobrine. In 2021, continued interest in the story resulted in the world seed of the original Herobrine sighting being discovered by a group of players known as the Minecraft@Home project. Similarly, in 2020, a Minecraft player known as Enderboss25 gained contact with Copeland in an effort to recover the footage of the original livestream that caused Herobrine's popularity. While the original footage was long gone, the original world file was recovered, and a recreation of the livestream was made in a joint effort by the two. In July 2024, the original livestream was uploaded to YouTube by user brutallillfjomp, who had saved the stream in 2010 and was unaware that it was considered lost until watching a video on it the previous day. References External links
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herobrine#cite_ref-:0_1-4] \| [TOKENS: 1629]
Contents Herobrine Herobrine is an urban legend and creepypasta from the sandbox video game Minecraft. He is often depicted as a version of the Minecraft character Steve, but with solid white eyes that lack pupils, and behavior that primarily involves destroying the player's world. The story originated from an anonymous post on 4chan's /v/ board in 2010, where the author reported encountering a strange figure in a single-player world, followed by their messages being deleted when they attempted to talk to other players about the sighting. The story was further popularized after livestreamers Copeland and Patimuss created their own versions. Herobrine has become a popular part of the online culture surrounding Minecraft, as well as effectively an internet meme. Interest in the character inspired many to create their own stories and alleged sightings centered around Herobrine, as well as create Minecraft mods that add him to the game. Interest in the character continued into the 2020s, leading to the rediscovery of formerly lost media related to the original sightings. Herobrine has been considered one of the most notable legends in video games, with his popularity leading to him ranking on a Guinness World Records poll for the best video game villains despite never truly existing within Minecraft. The character has been referenced several times by the developers of Minecraft, appearing on official artwork as well. Origins and characteristics In 2010, during Minecraft's alpha stage of development, an anonymous post was made on 4chan's /v/ board, where the author claimed to encounter a mysterious entity while playing the game. The post claimed that shortly after starting a new world, the author saw what they believed to be a cow in the distance, which they approached in order to kill it. Upon approaching it, they instead saw a second player character with solid white eyes staring at them from the fog before vanishing. After the encounter, the author noticed numerous strange structures that they did not create. They claimed that when trying to contact other players about the event, they found their posts removed, eventually receiving a message from a user named "Herobrine" that simply said "stop." The anonymous post went on to claim that other players informed him that Herobrine was the alias of the brother of Notch, the creator of Minecraft. The 4chan post claimed that Notch said, in response to queries about whether he had a brother, "I did, but he is no longer with us." Around the same time, another anonymous post on 4chan wrote about another entity the author seemingly encountered in a cave after listening to the in-game music disc "13", which also had white eyes that lurked in the fog. This encounter was simply named "White Eyes", and was believed to be related to Herobrine. Shortly after the original stories were published, livestreamers Copeland and Patimuss, the former of which saw and liked the original posts, staged Herobrine encounters of their own. In Copeland's stream, he played in a survival world with a custom texture pack for around two hours while working on a house. After entering a room he was planning on furnishing, he saw Herobrine staring at him and he quickly left the house and exited the game, before ending the livestream. This encounter was created by Copeland modifying in-game textures to make Herobrine appear. Afterwards, viewers of the livestream were redirected to a GIF depicting Herobrine with moving, realistic eyes. In Patimuss' stream, he encountered Herobrine walking on lava while playing the game, before promptly shutting the game down. After Copeland's stream, he claimed that his computer crashed when trying to go live again afterwards. He then shared a webpage with the title "him.html". The page featured a gif of Steve, the default skin of Minecraft, with his pixelated eyes replaced with realistic, moving ones, as well as text at the bottom that wrote about how the reader was "living in a fantasy world inside their mind" and needed to "wake up." This granted Herobrine the additional nickname "HIM." After these streams, the popularity of Herobrine spread across the Minecraft community, with people creating their own alleged sightings, as well as developing Minecraft mods to add the character to the game themselves. Most claimed sightings of Herobrine are accompanied by red text annotations and eerie music. In stories and mods centered around Herobrine, he is typically summoned through the creation of a structure made up of gold and other in-game materials. His most common traits include constructing abnormal structures and causing destruction, such as by digging random tunnels throughout the world and removing the leaves from trees. Reception and legacy Herobrine gained widespread popularity in the 2010s, becoming a notable part of the Minecraft community and an internet meme. Several other Minecraft creepypastas have been created by fans, such as Entity 303, though none were able to reach similar levels of notoriety as Herobrine. VG247 writer Nadia Oxford described Herobrine as one of the Minecraft fan works, and IGN writer Paul Dean wrote Herobrine to be the "most popular example of a game haunting ever." Lauren Morton of PC Gamer wrote that, despite Herobrine never having truly existed, the character "lives on in the minds of plenty of Minecraft players" who were interested in him when younger. Gabriel Menotti cited Herobrine as an example of how user-generated recordings for video games could change player's imaginations, and view the game beyond its original scope. Some players believed Herobrine to be real despite the character never existing, which caused employees of Mojang to comment on the character. Notch in particular has denied the existence of Herobrine numerous times, and tweeted that he never had a brother in 2011. Despite this, Mojang has made many references to Herobrine; in numerous versions of Minecraft, the update logs have included the term "Removed Herobrine" as a joke. "We don't usually talk about Herobrine," Minecraft lead designer Jens "Jeb" Bergensten told G1. "It's a mystery [...] And we don't quite confirm if it's true or false.": 00:21–46 Minecraft director Agnes Larsson added that a creature in the game called the Warden takes inspiration from the community's horror "myths". In A Minecraft Movie (2025), a film adaptation of Minecraft, a scene depicts Steve (portrayed by Jack Black) with glowing white eyes, during a hallucination from an enderman. This scene was widely interpreted by fans as a reference to Herobrine, although creative director Torfi Frans Olafsson stated that the white eyes were actually a visual effects glitch that was left in due to time constraints. Several viewed this as an ironic coincidence due to Herobrine's nature as a figure that haunts the game and doesn't truly exist. In 2013, Herobrine ranked 46th on a poll for the Top 50 Video Game Villains of All Time, which was organized by Guinness World Records. Fan-made books based on Herobrine have been published, such as The Legend of Herobrine. In 2021, continued interest in the story resulted in the world seed of the original Herobrine sighting being discovered by a group of players known as the Minecraft@Home project. Similarly, in 2020, a Minecraft player known as Enderboss25 gained contact with Copeland in an effort to recover the footage of the original livestream that caused Herobrine's popularity. While the original footage was long gone, the original world file was recovered, and a recreation of the livestream was made in a joint effort by the two. In July 2024, the original livestream was uploaded to YouTube by user brutallillfjomp, who had saved the stream in 2010 and was unaware that it was considered lost until watching a video on it the previous day. References External links
========================================

[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herobrine#cite_ref-:0_1-7] \| [TOKENS: 1629]
Contents Herobrine Herobrine is an urban legend and creepypasta from the sandbox video game Minecraft. He is often depicted as a version of the Minecraft character Steve, but with solid white eyes that lack pupils, and behavior that primarily involves destroying the player's world. The story originated from an anonymous post on 4chan's /v/ board in 2010, where the author reported encountering a strange figure in a single-player world, followed by their messages being deleted when they attempted to talk to other players about the sighting. The story was further popularized after livestreamers Copeland and Patimuss created their own versions. Herobrine has become a popular part of the online culture surrounding Minecraft, as well as effectively an internet meme. Interest in the character inspired many to create their own stories and alleged sightings centered around Herobrine, as well as create Minecraft mods that add him to the game. Interest in the character continued into the 2020s, leading to the rediscovery of formerly lost media related to the original sightings. Herobrine has been considered one of the most notable legends in video games, with his popularity leading to him ranking on a Guinness World Records poll for the best video game villains despite never truly existing within Minecraft. The character has been referenced several times by the developers of Minecraft, appearing on official artwork as well. Origins and characteristics In 2010, during Minecraft's alpha stage of development, an anonymous post was made on 4chan's /v/ board, where the author claimed to encounter a mysterious entity while playing the game. The post claimed that shortly after starting a new world, the author saw what they believed to be a cow in the distance, which they approached in order to kill it. Upon approaching it, they instead saw a second player character with solid white eyes staring at them from the fog before vanishing. After the encounter, the author noticed numerous strange structures that they did not create. They claimed that when trying to contact other players about the event, they found their posts removed, eventually receiving a message from a user named "Herobrine" that simply said "stop." The anonymous post went on to claim that other players informed him that Herobrine was the alias of the brother of Notch, the creator of Minecraft. The 4chan post claimed that Notch said, in response to queries about whether he had a brother, "I did, but he is no longer with us." Around the same time, another anonymous post on 4chan wrote about another entity the author seemingly encountered in a cave after listening to the in-game music disc "13", which also had white eyes that lurked in the fog. This encounter was simply named "White Eyes", and was believed to be related to Herobrine. Shortly after the original stories were published, livestreamers Copeland and Patimuss, the former of which saw and liked the original posts, staged Herobrine encounters of their own. In Copeland's stream, he played in a survival world with a custom texture pack for around two hours while working on a house. After entering a room he was planning on furnishing, he saw Herobrine staring at him and he quickly left the house and exited the game, before ending the livestream. This encounter was created by Copeland modifying in-game textures to make Herobrine appear. Afterwards, viewers of the livestream were redirected to a GIF depicting Herobrine with moving, realistic eyes. In Patimuss' stream, he encountered Herobrine walking on lava while playing the game, before promptly shutting the game down. After Copeland's stream, he claimed that