From the night of July 24 to 7 a.m. on July 25, led by streamer Phung Thanh Do (Do Mixi), the Vietnamese online community came together to draw the map of Vietnam on R/place, proudly declaring: “Hoang Sa, Truong Sa belong to Vietnam.”
For those unfamiliar, Place is a collaborative social experiment hosted on Reddit that first launched on April 1, 2017, as an April Fools event. It returned in 2022 as the subreddit R/place.
Initially, R/place is a blank canvas made up of millions of pixels. Every five minutes, each user with an account can color one pixel, choosing from 24 colors. Gradually, these colored pixels come together to form images.
While it sounds simple, completing these pixel art pieces is a huge challenge because of the large number of users involved, making coordination difficult. Plus, there are often accidental clicks or intentional sabotage attempts during the process.
The international Reddit community was impressed and surprised by the image created by the Vietnamese users. Many participants from other countries expressed admiration for how Vietnam managed to create such a large and beautiful picture despite fierce competition on R/place.
