The Development of Interconnected Communities From a Single Button

          The internet community is one of the most fascinating things to observe in the 21st century. These communities often form out of shared interests and passions, but what makes someone passionate is always changing. On April 1st, 2015, Reddit, one of the most popular forums on the internet, released a new project simply called "The Button." It doesn't take much to guess that it was simply a page with a button on it, and in that button was a countdown timer that started at 60 seconds. When a user pressed the button, their flair beside their name changed colors depending upon when they pressed it, and they could not press the button again. Beyond that, the only instructions given by the admins were "The choice is yours". At the time the admins didn't know that this would lead to a two-month long clash with over a million participants.

           There were many groups created during this event, but the factions ended up dividing into two main groups. The first was led by two groups called the Knights of the Button and the Church of the Button, and their main goal was to keep the button prospering as long as possible. The Knights of the Button created "Holy" programs for people to sign up for that would automatically press the button for them when it reached 1 second left. The Church of the Button was dedicated to recording all the information they could about the button, and created lore for the origin and purpose of the button. By the end of the event there ended up being more lines of lore for the button then there were lines of text for it.

           The second faction was the antithesis of the first, and their sole purpose was to "bring ruin" to the button and end the event. The man groups of this faction consisted of the Grays, who refused to touch the button at all, and the Assassins. The Assassins used their accounts to infiltrate other groups and tried to sabotage everything they could. The event ended when the program that the Knights of the Button created broke when accounts that had already pressed the button got added to the mix, and after two months the event finally came to an end.

          You might be wondering what about this absurd event relates to social psychology, but the very absurdity of it can be explained by psychology. Everyone has a need to conform and fit into a group, and the internet is a catalyst for this interactions. The anonymity that the Internet provides shows us what humans are like in their most true version of their selves, and the ways that people join groups, whether to keep an idea alive, or to destroy it entirely, is so divisive that it has to relate to how nature affects each persons personality. Those that tried to keep the Button alive probably have vastly different environmental factors then those that tried their best to destroy it.