his computer crashed when trying to go live again afterwards. He then shared a webpage with the title "him.html". The page featured a gif of Steve, the default skin of Minecraft, with his pixelated eyes replaced with realistic, moving ones, as well as text at the bottom that wrote about how the reader was "living in a fantasy world inside their mind" and needed to "wake up." This granted Herobrine the additional nickname "HIM." After these streams, the popularity of Herobrine spread across the Minecraft community, with people creating their own alleged sightings, as well as developing Minecraft mods to add the character to the game themselves. Most claimed sightings of Herobrine are accompanied by red text annotations and eerie music. In stories and mods centered around Herobrine, he is typically summoned through the creation of a structure made up of gold and other in-game materials. His most common traits include constructing abnormal structures and causing destruction, such as by digging random tunnels throughout the world and removing the leaves from trees. Reception and legacy Herobrine gained widespread popularity in the 2010s, becoming a notable part of the Minecraft community and an internet meme. Several other Minecraft creepypastas have been created by fans, such as Entity 303, though none were able to reach similar levels of notoriety as Herobrine. VG247 writer Nadia Oxford described Herobrine as one of the Minecraft fan works, and IGN writer Paul Dean wrote Herobrine to be the "most popular example of a game haunting ever." Lauren Morton of PC Gamer wrote that, despite Herobrine never having truly existed, the character "lives on in the minds of plenty of Minecraft players" who were interested in him when younger. Gabriel Menotti cited Herobrine as an example of how user-generated recordings for video games could change player's imaginations, and view the game beyond its original scope. Some players believed Herobrine to be real despite the character never existing, which caused employees of Mojang to comment on the character. Notch in particular has denied the existence of Herobrine numerous times, and tweeted that he never had a brother in 2011. Despite this, Mojang has made many references to Herobrine; in numerous versions of Minecraft, the update logs have included the term "Removed Herobrine" as a joke. "We don't usually talk about Herobrine," Minecraft lead designer Jens "Jeb" Bergensten told G1. "It's a mystery [...] And we don't quite confirm if it's true or false.": 00:21–46 Minecraft director Agnes Larsson added that a creature in the game called the Warden takes inspiration from the community's horror "myths". In A Minecraft Movie (2025), a film adaptation of Minecraft, a scene depicts Steve (portrayed by Jack Black) with glowing white eyes, during a hallucination from an enderman. This scene was widely interpreted by fans as a reference to Herobrine, although creative director Torfi Frans Olafsson stated that the white eyes were actually a visual effects glitch that was left in due to time constraints. Several viewed this as an ironic coincidence due to Herobrine's nature as a figure that haunts the game and doesn't truly exist. In 2013, Herobrine ranked 46th on a poll for the Top 50 Video Game Villains of All Time, which was organized by Guinness World Records. Fan-made books based on Herobrine have been published, such as The Legend of Herobrine. In 2021, continued interest in the story resulted in the world seed of the original Herobrine sighting being discovered by a group of players known as the Minecraft@Home project. Similarly, in 2020, a Minecraft player known as Enderboss25 gained contact with Copeland in an effort to recover the footage of the original livestream that caused Herobrine's popularity. While the original footage was long gone, the original world file was recovered, and a recreation of the livestream was made in a joint effort by the two. In July 2024, the original livestream was uploaded to YouTube by user brutallillfjomp, who had saved the stream in 2010 and was unaware that it was considered lost until watching a video on it the previous day. References External links
========================================

[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herobrine#cite_ref-:3_3-3] \| [TOKENS: 1629]
Contents Herobrine Herobrine is an urban legend and creepypasta from the sandbox video game Minecraft. He is often depicted as a version of the Minecraft character Steve, but with solid white eyes that lack pupils, and behavior that primarily involves destroying the player's world. The story originated from an anonymous post on 4chan's /v/ board in 2010, where the author reported encountering a strange figure in a single-player world, followed by their messages being deleted when they attempted to talk to other players about the sighting. The story was further popularized after livestreamers Copeland and Patimuss created their own versions. Herobrine has become a popular part of the online culture surrounding Minecraft, as well as effectively an internet meme. Interest in the character inspired many to create their own stories and alleged sightings centered around Herobrine, as well as create Minecraft mods that add him to the game. Interest in the character continued into the 2020s, leading to the rediscovery of formerly lost media related to the original sightings. Herobrine has been considered one of the most notable legends in video games, with his popularity leading to him ranking on a Guinness World Records poll for the best video game villains despite never truly existing within Minecraft. The character has been referenced several times by the developers of Minecraft, appearing on official artwork as well. Origins and characteristics In 2010, during Minecraft's alpha stage of development, an anonymous post was made on 4chan's /v/ board, where the author claimed to encounter a mysterious entity while playing the game. The post claimed that shortly after starting a new world, the author saw what they believed to be a cow in the distance, which they approached in order to kill it. Upon approaching it, they instead saw a second player character with solid white eyes staring at them from the fog before vanishing. After the encounter, the author noticed numerous strange structures that they did not create. They claimed that when trying to contact other players about the event, they found their posts removed, eventually receiving a message from a user named "Herobrine" that simply said "stop." The anonymous post went on to claim that other players informed him that Herobrine was the alias of the brother of Notch, the creator of Minecraft. The 4chan post claimed that Notch said, in response to queries about whether he had a brother, "I did, but he is no longer with us." Around the same time, another anonymous post on 4chan wrote about another entity the author seemingly encountered in a cave after listening to the in-game music disc "13", which also had white eyes that lurked in the fog. This encounter was simply named "White Eyes", and was believed to be related to Herobrine. Shortly after the original stories were published, livestreamers Copeland and Patimuss, the former of which saw and liked the original posts, staged Herobrine encounters of their own. In Copeland's stream, he played in a survival world with a custom texture pack for around two hours while working on a house. After entering a room he was planning on furnishing, he saw Herobrine staring at him and he quickly left the house and exited the game, before ending the livestream. This encounter was created by Copeland modifying in-game textures to make Herobrine appear. Afterwards, viewers of the livestream were redirected to a GIF depicting Herobrine with moving, realistic eyes. In Patimuss' stream, he encountered Herobrine walking on lava while playing the game, before promptly shutting the game down. After Copeland's stream, he claimed that his computer crashed when trying to go live again afterwards. He then shared a webpage with the title "him.html". The page featured a gif of Steve, the default skin of Minecraft, with his pixelated eyes replaced with realistic, moving ones, as well as text at the bottom that wrote about how the reader was "living in a fantasy world inside their mind" and needed to "wake up." This granted Herobrine the additional nickname "HIM." After these streams, the popularity of Herobrine spread across the Minecraft community, with people creating their own alleged sightings, as well as developing Minecraft mods to add the character to the game themselves. Most claimed sightings of Herobrine are accompanied by red text annotations and eerie music. In stories and mods centered around Herobrine, he is typically summoned through the creation of a structure made up of gold and other in-game materials. His most common traits include constructing abnormal structures and causing destruction, such as by digging random tunnels throughout the world and removing the leaves from trees. Reception and legacy Herobrine gained widespread popularity in the 2010s, becoming a notable part of the Minecraft community and an internet meme. Several other Minecraft creepypastas have been created by fans, such as Entity 303, though none were able to reach similar levels of notoriety as Herobrine. VG247 writer Nadia Oxford described Herobrine as one of the Minecraft fan works, and IGN writer Paul Dean wrote Herobrine to be the "most popular example of a game haunting ever." Lauren Morton of PC Gamer wrote that, despite Herobrine never having truly existed, the character "lives on in the minds of plenty of Minecraft players" who were interested in him when younger. Gabriel Menotti cited Herobrine as an example of how user-generated recordings for video games could change player's imaginations, and view the game beyond its original scope. Some players believed Herobrine to be real despite the character never existing, which caused employees of Mojang to comment on the character. Notch in particular has denied the existence of Herobrine numerous times, and tweeted that he never had a brother in 2011. Despite this, Mojang has made many references to Herobrine; in numerous versions of Minecraft, the update logs have included the term "Removed Herobrine" as a joke. "We don't usually talk about Herobrine," Minecraft lead designer Jens "Jeb" Bergensten told G1. "It's a mystery [...] And we don't quite confirm if it's true or false.": 00:21–46 Minecraft director Agnes Larsson added that a creature in the game called the Warden takes inspiration from the community's horror "myths". In A Minecraft Movie (2025), a film adaptation of Minecraft, a scene depicts Steve (portrayed by Jack Black) with glowing white eyes, during a hallucination from an enderman. This scene was widely interpreted by fans as a reference to Herobrine, although creative director Torfi Frans Olafsson stated that the white eyes were actually a visual effects glitch that was left in due to time constraints. Several viewed this as an ironic coincidence due to Herobrine's nature as a figure that haunts the game and doesn't truly exist. In 2013, Herobrine ranked 46th on a poll for the Top 50 Video Game Villains of All Time, which was organized by Guinness World Records. Fan-made books based on Herobrine have been published, such as The Legend of Herobrine. In 2021, continued interest in the story resulted in the world seed of the original Herobrine sighting being discovered by a group of players known as the Minecraft@Home project. Similarly, in 2020, a Minecraft player known as Enderboss25 gained contact with Copeland in an effort to recover the footage of the original livestream that caused Herobrine's popularity. While the original footage was long gone, the original world file was recovered, and a recreation of the livestream was made in a joint effort by the two. In July 2024, the original livestream was uploaded to YouTube by user brutallillfjomp, who had saved the stream in 2010 and was unaware that it was considered lost until watching a video on it the previous day. References External links
========================================

[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herobrine#cite_ref-:3_3-0] \| [TOKENS: 1629]
