274:
regarded as pretentious and arrogant about their beliefs, and hostile towards newcomers. Others, like the "purple" flair given to those that pressed the button between 52 and 60 seconds, were seen as compassionate and welcoming to new members. Regardless, each cult maintained a public image through the use of dressed and color-coded mascots. In addition, names arose to represent each of the cults, such as "The
Emerald Council" for the green flair, or "The Violet Hand" for the purple flair. Eventually the community built around the button referred to the colored flairs not by their color, but by the name given to the cults representing them.
270:) led to the development of cult-like groups surrounding specific flairs or beliefs towards the button itself. Each individual cult could be easily identified by the color of its flair, represented by the short time frame in which any user pressed the button. Of the cults, the most basic was the division between those that would press the button, "the pressers", and those that would abstain, "the non-pressers". Others formed around each of the six other colored flairs.
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239:, a person with Reddit username "BigGoron" became the last user to press the button (dubbed "The Pressiah" by the community). Sixty seconds later, the countdown timer reached zero and ended two months and four days after it had begun. The button was deactivated, and overlaid with the text "the experiment is over". Six minutes later, Wardle announced that the forum would be archived within ten minutes.
277:
Within the larger group of the grey flair, those who would not press the button, smaller cults formed with unique beliefs to others that also held the grey flair. Of these, the most prominent was the "Knights of The Button". Members of this cult attempted to prevent the button from ever reaching zero
144:
All users received a small dot called a "flair" next to their username. Users who had not pressed the button had a grey dot, and users who had pressed it had a dot colored based on the state of the timer when the button was pressed. When hovering the cursor over this colored dot, the time in seconds
140:
button next to a 60-second countdown timer at the top of the page. When the button was clicked by any user, the countdown would reset for every user. The button could only be pressed once by each unique Reddit account created before the event started on 1 April. There was also a cumulative count of
119:
The Button garnered enthusiasm from Reddit users worldwide, attracting clicks from over one million user accounts. Various websites, browser extensions, and mobile applications were created for tracking the live statistics of the Button and enabling users to visit the Button when the timer dropped
273:
Each cult developed its own beliefs surrounding what would happen when the clock reached zero, and its own public image. Some cults, such as the "grey" flair given to those who would not press the button, or the "red" flair given to those that pressed it when the timer showed 0ā11 seconds, were
282:" accounts to press the button automatically before it could reach zero. However, of these accounts, one was not verified to have been created prior to 1 April 2015, and therefore was unable to press the button, permitting it to finally reach zero.
123:
The Button's countdown timer reached zero several times due to technical issues, but was reset since button press attempts were still being made. On 5 June 2015, the countdown timer reached zero with no button press attempts, ending the experiment.
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116:), and was active until 5 June 2015, the first time that no user pressed the button before the timer reached zero. The game was started by a Reddit administrator.
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by the administrators. Although The Button was revived within a day of the outages, the administrators of Reddit considered closing The Button experiment early.
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The Button experienced technical issues which caused it to reach zero despite users pressing it in time. This occurred multiple times and was attributed to
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on the counter when the user clicked the button would be displayed. On the subreddit, users' times and the subsequent flair colors became status symbols.
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by pressing it before the clock could fully descend. The 'Knights' went so far as to create an algorithm associated with a large pool of thousands of "
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errors by Reddit's administrators. The outages caused community discontentment and some speculation that the subreddit was being
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button and 60-second countdown timer that would reset each time the button was pressed. The experiment was created by
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all unique users who had clicked the button since its launch. The Button was a light blue color.
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598:"Reddit's April Fools' joke is a mysterious button, and people are still pressing it"
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The button was introduced on 1 April 2015 in a post to the official Reddit blog.
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785:"Redditors freak out as erroneous post claims The Button Experiment had ended"
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313:"After 1008316 clicks, the experiment has ended at 05 Jun 21:50:55 UTC"
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941:
The People's
History of The Button: Social Experiment or Reddit Prank?
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660:"The button: the fascinating social experiment driving Reddit crazy"
752:"When this post is 10 minutes old, this subreddit will be archived"
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1331:
1281:
1177:
375:"Reddit taunts users with a simple button for April Fools' Day"
294:ā Reddit's April Fools' Day event in 2017, 2022, and July 2023.
136:) for the Button had the standard Reddit appearance but with a
408:
236:
347:
405:"What Reddit's 'ridiculous' button tells us about mortality"
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The inherent segregation on this specific Reddit community (
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The experiment ended with 1,008,316 logged button clicks.