Contents Herobrine Herobrine is an urban legend and creepypasta from the sandbox video game Minecraft. He is often depicted as a version of the Minecraft character Steve, but with solid white eyes that lack pupils, and behavior that primarily involves destroying the player's world. The story originated from an anonymous post on 4chan's /v/ board in 2010, where the author reported encountering a strange figure in a single-player world, followed by their messages being deleted when they attempted to talk to other players about the sighting. The story was further popularized after livestreamers Copeland and Patimuss created their own versions. Herobrine has become a popular part of the online culture surrounding Minecraft, as well as effectively an internet meme. Interest in the character inspired many to create their own stories and alleged sightings centered around Herobrine, as well as create Minecraft mods that add him to the game. Interest in the character continued into the 2020s, leading to the rediscovery of formerly lost media related to the original sightings. Herobrine has been considered one of the most notable legends in video games, with his popularity leading to him ranking on a Guinness World Records poll for the best video game villains despite never truly existing within Minecraft. The character has been referenced several times by the developers of Minecraft, appearing on official artwork as well. Origins and characteristics In 2010, during Minecraft's alpha stage of development, an anonymous post was made on 4chan's /v/ board, where the author claimed to encounter a mysterious entity while playing the game. The post claimed that shortly after starting a new world, the author saw what they believed to be a cow in the distance, which they approached in order to kill it. Upon approaching it, they instead saw a second player character with solid white eyes staring at them from the fog before vanishing. After the encounter, the author noticed numerous strange structures that they did not create. They claimed that when trying to contact other players about the event, they found their posts removed, eventually receiving a message from a user named "Herobrine" that simply said "stop." The anonymous post went on to claim that other players informed him that Herobrine was the alias of the brother of Notch, the creator of Minecraft. The 4chan post claimed that Notch said, in response to queries about whether he had a brother, "I did, but he is no longer with us." Around the same time, another anonymous post on 4chan wrote about another entity the author seemingly encountered in a cave after listening to the in-game music disc "13", which also had white eyes that lurked in the fog. This encounter was simply named "White Eyes", and was believed to be related to Herobrine. Shortly after the original stories were published, livestreamers Copeland and Patimuss, the former of which saw and liked the original posts, staged Herobrine encounters of their own. In Copeland's stream, he played in a survival world with a custom texture pack for around two hours while working on a house. After entering a room he was planning on furnishing, he saw Herobrine staring at him and he quickly left the house and exited the game, before ending the livestream. This encounter was created by Copeland modifying in-game textures to make Herobrine appear. Afterwards, viewers of the livestream were redirected to a GIF depicting Herobrine with moving, realistic eyes. In Patimuss' stream, he encountered Herobrine walking on lava while playing the game, before promptly shutting the game down. After Copeland's stream, he claimed that his computer crashed when trying to go live again afterwards. He then shared a webpage with the title "him.html". The page featured a gif of Steve, the default skin of Minecraft, with his pixelated eyes replaced with realistic, moving ones, as well as text at the bottom that wrote about how the reader was "living in a fantasy world inside their mind" and needed to "wake up." This granted Herobrine the additional nickname "HIM." After these streams, the popularity of Herobrine spread across the Minecraft community, with people creating their own alleged sightings, as well as developing Minecraft mods to add the character to the game themselves. Most claimed sightings of Herobrine are accompanied by red text annotations and eerie music. In stories and mods centered around Herobrine, he is typically summoned through the creation of a structure made up of gold and other in-game materials. His most common traits include constructing abnormal structures and causing destruction, such as by digging random tunnels throughout the world and removing the leaves from trees. Reception and legacy Herobrine gained widespread popularity in the 2010s, becoming a notable part of the Minecraft community and an internet meme. Several other Minecraft creepypastas have been created by fans, such as Entity 303, though none were able to reach similar levels of notoriety as Herobrine. VG247 writer Nadia Oxford described Herobrine as one of the Minecraft fan works, and IGN writer Paul Dean wrote Herobrine to be the "most popular example of a game haunting ever." Lauren Morton of PC Gamer wrote that, despite Herobrine never having truly existed, the character "lives on in the minds of plenty of Minecraft players" who were interested in him when younger. Gabriel Menotti cited Herobrine as an example of how user-generated recordings for video games could change player's imaginations, and view the game beyond its original scope. Some players believed Herobrine to be real despite the character never existing, which caused employees of Mojang to comment on the character. Notch in particular has denied the existence of Herobrine numerous times, and tweeted that he never had a brother in 2011. Despite this, Mojang has made many references to Herobrine; in numerous versions of Minecraft, the update logs have included the term "Removed Herobrine" as a joke. "We don't usually talk about Herobrine," Minecraft lead designer Jens "Jeb" Bergensten told G1. "It's a mystery [...] And we don't quite confirm if it's true or false.": 00:21–46 Minecraft director Agnes Larsson added that a creature in the game called the Warden takes inspiration from the community's horror "myths". In A Minecraft Movie (2025), a film adaptation of Minecraft, a scene depicts Steve (portrayed by Jack Black) with glowing white eyes, during a hallucination from an enderman. This scene was widely interpreted by fans as a reference to Herobrine, although creative director Torfi Frans Olafsson stated that the white eyes were actually a visual effects glitch that was left in due to time constraints. Several viewed this as an ironic coincidence due to Herobrine's nature as a figure that haunts the game and doesn't truly exist. In 2013, Herobrine ranked 46th on a poll for the Top 50 Video Game Villains of All Time, which was organized by Guinness World Records. Fan-made books based on Herobrine have been published, such as The Legend of Herobrine. In 2021, continued interest in the story resulted in the world seed of the original Herobrine sighting being discovered by a group of players known as the Minecraft@Home project. Similarly, in 2020, a Minecraft player known as Enderboss25 gained contact with Copeland in an effort to recover the footage of the original livestream that caused Herobrine's popularity. While the original footage was long gone, the original world file was recovered, and a recreation of the livestream was made in a joint effort by the two. In July 2024, the original livestream was uploaded to YouTube by user brutallillfjomp, who had saved the stream in 2010 and was unaware that it was considered lost until watching a video on it the previous day. References External links
========================================

[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herobrine#cite_ref-ign2_5-2] \| [TOKENS: 1629]
Contents Herobrine Herobrine is an urban legend and creepypasta from the sandbox video game Minecraft. He is often depicted as a version of the Minecraft character Steve, but with solid white eyes that lack pupils, and behavior that primarily involves destroying the player's world. The story originated from an anonymous post on 4chan's /v/ board in 2010, where the author reported encountering a strange figure in a single-player world, followed by their messages being deleted when they attempted to talk to other players about the sighting. The story was further popularized after livestreamers Copeland and Patimuss created their own versions. Herobrine has become a popular part of the online culture surrounding Minecraft, as well as effectively an internet meme. Interest in the character inspired many to create their own stories and alleged sightings centered around Herobrine, as well as create Minecraft mods that add him to the game. Interest in the character continued into the 2020s, leading to the rediscovery of formerly lost media related to the original sightings. Herobrine has been considered one of the most notable legends in video games, with his popularity leading to him ranking on a Guinness World Records poll for the best video game villains despite never truly existing within Minecraft. The character has been referenced several times by the developers of Minecraft, appearing on official artwork as well. Origins and characteristics In 2010, during Minecraft's alpha stage of development, an anonymous post was made on 4chan's /v/ board, where the author claimed to encounter a mysterious entity while playing the game. The post claimed that shortly after starting a new world, the author saw what they believed to be a cow in the distance, which they approached in order to kill it. Upon approaching it, they instead saw a second player character with solid white eyes staring at them from the fog before vanishing. After the encounter, the author noticed numerous strange structures that they did not create. They claimed that when trying to contact other players about the event, they found their posts removed, eventually receiving a message from a user named "Herobrine" that simply said "stop." The anonymous post went on to claim that other players informed him that Herobrine was the alias of the brother of Notch, the creator of Minecraft. The 4chan post claimed that Notch said, in response to queries about whether he had a brother, "I did, but he is no longer with us." Around the same time, another anonymous post on 4chan wrote about another entity the author seemingly encountered in a cave after listening to the in-game music disc "13", which also had white eyes that lurked in the fog. This encounter was simply named "White Eyes", and was believed to be related to Herobrine. Shortly after the original stories were published, livestreamers Copeland and Patimuss, the former of which saw and liked the original posts, staged Herobrine encounters of their own. In Copeland's stream, he played in a survival world with a custom texture pack for around two hours while working on a house. After entering a room he was planning on furnishing, he saw Herobrine staring at him and he quickly left the house and exited the game, before ending the livestream. This encounter was created by Copeland modifying in-game textures to make Herobrine appear. Afterwards, viewers of the livestream were redirected to a GIF depicting Herobrine with moving, realistic eyes. In Patimuss' stream, he encountered Herobrine walking on lava while playing the game, before promptly shutting the game down. After Copeland's stream, he claimed that his computer crashed when trying to go live again afterwards. He then shared a webpage with the title "him.html". The page featured a gif of Steve, the default skin of Minecraft, with his pixelated eyes replaced with realistic, moving ones, as well as text at the bottom that wrote about how the reader was "living in a fantasy world inside their mind" and needed to "wake up." This granted Herobrine the additional nickname "HIM." After these streams, the popularity of Herobrine spread across the Minecraft community, with people creating their own alleged sightings, as well as developing Minecraft mods to add the character to the game themselves. Most claimed sightings of Herobrine are accompanied by red text annotations and eerie music. In stories and mods centered around Herobrine, he is typically summoned through the creation of a structure made up of gold and other in-game materials. His most common traits include constructing abnormal structures and causing destruction, such as by digging random tunnels throughout the world and removing the leaves from trees. Reception and legacy Herobrine gained widespread popularity in the 2010s, becoming a notable part of the Minecraft community and an internet meme. Several other Minecraft creepypastas have been created by fans, such as Entity 303, though none were able to reach similar levels of notoriety as Herobrine. VG247 writer Nadia Oxford described Herobrine as one of the Minecraft fan works, and IGN writer Paul Dean wrote Herobrine to be the "most popular example of a game haunting ever." Lauren Morton of PC Gamer wrote that, despite Herobrine never having truly existed, the character "lives on in the minds of plenty of Minecraft players" who were interested in him when younger. Gabriel Menotti cited Herobrine as an example of how user-generated recordings for video games could change player's imaginations, and view the game beyond its original scope. Some players believed Herobrine to be real despite the character never existing, which caused employees of Mojang to comment on the character. Notch in particular has denied the existence of Herobrine numerous times, and tweeted that he never had a brother in 2011. Despite this, Mojang has made many references to Herobrine; in numerous versions of Minecraft, the update logs have included the term "Removed Herobrine" as a joke. "We don't usually talk about Herobrine," Minecraft lead designer Jens "Jeb" Bergensten told G1. "It's a mystery [...] And we don't quite confirm if it's true or false.": 00:21–46 Minecraft director Agnes Larsson added that a creature in the game called the Warden takes inspiration from the community's horror "myths". In A Minecraft Movie (2025), a film adaptation of Minecraft, a scene depicts Steve (portrayed by Jack Black) with glowing white eyes, during a hallucination from an enderman. This scene was widely interpreted by fans as a reference to Herobrine, although creative director Torfi Frans Olafsson stated that the white eyes were actually a visual effects glitch that was left in due to time constraints. Several viewed this as an ironic coincidence due to Herobrine's nature as a figure that haunts the game and doesn't truly exist. In 2013, Herobrine ranked 46th on a poll for the Top 50 Video Game Villains of All Time, which was organized by Guinness World Records. Fan-made books based on Herobrine have been published, such as The Legend of Herobrine. In 2021, continued interest in the story resulted in the world seed of the original Herobrine sighting being discovered by a group of players known as the Minecraft@Home project. Similarly, in 2020, a Minecraft player known as Enderboss25 gained contact with Copeland in an effort to recover the footage of the original livestream that caused Herobrine's popularity. While the original footage was long gone, the original world file was recovered, and a recreation of the livestream was made in a joint effort by the two. In July 2024, the original livestream was uploaded to YouTube by user brutallillfjomp, who had saved the stream in 2010 and was unaware that it was considered lost until watching a video on it the previous day. References External links
========================================

[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herobrine#cite_ref-:4_6-3] \| [TOKENS: 1629]
Contents Herobrine Herobrine is an urban legend and creepypasta from the sandbox video game Minecraft. He is often depicted as a version of the Minecraft character Steve, but with solid white eyes that lack pupils, and behavior that primarily involves destroying the player's world. The story originated from an anonymous post on 4chan's /v/ board in 2010, where the author reported encountering a strange figure in a single-player world, followed by their messages being deleted when they attempted to talk to other players about the sighting. The story was further popularized after livestreamers Copeland and Patimuss created their own versions. Herobrine has become a popular part of the online culture surrounding Minecraft, as well as effectively an internet meme. Interest in the character inspired many to create their own stories and alleged sightings centered around Herobrine, as well as create Minecraft mods that add him to the game. Interest in the character continued into the 2020s, leading to the rediscovery of formerly lost media related to the original sightings. Herobrine has been considered one of the most notable legends in video games, with his popularity leading to him ranking on a Guinness World Records poll for the best video game villains despite never truly existing within Minecraft. The character has been referenced several times by the developers of Minecraft, appearing on official artwork as well. Origins and characteristics In 2010, during Minecraft's alpha stage of development, an anonymous post was made on 4chan's /v/ board, where the author claimed to encounter a mysterious entity while playing the game. The post claimed that shortly after starting a new world, the author saw what they believed to be a cow in the distance, which they approached in order to kill it. Upon approaching it, they instead saw a second player character with solid white eyes staring at them from the fog before vanishing. After the encounter, the author noticed numerous strange structures that they did not create. They claimed that when trying to contact other players about the event, they found their posts removed, eventually receiving a message from a user named "Herobrine" that simply said "stop." The anonymous post went on to claim that other players informed him that Herobrine was the alias of the brother of Notch, the creator of Minecraft. The 4chan post claimed that Notch said, in response to queries about whether he had a brother, "I did, but he is no longer with us." Around the same time, another anonymous post on 4chan wrote about another entity the author seemingly encountered in a cave after listening to the in-game music disc "13", which also had white eyes that lurked in the fog. This encounter was simply named "White Eyes", and was believed to be related to Herobrine. Shortly after the original stories were published, livestreamers Copeland and Patimuss, the former of which saw and liked the original posts, staged Herobrine encounters of their own. In Copeland's stream, he played in a survival world with a custom texture pack for around two hours while working on a house. After entering a room he was planning on furnishing, he saw Herobrine staring at him and he quickly left the house and exited the game, before ending the livestream. This encounter was created by Copeland modifying in-game textures to make Herobrine appear. Afterwards, viewers of the livestream were redirected to a GIF depicting Herobrine with moving, realistic eyes. In Patimuss' stream, he encountered Herobrine walking on lava while playing the game, before promptly shutting the game down. After Copeland's stream, he claimed that his computer crashed when trying to go live again afterwards. He then shared a webpage with the title "him.html". The page featured a gif of Steve, the default skin of Minecraft, with his pixelated eyes replaced with realistic, moving ones, as well as text at the bottom that wrote about how the reader was "living in a fantasy world inside their mind" and needed to "wake up." This granted Herobrine the additional nickname "HIM." After these streams, the popularity of Herobrine spread across the Minecraft community, with people creating their own alleged sightings, as well as developing Minecraft mods to add the character to the game themselves. Most claimed sightings of Herobrine are accompanied by red text annotations and eerie music. In stories and mods centered around Herobrine, he is typically summoned through the creation of a structure made up of gold and other in-game materials. His most common traits include constructing abnormal structures and causing destruction, such as by digging random tunnels throughout the world and removing the leaves from trees. Reception and legacy Herobrine gained widespread popularity in the 2010s, becoming a notable part of the Minecraft community and an internet meme. Several other Minecraft creepypastas have been created by fans, such as Entity 303, though none were able to reach similar levels of notoriety as Herobrine. VG247 writer Nadia Oxford described Herobrine as one of the Minecraft fan works, and IGN writer Paul Dean wrote Herobrine to be the "most popular example of a game haunting ever." Lauren Morton of PC Gamer wrote that, despite Herobrine never having truly existed, the character "lives on in the minds of plenty of Minecraft players" who were interested in him when younger. Gabriel Menotti cited Herobrine as an example of how user-generated recordings for video games could change player's imaginations, and view the game beyond its original scope. Some players believed Herobrine to be real despite the character never existing, which caused employees of Mojang to comment on the character. Notch in particular has denied the existence of Herobrine numerous times, and tweeted that he never had a brother in 2011. Despite this, Mojang has made many references to Herobrine; in numerous versions of Minecraft, the update logs have included the term "Removed Herobrine" as a joke. "We don't usually talk about Herobrine," Minecraft lead designer Jens "Jeb" Bergensten told G1. "It's a mystery [...] And we don't quite confirm if it's true or false.": 00:21–46 Minecraft director Agnes Larsson added that a creature in the game called the Warden takes inspiration from the community's horror "myths". In A Minecraft Movie (2025), a film adaptation of Minecraft, a scene depicts Steve (portrayed by Jack Black) with glowing white eyes, during a hallucination from an enderman. This scene was widely interpreted by fans as a reference to Herobrine, although creative director Torfi Frans Olafsson stated that the white eyes were actually a visual effects glitch that was left in due to time constraints. Several viewed this as an ironic coincidence due to Herobrine's nature as a figure that haunts the game and doesn't truly exist. In 2013, Herobrine ranked 46th on a poll for the Top 50 Video Game Villains of All Time, which was organized by Guinness World Records. Fan-made books based on Herobrine have been published, such as The Legend of Herobrine. In 2021, continued interest in the story resulted in the world seed of the original Herobrine sighting being discovered by a group of players known as the Minecraft@Home project. Similarly, in 2020, a Minecraft player known as Enderboss25 gained contact with Copeland in an effort to recover the footage of the original livestream that caused Herobrine's popularity. While the original footage was long gone, the original world file was recovered, and a recreation of the livestream was made in a joint effort by the two. In July 2024, the original livestream was uploaded to YouTube by user brutallillfjomp, who had saved the stream in 2010 and was unaware that it was considered lost until watching a video on it the previous day. References External links
========================================

[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herobrine#cite_ref-:4_6-2] \| [TOKENS: 1629]