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722:"The button and Necromancer postmortem game on Reddit"
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1102:"Announcing: The Knights of the Button ā¢ r/thebutton"
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567:"A mysterious blue button is driving Reddit insane"
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50:
42:
34:
26:
880:"Reddit Explains the Mystery Behind 'The Button'"
434:Bleiberg, Joshua; West, Darrell (27 April 2015).
1072:"Reddit's Mysterious Button Experiment Is Over"
467:"Realtime chart of "the button" game on Reddit"
1189:
1036:"How about we skip 34 seconds? ā¢ r/thebutton"
812:"The 'Button' On Reddit Has Finally Hit Zero"
8:
21:
629:"Reddit's The Button source code on Github"
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531:"Whatever you do, don't click this button"
1132:"The Knights have fallen. ā¢ r/thebutton"
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20:
1112:from the original on 25 February 2020
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1063:
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969:
967:
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890:from the original on 21 February 2021
873:
871:
791:from the original on 17 November 2017
543:from the original on 5 September 2018
385:from the original on 11 February 2021
7:
986:from the original on 8 November 2020
976:"Reddit's 'The Button' Game Is Over"
529:Hooton, Christopher (2 April 2015).
415:from the original on 8 November 2020
16:Experimental meta-game on Reddit.com
465:Frauenfelder, Mark (5 April 2015).
323:from the original on 26 August 2019
105:. The experiment was hosted on the
878:Pepitone, Julianne (9 June 2015).
732:from the original on 13 March 2020
670:from the original on 11 March 2021
446:from the original on 16 April 2016
14:
1142:from the original on 3 April 2019
1082:from the original on 4 March 2021
1046:from the original on 3 April 2019
1016:from the original on 3 April 2019
920:from the original on 3 April 2019
856:from the original on 3 April 2019
764:from the original on 3 April 2019
658:Lee, Timothy B. (14 April 2015).
577:from the original on 4 March 2016
477:from the original on 7 April 2015
354:from the original on 12 June 2015
1545:
1544:
824:from the original on 4 July 2018
810:Tamblyn, Tamblyn (22 May 2015).
510:from the original on 8 June 2015
1006:"The Emerald Council subreddit"
974:Grayson, Nathan (8 June 2015).
783:Freiman, Jordan (30 May 2015).
373:Koerber, Brian (2 April 2015).
132:The specific Reddit community (
910:"45 master race ā¢ r/thebutton"
627:Lee, Matthew (24 March 2015).
596:Whitwam, Ryan (2 April 2015).
436:"Have you pressed the button?"
1:
565:Wehner, Mike (2 April 2015).
690:"Introduction of the button"
235:On 5 June 2015, at 21:49:53
844:"Update: flair and outages"
120:below a certain threshold.
112:beginning on 1 April 2015 (
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1070:Hern, Alex (8 June 2015).
1540:
1231:Reddit serial killer hoax
348:"/r/thebutton statistics"
107:social networking website
1374:Controversial subreddits
1590:Psychology experiments
1367:GameStop short squeeze
500:"The Button has ended"
262:Community interaction
1461:_9MOTHER9HORSE9EYES9
1256:Celebrity Number Six
1251:2023 API controversy
1226:Mister Splashy Pants
787:. Death and Taxes.
150:
23:
22:The Button (Reddit)
1471:Shitty_Watercolour
1397:Current executives
148:
46:1,008,316 accounts
1562:
1561:
1489:
1488:
1481:VideoGameAttorney
1423:Former executives
1414:Christopher Slowe
1347:SanctionedSuicide
1327:MaleFashionAdvice
225:
224:
218:Not able to click
93:that featured an
91:social experiment
80:
79:
1597:
1575:April Fools' Day
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1466:DeepFuckingValue
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1379:Snark subreddits
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1167:Official website
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1108:. 2 April 2015.
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1042:. 9 April 2015.
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916:. 2 April 2015.
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698:. Archived from
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604:. Archived from
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246:Technical issues
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101:, also known as
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1302:DataIsBeautiful
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948:. 9 June 2015
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1506:MeaningCloud
1494:Acquisitions
1440:Aaron Swartz
1297:ChangeMyView
1235:
1144:. Retrieved
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1114:. Retrieved
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1084:. Retrieved
1076:The Guardian
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1048:. Retrieved
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793:. Retrieved
778:
768:15 September
766:. Retrieved
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734:. Retrieved
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704:. Retrieved
700:the original
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606:the original
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327:15 September
325:. Retrieved
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154:Time clicked
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43:Participants
30:1 April 2015
18:
1532:RedditGifts
1445:Yishan Wong
640:21 November
471:Boing Boing
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