Contents Herobrine Herobrine is an urban legend and creepypasta from the sandbox video game Minecraft. He is often depicted as a version of the Minecraft character Steve, but with solid white eyes that lack pupils, and behavior that primarily involves destroying the player's world. The story originated from an anonymous post on 4chan's /v/ board in 2010, where the author reported encountering a strange figure in a single-player world, followed by their messages being deleted when they attempted to talk to other players about the sighting. The story was further popularized after livestreamers Copeland and Patimuss created their own versions. Herobrine has become a popular part of the online culture surrounding Minecraft, as well as effectively an internet meme. Interest in the character inspired many to create their own stories and alleged sightings centered around Herobrine, as well as create Minecraft mods that add him to the game. Interest in the character continued into the 2020s, leading to the rediscovery of formerly lost media related to the original sightings. Herobrine has been considered one of the most notable legends in video games, with his popularity leading to him ranking on a Guinness World Records poll for the best video game villains despite never truly existing within Minecraft. The character has been referenced several times by the developers of Minecraft, appearing on official artwork as well. Origins and characteristics In 2010, during Minecraft's alpha stage of development, an anonymous post was made on 4chan's /v/ board, where the author claimed to encounter a mysterious entity while playing the game. The post claimed that shortly after starting a new world, the author saw what they believed to be a cow in the distance, which they approached in order to kill it. Upon approaching it, they instead saw a second player character with solid white eyes staring at them from the fog before vanishing. After the encounter, the author noticed numerous strange structures that they did not create. They claimed that when trying to contact other players about the event, they found their posts removed, eventually receiving a message from a user named "Herobrine" that simply said "stop." The anonymous post went on to claim that other players informed him that Herobrine was the alias of the brother of Notch, the creator of Minecraft. The 4chan post claimed that Notch said, in response to queries about whether he had a brother, "I did, but he is no longer with us." Around the same time, another anonymous post on 4chan wrote about another entity the author seemingly encountered in a cave after listening to the in-game music disc "13", which also had white eyes that lurked in the fog. This encounter was simply named "White Eyes", and was believed to be related to Herobrine. Shortly after the original stories were published, livestreamers Copeland and Patimuss, the former of which saw and liked the original posts, staged Herobrine encounters of their own. In Copeland's stream, he played in a survival world with a custom texture pack for around two hours while working on a house. After entering a room he was planning on furnishing, he saw Herobrine staring at him and he quickly left the house and exited the game, before ending the livestream. This encounter was created by Copeland modifying in-game textures to make Herobrine appear. Afterwards, viewers of the livestream were redirected to a GIF depicting Herobrine with moving, realistic eyes. In Patimuss' stream, he encountered Herobrine walking on lava while playing the game, before promptly shutting the game down. After Copeland's stream, he claimed that his computer crashed when trying to go live again afterwards. He then shared a webpage with the title "him.html". The page featured a gif of Steve, the default skin of Minecraft, with his pixelated eyes replaced with realistic, moving ones, as well as text at the bottom that wrote about how the reader was "living in a fantasy world inside their mind" and needed to "wake up." This granted Herobrine the additional nickname "HIM." After these streams, the popularity of Herobrine spread across the Minecraft community, with people creating their own alleged sightings, as well as developing Minecraft mods to add the character to the game themselves. Most claimed sightings of Herobrine are accompanied by red text annotations and eerie music. In stories and mods centered around Herobrine, he is typically summoned through the creation of a structure made up of gold and other in-game materials. His most common traits include constructing abnormal structures and causing destruction, such as by digging random tunnels throughout the world and removing the leaves from trees. Reception and legacy Herobrine gained widespread popularity in the 2010s, becoming a notable part of the Minecraft community and an internet meme. Several other Minecraft creepypastas have been created by fans, such as Entity 303, though none were able to reach similar levels of notoriety as Herobrine. VG247 writer Nadia Oxford described Herobrine as one of the Minecraft fan works, and IGN writer Paul Dean wrote Herobrine to be the "most popular example of a game haunting ever." Lauren Morton of PC Gamer wrote that, despite Herobrine never having truly existed, the character "lives on in the minds of plenty of Minecraft players" who were interested in him when younger. Gabriel Menotti cited Herobrine as an example of how user-generated recordings for video games could change player's imaginations, and view the game beyond its original scope. Some players believed Herobrine to be real despite the character never existing, which caused employees of Mojang to comment on the character. Notch in particular has denied the existence of Herobrine numerous times, and tweeted that he never had a brother in 2011. Despite this, Mojang has made many references to Herobrine; in numerous versions of Minecraft, the update logs have included the term "Removed Herobrine" as a joke. "We don't usually talk about Herobrine," Minecraft lead designer Jens "Jeb" Bergensten told G1. "It's a mystery [...] And we don't quite confirm if it's true or false.": 00:21–46 Minecraft director Agnes Larsson added that a creature in the game called the Warden takes inspiration from the community's horror "myths". In A Minecraft Movie (2025), a film adaptation of Minecraft, a scene depicts Steve (portrayed by Jack Black) with glowing white eyes, during a hallucination from an enderman. This scene was widely interpreted by fans as a reference to Herobrine, although creative director Torfi Frans Olafsson stated that the white eyes were actually a visual effects glitch that was left in due to time constraints. Several viewed this as an ironic coincidence due to Herobrine's nature as a figure that haunts the game and doesn't truly exist. In 2013, Herobrine ranked 46th on a poll for the Top 50 Video Game Villains of All Time, which was organized by Guinness World Records. Fan-made books based on Herobrine have been published, such as The Legend of Herobrine. In 2021, continued interest in the story resulted in the world seed of the original Herobrine sighting being discovered by a group of players known as the Minecraft@Home project. Similarly, in 2020, a Minecraft player known as Enderboss25 gained contact with Copeland in an effort to recover the footage of the original livestream that caused Herobrine's popularity. While the original footage was long gone, the original world file was recovered, and a recreation of the livestream was made in a joint effort by the two. In July 2024, the original livestream was uploaded to YouTube by user brutallillfjomp, who had saved the stream in 2010 and was unaware that it was considered lost until watching a video on it the previous day. References External links
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herobrine#cite_ref-13] \| [TOKENS: 1629]
Contents Herobrine Herobrine is an urban legend and creepypasta from the sandbox video game Minecraft. He is often depicted as a version of the Minecraft character Steve, but with solid white eyes that lack pupils, and behavior that primarily involves destroying the player's world. The story originated from an anonymous post on 4chan's /v/ board in 2010, where the author reported encountering a strange figure in a single-player world, followed by their messages being deleted when they attempted to talk to other players about the sighting. The story was further popularized after livestreamers Copeland and Patimuss created their own versions. Herobrine has become a popular part of the online culture surrounding Minecraft, as well as effectively an internet meme. Interest in the character inspired many to create their own stories and alleged sightings centered around Herobrine, as well as create Minecraft mods that add him to the game. Interest in the character continued into the 2020s, leading to the rediscovery of formerly lost media related to the original sightings. Herobrine has been considered one of the most notable legends in video games, with his popularity leading to him ranking on a Guinness World Records poll for the best video game villains despite never truly existing within Minecraft. The character has been referenced several times by the developers of Minecraft, appearing on official artwork as well. Origins and characteristics In 2010, during Minecraft's alpha stage of development, an anonymous post was made on 4chan's /v/ board, where the author claimed to encounter a mysterious entity while playing the game. The post claimed that shortly after starting a new world, the author saw what they believed to be a cow in the distance, which they approached in order to kill it. Upon approaching it, they instead saw a second player character with solid white eyes staring at them from the fog before vanishing. After the encounter, the author noticed numerous strange structures that they did not create. They claimed that when trying to contact other players about the event, they found their posts removed, eventually receiving a message from a user named "Herobrine" that simply said "stop." The anonymous post went on to claim that other players informed him that Herobrine was the alias of the brother of Notch, the creator of Minecraft. The 4chan post claimed that Notch said, in response to queries about whether he had a brother, "I did, but he is no longer with us." Around the same time, another anonymous post on 4chan wrote about another entity the author seemingly encountered in a cave after listening to the in-game music disc "13", which also had white eyes that lurked in the fog. This encounter was simply named "White Eyes", and was believed to be related to Herobrine. Shortly after the original stories were published, livestreamers Copeland and Patimuss, the former of which saw and liked the original posts, staged Herobrine encounters of their own. In Copeland's stream, he played in a survival world with a custom texture pack for around two hours while working on a house. After entering a room he was planning on furnishing, he saw Herobrine staring at him and he quickly left the house and exited the game, before ending the livestream. This encounter was created by Copeland modifying in-game textures to make Herobrine appear. Afterwards, viewers of the livestream were redirected to a GIF depicting Herobrine with moving, realistic eyes. In Patimuss' stream, he encountered Herobrine walking on lava while playing the game, before promptly shutting the game down. After Copeland's stream, he claimed that his computer crashed when trying to go live again afterwards. He then shared a webpage with the title "him.html". The page featured a gif of Steve, the default skin of Minecraft, with his pixelated eyes replaced with realistic, moving ones, as well as text at the bottom that wrote about how the reader was "living in a fantasy world inside their mind" and needed to "wake up." This granted Herobrine the additional nickname "HIM." After these streams, the popularity of Herobrine spread across the Minecraft community, with people creating their own alleged sightings, as well as developing Minecraft mods to add the character to the game themselves. Most claimed sightings of Herobrine are accompanied by red text annotations and eerie music. In stories and mods centered around Herobrine, he is typically summoned through the creation of a structure made up of gold and other in-game materials. His most common traits include constructing abnormal structures and causing destruction, such as by digging random tunnels throughout the world and removing the leaves from trees. Reception and legacy Herobrine gained widespread popularity in the 2010s, becoming a notable part of the Minecraft community and an internet meme. Several other Minecraft creepypastas have been created by fans, such as Entity 303, though none were able to reach similar levels of notoriety as Herobrine. VG247 writer Nadia Oxford described Herobrine as one of the Minecraft fan works, and IGN writer Paul Dean wrote Herobrine to be the "most popular example of a game haunting ever." Lauren Morton of PC Gamer wrote that, despite Herobrine never having truly existed, the character "lives on in the minds of plenty of Minecraft players" who were interested in him when younger. Gabriel Menotti cited Herobrine as an example of how user-generated recordings for video games could change player's imaginations, and view the game beyond its original scope. Some players believed Herobrine to be real despite the character never existing, which caused employees of Mojang to comment on the character. Notch in particular has denied the existence of Herobrine numerous times, and tweeted that he never had a brother in 2011. Despite this, Mojang has made many references to Herobrine; in numerous versions of Minecraft, the update logs have included the term "Removed Herobrine" as a joke. "We don't usually talk about Herobrine," Minecraft lead designer Jens "Jeb" Bergensten told G1. "It's a mystery [...] And we don't quite confirm if it's true or false.": 00:21–46 Minecraft director Agnes Larsson added that a creature in the game called the Warden takes inspiration from the community's horror "myths". In A Minecraft Movie (2025), a film adaptation of Minecraft, a scene depicts Steve (portrayed by Jack Black) with glowing white eyes, during a hallucination from an enderman. This scene was widely interpreted by fans as a reference to Herobrine, although creative director Torfi Frans Olafsson stated that the white eyes were actually a visual effects glitch that was left in due to time constraints. Several viewed this as an ironic coincidence due to Herobrine's nature as a figure that haunts the game and doesn't truly exist. In 2013, Herobrine ranked 46th on a poll for the Top 50 Video Game Villains of All Time, which was organized by Guinness World Records. Fan-made books based on Herobrine have been published, such as The Legend of Herobrine. In 2021, continued interest in the story resulted in the world seed of the original Herobrine sighting being discovered by a group of players known as the Minecraft@Home project. Similarly, in 2020, a Minecraft player known as Enderboss25 gained contact with Copeland in an effort to recover the footage of the original livestream that caused Herobrine's popularity. While the original footage was long gone, the original world file was recovered, and a recreation of the livestream was made in a joint effort by the two. In July 2024, the original livestream was uploaded to YouTube by user brutallillfjomp, who had saved the stream in 2010 and was unaware that it was considered lost until watching a video on it the previous day. References External links
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:Minecraft] \| [TOKENS: 191]
Contents Template talk:Minecraft wonder quest someone add Wonder Quest (web series) to this. im not tryna waste my time editing it in. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Yall are smart (talk • contribs) 22:11, 1 May 2020 (UTC)[reply] Revised Template It seems like the best compromise would be to revert to my last edit, then remove the Minecraft clones section. The developers section can then refer to the freelancers, allowing us to include them, Dissident93. Squid45 (talk) 09:55, 31 March 2021 (UTC)[reply] Add an "Alex" page? I know the page for all the 1.19+ characters are not needed, but Alex is still great part of the game's default character history Libresoldier79 (talk) 21:17, 5 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_Game_Studios] \| [TOKENS: 4459]
Contents Xbox Game Studios Xbox Game Studios (previously known as Microsoft Studios, Microsoft Game Studios, and Microsoft Games) is an American video game publisher based in Redmond, Washington. It was established in March 2000, spun out from an internal Games Group, for the development and publishing of video games for Microsoft Windows. It has since expanded to include games and other interactive entertainment for the namesake Xbox platforms, other desktop operating systems, Windows Mobile and other mobile platforms, web-based portals, and other game consoles. Xbox Game Studios, alongside ZeniMax Media and Activision Blizzard, are part of the Microsoft Gaming division led by Phil Spencer, who is chief executive officer of the division. History Early in the history of Microsoft the software company published video games like Olympic Decathlon, but Steve Ballmer reportedly persuaded Bill Gates to deemphasize them to professionalize the company's image. By the early 1990s, Microsoft published subLOGIC's Microsoft Flight Simulator and several Microsoft Entertainment Pack compilations of minigames, but was best known for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows. In 1992, the company began increasing its focus on games. It announced Microsoft Golf for Windows, based on Access Software's Links, and expanded the games division from two to six people with the intention of commissioning more products from other developers. Microsoft acquired FASA Interactive in 1999 for its MechWarrior game series, Access Software, and Aces Game Studio, which worked on Flight Simulator. The Games Group had also established long-term publishing deals with developers like Ensemble Studios (Age of Empires, Age of Mythology), and Digital Anvil (Starlancer). Under Microsoft, FASA Interactive was renamed FASA Studio, and Access Software became Salt Lake Games Studio. Microsoft transitioned the Games Group into a wholly separate division named Microsoft Games around March 2000, along with other consolidation of games-related projects within Microsoft. This came alongside the public announcement of the first Xbox console, with Microsoft Games to serve as a developer and publisher of titles for both Xbox and Windows. Robbie Bach, who held executive positions in Microsoft's entertainment divisions, was named senior vice-president while Ed Fries, a member of the former Games Group and instrumental for some of its acquisitions, was named as vice-president of the new division. Shane Kim served as the division's general manager. In 2001, the division was renamed Microsoft Game Studios (MGS). FASA Studio and Salt Lake Games Studio remained with Microsoft Game Studios. Digital Anvil and Ensemble Studios were acquired by Microsoft in 2000 and 2001, respectively. One of the first major studio acquisitions following the division's formation was Bungie in June 2000, in the midst of its development of Halo: Combat Evolved. With the acquisition, Halo, which had been planned for release on personal computers, became a Microsoft-published title as well as a launch title for the Xbox on its release in 2001. Turn 10 Studios was established in 2001 for work on the Forza series of racing games. In September 2002, Microsoft Game Studios acquired Rare, who had previously extensively developed for Nintendo platforms. In 2003, Microsoft recognized that the EA Sports label was in a far stronger position to develop sports games for the Xbox console, and among realignment steps, laid off about 78 employees within Microsoft Game Studios that were developing sports games in-house, and sold Salt Lake Games Studio, now named Indie Games to Take-Two Interactive in 2004, where it became Indie Built. Peter Moore was named in 2003 as vice-president of Microsoft's Home and Entertainment Division, which included MGS, the Xbox division, and Microsoft's home hardware market, reporting to Bach. In addition to pulling big publishers like Electronic Arts to the Xbox platform, Moore tried to push the Xbox in Japan by courting Japanese developers with support from MGS publishing. Such games included Phantom Dust and Blinx: The Time Sweeper. Around 2004, MGS established Carbonated Games as an internal studio for the development of casual games for Microsoft's web games portal MSN Games, on the chat client MSN Messenger, and on the Xbox Live platform. Kim and Fries were instrumental for securing MGS' publishing deal with Lionhead Studios for their 2004 game Fable, which would serve as the first major role-playing game on the Xbox platform. Subsequently, in 2006, MGS acquired Lionhead Studios along with the Fable properties, as it sought to secure a Fable sequel for the upcoming Xbox 360. MGS folded the staff of Digital Anvil into the larger studio in 2005, following the release of 2003's Brute Force, and closed down the studio entirely in 2006. FASA Studio was closed three-and-a-half months after the May 2007 release of their last game, Shadowrun. In 2007, MGS announced the opening of a European office in Reading, England, headed by general manager Phil Spencer. Moore opted to leave Microsoft in July 2007, so to move back to the San Francisco Bay area with his family and to rejoin Electronic Arts. Don Mattrick was named as his replacement as the new vice-president of the Xbox and Games Business, which included MGS. Later in 2007, Bungie amicably split from MGS to become a privately held independent company, with MGS retaining the rights to the Halo property. Bungie continued to develop two additional Halo games for MGS, Halo 3: ODST (2009) and Halo: Reach (2010). Simultaneously, MGS founded 343 Industries as an internal studio to develop future Halo games without Bungie. In 2008, MGS disbanded Carbonated Games and announced the formation of internal studio Xbox Live Productions to develop "high-quality digital content" for Xbox Live Arcade. Microsoft as a whole announced layoffs of up to 5,000 jobs across all divisions in January 2009 due to slowing sales of personal computers as a result of the Great Recession. Within MGS, the studio had already planned to disband Ensemble Studios after the completion of Halo Wars in early 2009, while the new layoffs led MGS to also disband Aces Game Studio. Microsoft acquired Vancouver-based BigPark in May 2009, using the studio to develop some of the first games for the upcoming Kinect sensor for the Xbox 360. Later in 2009, Phil Spencer was promoted to corporate vice-president of MGS, in order to replace the retiring Shane Kim. In 2010, MGS formed a mobile gaming studio, MGS Mobile Gaming, focused on developing gaming and entertainment multimedia for Windows Phone devices. It also expanded Rare with a second studio in Digbeth, Birmingham. By the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2011 in June 2011, Microsoft Game Studios was quietly renamed to Microsoft Studios. Later in 2011, Microsoft Studios acquired Twisted Pixel Games. In early December 2011, Microsoft Studios created Microsoft Casual Games, a division to revamp its past casual games for Windows (like Windows Solitaire and MSN Games) using more up-to-date software delivery platforms. In 2012, Phil Harrison, the former Sony worldwide studios head, joined Microsoft as head of Microsoft Studios Europe and IEB. Microsoft Studios acquired developer Press Play, known for developing Tentacles and Max & the Magic Marker. They also announced a new development studio in London, England. Later in 2012, Microsoft downsized Microsoft Game Studios Vancouver due to the cancellation of the Kinect family title Project Columbia and announced that the ongoing development of free-to-play title Microsoft Flight had been ceased due to portfolio evaluation. The reduced Vancouver studios were renamed to Black Tusk Studios and tasked with making similar franchise-building title as Halo. In 2013, Microsoft established European studio Lift London, a studio that would create cloud-based games for tablets, mobiles and TVs. Later, they created a new "Deep Tech" team inside its Developer and Platform Evangelism (DPE) unit; the new team is charged with working with top developers outside the company to build next-generation applications on top of Microsoft platforms. While Mattrick had overseen much of the development of Microsoft's next console, the Xbox One, he left in July 2013, prior to its release, to take over as CEO of Zynga. Mattrick was succeeded by Julie Larson-Green, who was named the president of the Devices and Studios Engineering Group, following a realignment of Microsoft's divisions, overseeing both the Xbox hardware divisions and Microsoft Studios. Satya Nadella became CEO of Microsoft in February 2014. At this time, Microsoft was facing strong competition in the consumer market, and within the gaming sector, the Xbox One (released in 2013) was more expensive than competitors and had too much focus on non-gaming functions. Under Nadella's direction, Phil Spencer was named the new head of Microsoft Studios to replace Jason Holtman, who had only been its lead for the prior six months. Spencer began looking for ways to expand Microsoft Studios to make it a profitable division for Microsoft, and began negotiations for the acquititions of Mojang, the developers behind Minecraft, in late 2014. Microsoft spent US$2.5 billion to acquire the studio, and upon the deal's completion in November, the studio's key founding personnel, Markus Persson, Jakob Porsér and Carl Manneh, departed Mojang. As a result, Persson became valued around US$1.3 billion. Microsoft Studios committed to keeping Minecraft available across multiple platforms, including rival PlayStation consoles. Matt Booty, the studio's corporate vice-president in 2020, said the acquisition of Mojang served as the template for later acquisitions, as Mojang was left to run as an "unplugged studio" with limited integration into the Microsoft corporation, minimizing the disruption of Mojang's normal day-to-day business matters nor impeding on the studio's freedom. Additional intellectual property (IP) acquisitions by Microsoft Studios in 2014 included a publishing contract with Undead Labs for their game State of Decay, the rights to the Gears of War series from Epic Games, and the Rise of IP (Rise of Nations and Rise of Nations: Rise of Legends) from Big Huge Games. Microsoft Studios assigned Gears of War to Black Tusk Studios, which was later rebranded in 2015 as The Coalition. In July 2014, it was announced that Xbox Entertainment Studios would be closed in the following months; the closure was completed by October 29. On March 4, 2015, Microsoft announced that they were merging UK-based studios, Lift London and Soho Productions for further games development, with the amalgam continuing to operate under the Lift London name. On March 7, Microsoft announced at the Game Developers Conference that HoloLens games were coming to Xbox One. On March 9, Microsoft announced that Kudo Tsunoda's role was expanding and that he would be the new studio team leader for studios such as Press Play, Lift London and a new internal studio called Decisive Games. Decisive Games was previously mentioned in job postings, saying that they were hiring for work on a "beloved strategy game" for Xbox One and PC, but this is the first public acknowledgement of the team's existence as a first-party studio. Twisted Pixel and Microsoft Studios agreed to split in September 2015. Kudo Tsunoda left the Xbox division in November 2015 for the development of HoloLens and Microsoft Edge, and other projects that could improve means of human interaction, including voice and gesture. Tsunoda's role was filled by Hanno Lemke and Shannon Loftis. In 2016, Microsoft was perceived as "unifying PC and Xbox One" platforms. In March 2016, Microsoft canceled development of two major projects: Lionhead's Fable Legends and Press Play's Project Knoxville, shuttering both studios in the following months. Around the same time, changes to Microsoft Studios' website indicated that further studios—BigPark, Good Science Studio, Leap Experience Pioneers (LXP), Function Studios and State of the Art (SOTA)—had been closed, Microsoft Studios clarified that all of them had been consolidated into other Microsoft Studios teams over the past several years. In September 2017, Spencer was promoted to the senior leadership team, gaining the title of "executive vice-president of gaming". At this point, Microsoft Studios directly reported to Nadella. In January 2018, Matt Booty was promoted from leader in the Minecraft games business to corporate vice-president of Microsoft Studios. On June 10, 2018, during the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2018, Microsoft announced the acquisitions of Ninja Theory, Playground Games, Undead Labs and Compulsion Games, as well as the opening of a new studio in Santa Monica, California, entitled The Initiative, which would be led by the former Crystal Dynamics studio head Darrell Gallagher. In November, Microsoft Studios announced further acquisitions with Obsidian Entertainment and inXile Entertainment. The studio rebranded itself on February 5, 2019, as Xbox Game Studios, as to reflect Microsoft's intent to use the Xbox brand to support gaming across all the devices it supports. At E3 2019, Xbox Game Studios announced it had acquired Double Fine, and established a new internal studio dedicated to Age of Empires headed by Shannon Loftis, bringing their total studio count to fifteen. This studio, later named World's Edge, does not directly develop any games, but oversees efforts from external studios, such as Relic Entertainment, Forgotten Empires and Tantalus Media, to assure the series is being developed in the right direction, according to creative director Adam Isgreen. Booty has stated that with studios like Obsidian, Ninja Theory, and Double Fine, which have traditionally supported multiplatform games, they will determine if it makes sense for their future products to be treated as Microsoft-exclusive content for Xbox and Windows computers, or to allow these to be published across multiple platforms. That decision will be based on a "network effect", whether having these games on other platforms will better support the franchise and thus worthwhile for Microsoft to help dedicate resources towards it, such as they had with Minecraft. Xbox Game Studios has allowed some of the content developed by its studios or that was previously published exclusively for the Xbox and Windows systems to be released on Nintendo systems, notably the Nintendo Switch versions of Cuphead from Studio MDHR and Ori and the Blind Forest from Moon Studios, and allowing for the titular characters from Rare's Banjo-Kazooie into Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. However, the division stated that these releases were generally "existing commitments to other platforms" that they allowed studios to honor, but they otherwise have "no plans to further expand our exclusive first party games to other consoles." Near the end of 2019, with the combined fifteen studios now under Xbox Game Studios, Booty stated that they now had more games than ever to handle, and were likely not going to acquire any additional studios in the near future, stating "we've been shifting our focus inside Xbox Game Studios from acquisition and growth, to a phase of execution and delivery". Additionally, as Microsoft started promotion of its fourth-generation of Xbox, including the Xbox Series X, Booty stated that titles developed by Xbox Game Studios in year or two following its release will not be exclusively for the new generation of consoles, but instead will support both Xbox One and the new console, with some games receiving enhanced performance when played on the new console lineup. Booty said that with the large number of studios they had recently acquired, as well as ongoing external partnerships and their Xbox Game Pass service, the Studios are able to support a "breadth of offerings in the portfolio" designed to attract a large number of players. Further, in an interview in November 2020, Phil Spencer said during an interview regarding the future of the Xbox brand that he intends to put more focus on outputting RPGs, which had to that point been underserved. Microsoft and ZeniMax Media announced on September 21, 2020, that Microsoft planned to acquire ZeniMax and its family of studios, which include Bethesda Game Studios, Arkane Studios, id Software, MachineGames, Tango Gameworks, and ZeniMax Online Studios, for over US$7.5 billion in cash. According to Spencer, the ZeniMax acquisition was intended to give Microsoft a large library of games known around the world, and to expand the library of Xbox Game Pass and XCloud. However, during 2023 hearings regarding the Federal Trade Commission's concern over the proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, Spencer said that Sony Interactive Entertainment had made sways at Bethesda to keep Starfield as a PlayStation-exclusive, further prompting Microsoft to purchase Zenimax. Both U.S. and European Union regulatory agencies approved the acquisition by early March 2021, and the acquisition was formally completed by March 9, 2021. The total price of the deal was $8.1 billion Bethesda Softworks, the primarily publisher for all of ZeniMax's games, remained as an operational unit under Microsoft with the acquisition and retained all its current leadership. With the acquisition, future games from the studios will be exclusive to Xbox consoles, but existing commitments to other platforms (such as Arkane Studios' Deathloop and Tango Gameworks' Ghostwire: Tokyo, which are contractually exclusive to PlayStation 5 for a period of 12 months before their release on Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S) will still be honored. Spencer stated that Game Pass was also fundamental driver for the acquisition. A preliminary injunction to block the acquisition had been sought in an ongoing class-action lawsuit that ZeniMax faced over Fallout 4, with the plaintiffs in the case arguing that Microsoft could shield ZeniMax's assets from damages should they be found liable after the acquisition. The ZeniMax Board of Directors was dissolved following the Microsoft purchase. On January 18, 2022, Microsoft announced its intent to acquire Activision Blizzard in an all-cash deal valued at $68.7 billion. Microsoft stated that this acquisition would make it the third-largest gaming company by revenue, following Tencent and Sony. With the announcement, Microsoft also announced a major change to its corporate structure, with Phil Spencer becoming CEO of the new division Microsoft Gaming, with Matt Booty leading Xbox Game Studios under it. Once approved, Activision Blizzard would then become a subdivision of Microsoft Gaming. The deal was cleared by various national regulators by October 13, 2023, with Microsoft closing the deal the same day. During litigation on the merger with the United States Federal Trade Commission, internal documents from Microsoft c. 2020 show strong interest in re-acquiring Bungie, or acquiring Sega's game development companies, Supergiant Games, Niantic, Inc., Thunderful Group, Zynga, IO Interactive, Scopely, or Playrix as part of Xbox Game Studios, as well as publisher Square Enix to help bolster its Asian presence and mobile market share. In January 2023, Microsoft laid off 10,000 employees, which represented about 5% of its global workforce. Included in those layoffs were many employees from 343 Industries, The Coalition, and Bethesda Game Studios. On October 26, 2023, Microsoft announced the promotion of several employees in the company, including Sarah Bond being promoted to president of Xbox, overseeing all Xbox platform, business, and hardware work, and Matt Booty promoted from president of Xbox to president of Game Content and Studios, including the new responsibility of overseeing ZeniMax and Bethesda, with Jamie Leder still running Zenimax as a limited integration entity, but now reporting to Matt. In the wake of Matt Booty's promotion, Alan Hartman, then the head of Turn 10, was subsequently promoted to head of Xbox Game Studios. On October 6, 2024, 343 Industries officially announced their rebranding as Halo Studios, additionally confirming that multiple Halo games were in development and that said projects would now use Unreal Engine 5 as opposed to the proprietary Slipspace Engine that powered Halo Infinite. On October 14, Rare creative lead Craig Duncan was announced to be succeeding Alan Hartman as head of Xbox Game Studios beginning in November 2024, with Hartman retiring after a three-decade tenure at Microsoft. In July 2025, Microsoft Gaming performed a business restructuring ahead of the new financial year, which resulted in layoffs at Xbox Game Studios Rare, Compulsion Games, Undead Labs and Turn 10 Studios. The latter, who conceived and developed the Forza Motorsport series, was reported to have lost almost half of its workforce and was anticipated to be restructured as a support studio for Motorsport's sister series Forza Horizon and developments for the ForzaTech engine, according to former content coordinator Fred Russell. In addition, Rare's action-adventure game Everwild ceased production, while Microsoft also canceled the Perfect Dark reboot and closed its developer The Initiative simultaneously. Alongside Everwild's cancelation, Rare veteran and designer Gregg Mayles also departed the company after 35 years, alongside producer Louise O'Connor. Over 2024 and 2025, a series of video games published by Microsoft Gaming divisions, most notably Xbox Game Studios' titles, were released on PlayStation and Nintendo consoles under an initiative to pivot focus from the Xbox series of consoles and eventually cease to produce exclusive titles for the consoles like Sega. Xbox Game Studios had also released Nintendo Entertainment System, Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Nintendo 64 video games on the Nintendo Switch Online service in 2024, all of whom were developed by Rare and in some cases, formerly published by Nintendo. Studios Games published References External links
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creeper_(Minecraft)] \| [TOKENS: 1209]
Contents Creeper (Minecraft) Page version status This is an accepted version of this page A creeper is a fictional creature in the sandbox video game Minecraft. Creepers are hostile mobs (mobile non-player characters) that spawn in dark places. Instead of attacking the player directly, they creep up on the player and explode, destroying blocks in the surrounding area and potentially hurting or killing the player if they are within the blast radius. Their green camouflage and generally silent behavior aid in stealth attacks, making them one of the most dangerous mobs in Minecraft. Creepers were first added to Minecraft in a pre-alpha update to the game that was released on September 1, 2009. The creeper has become one of the most widely recognized icons of Minecraft. They have been referenced and parodied in popular culture, and they are featured prominently in Minecraft merchandising and advertising. Conception and design The character model that later became the creeper was first created on August 20, 2009, as a result of a coding error when creating the pig mob in the early pre-alpha stages of Minecraft's development. The game's creator, Markus Persson, accidentally mixed up the dimensions of the model, swapping the length and height. Instead of deleting the result, Persson instead stated "I'll keep it for a creepy creature", and later added a green texture based on the in-game leaves texture to the model, gave it an aggressive AI, and turned it into a hostile mob. The creeper was added to the game on September 1, 2009, on a pre-alpha version named 0.24_SURVIVAL_TEST. In Minecraft, the player exists in a large world made up of blocks. The world contains a number of enemies (hostile mobs), of which creepers are commonly encountered. A creeper is nearly silent until it comes near the player, at which point it emits a hiss and explodes after a short delay. The explosion destroys the creeper, can kill or injure the player, and also typically destroys surrounding blocks. In later updates, the Minecraft developers decided that creepers "weren't quite unpredictable enough", and added the ability for creepers to become "charged creepers" when struck by lightning. Charged creepers have amplified explosion power and can cause other specific mobs killed in the blast to drop their heads (creepers, zombies, skeletons, wither skeletons, and piglins). These heads can then be worn by the player, putting the head's model on them to look like that mob. Appearances The creeper originally appeared in Minecraft in an early pre-alpha update as a common hostile mob that silently approaches players, hisses, then explodes. It appeared later in Minecraft spin-off games such as Minecraft: Story Mode, Minecraft Dungeons, Minecraft Legends, the discontinued Minecraft Earth, and the film adaption A Minecraft Movie (2025). Outside of Minecraft, it also appeared in Terraria (2011), Torchlight II (2012), Borderlands 2 (2012), Octodad: Dadliest Catch (2014), and in Nintendo's crossover fighting game Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (2018), where the creeper has been featured as a Mii Brawler costume. A creeper is set to appear as a playable character in Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds. Promotion and reception The creeper image has been used on a wide variety of Minecraft merchandise, including clothing, bedding, and lamps. In July 2020, a joint partnership between Mojang Studios and Kellogg's led to the announcement of Minecraft Creeper Crunch, an official Minecraft-branded cereal prominently featuring a creeper on the packaging. It was set to be available for release in stores in the United States in August 2020. Every packet additionally includes a unique code which can be redeemed for a Minecraft cosmetic clothing item. The creeper is considered to be one of Minecraft's most iconic enemies and icons. The pixelated face of the creeper has been integrated into the letter "A" of the Minecraft logo, as well as being used in numerous Halloween costumes and cosplays. Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition listed the creeper as tenth in their list of "top 50 video game villains". The creeper has been featured in multiple Lego Minecraft sets and has been the main focus of one. In 2021, PC Gamer ranked creeper as 9th of "the 50 most iconic characters in PC gaming", stating that "The Creeper is the star of Minecraft, which is ironic considering that the Creeper's effectiveness hinges upon not being seen." In an article for Games and Culture, Daniel Dooghan characterized the creeper as "resistance personified", using its role in the game to draw comparison to real-world terrorism and how society reacts to such. More directly drawing parallels to real world suicide bombers through the ideology of "Self-annihilation is the ultimate form of resistance", its not human like appearance coupled with the semblance of a permanently scowling face further made it represent "otherness" in the game's world. While he acknowledged it was impossible to know the creature's actual motivations he felt it characterized the game world's rejection of the player, and impels them towards technological advancement and resource gathering due to frequent interaction and the consequences of such interaction. Creepers have been the subject of numerous pop culture references and parodies. In the season 25 episode "Luca$" of the animated sitcom The Simpsons, Moe Szyslak appears as a creeper and explodes at the end of the theme song's "couch gag". On August 19, 2011, Jordan Maron (also known as the YouTuber CaptainSparklez) released the song "Revenge", a parody of "DJ Got Us Fallin' in Love", depicting a Minecraft player seeking revenge against creepers. The song regained popularity as an internet meme around July 2019. References External links
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[SOURCE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minecraft_Legends] \| [TOKENS: 1262]
Contents Minecraft Legends Minecraft Legends is a 2023 real-time action-strategy video game developed by Mojang Studios and Blackbird Interactive and published by Xbox Game Studios. A spin-off of the 2011 sandbox game Minecraft, it was released on Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on April 18, 2023. The game would later cease development on January 10, 2024. The goal of the game is to defend the Overworld from an invasion of piglins, pig-like humanoid creatures from the Nether dimension, while the player gradually strengthens their structures and troops with resources harvested. The game received mixed reviews from critics, with its gameplay being both praised for its execution and criticized for its repetitive nature. Gameplay Minecraft Legends is set in the Minecraft Overworld, an earth-like dimension filled with various biomes and natural resources that is currently under attack from the piglin hordes from the Nether dimension. The Overworld contains friendly villages, hostile piglin outposts, and the Well of Fate (the player spawnpoint and fast-travel hub). Similarly to Minecraft, the Overworld is procedurally generated, resulting in a unique world for each playthrough of the game. Players collect resources to construct defenses, upgrade buildings, and summon troops. Players collect basic resources such as wood and stone by assigning friendly Allays to harvest them from deposits found in the Overworld. Other resources, such as redstone and lapis lazuli are used to build advanced structures and summon stronger troops but are locked behind Well of Fate upgrades. Prismarine, which is needed to construct some buildings, can only be collected by defeating piglin structures. The player can use resources they've collected to construct buildings and upgrade the Well of Fate. Defensive fortifications such as walls and turrets protect friendly villages and player outposts. Spawners summon friendly troops the players can recruit into their army. Offensive structures such as the redstone cannon, hurl explosive shells at targets from long range. Upgrading the Well of Fate unlocks more advanced buildings and troops. The primary goal of combat is to destroy piglin outposts and defend friendly villages from periodic piglin raids. Players use their summoned troops to assault and destroy piglin outposts. Players travel around the Overworld on their mount, from which they can issue various orders command their army on the battlefield. These commands include orders to rally, halt, and charge. Players can also use their sword to attack enemies directly. Players build their army by constructing spawner buildings that summon troops or recruiting troops from camps found throughout the Overworld. Minecraft Legends incorporates the same Minecoins currency as Minecraft Bedrock Edition. This currency is used to purchase additional skins and mounts within the game. The game is sold with an optional "Deluxe Skin Pack", which contains six additional in-game skins: one hero skin and five mount skins. Plot The game begins with the player mining in a cave when they are greeted by three beings: Action, Knowledge, and Foresight. These beings are called Hosts, caretakers of the Overworld. These three persuade the player to help them save their world, where a war has broken out between the Nether and the Overworld. The player is then transported to that world. After completing a tutorial, the player must save a few villages from being invaded by piglins from the Nether. Then, the player destroys three nether outposts that are preparing to invade villages. Subsequently, the player destroys nine Nether portals from three different world areas. In each of these three areas, the player has to defeat a piglin boss: "the Devourer," "the Beast," and "the Unbreakable". Once the player destroys all of the portals and defeats all of the bosses, the player fights the final boss: "the Great Hog." Just as the player defeats the Great Hog, it makes a last attempt at destroying the Well of Fate. This backfires and its army is swallowed by a portal that sends them back to the Nether. Then, the Great Hog finally dies. After the battle, there is a grand celebration in the Overworld of their win over the piglins. Not all is well, however. The warrior villagers, who fought alongside the hero, resent the pacifistic villagers who did not, which causes a rift between the two groups. In addition to this, the Hosts have left the world to the Hero's responsibility and moved on. Development Minecraft Legends began development in 2018. The game was announced during the Xbox and Bethesda Games Showcase on June 12, 2022. After the show, a trailer on the Minecraft YouTube channel confirmed additional platforms. It is developed by series creators Mojang Studios in collaboration with Blackbird Interactive, a team founded by former Relic Entertainment employees, who are best known for developing the real-time strategy video game series Homeworld. After the success of Minecraft Dungeons, another spin-off of Minecraft, Minecraft Legends was released on April 18, 2023. It was made available to play on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Steam, Windows 11\|10, PC Game Pass, Xbox Game Pass, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and Xbox Cloud Gaming. On January 10, 2024, Mojang announced that no more updates will be released for Minecraft Legends. Reception Reception of the game was generally mixed. According to the review aggregator Metacritic, Minecraft Legends received "mixed or average" reviews. Critics viewed the game as a solid addition to the Minecraft franchise but offered differing opinions on its execution. Destructoid writer Timothy Monbleau expressed newfound appreciation for both Minecraft and the strategy genre after playing the game, while Sarah Thwaites of Game Informer described the game as feeling "caught between the expected complexity of strategy games and the franchise’s approachable brand." Critics generally found the gameplay fun but repetitive and lacking in depth. They praised the game for its Minecraft-themed art style, resource gathering mechanics, and base-building gameplay. Critics also liked the multiplayer co-op and PvP modes. Some reviewers criticized the game's lack of strategic depth, poor AI, and tedious gameplay. References External links
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