YWOT Timeline

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An incomprehensive summary of YWOT history.

Pre-release[edit | edit source]

Andrew Badr, the creator of Your World of Text, drew inspiration for YWOT from Google Maps, the original Facebook Wall, and the infinite nature of the universe.

YWOT is believed to be the first infinite canvas on the internet.

Early Days(August 4th, 2009 - September 23rd)[edit | edit source]

August 2nd, 2009: The YWOT domain is registered.

August 4th, 2009: YWOT is advertised on Hacker News.

August 4th - 6th, 2009: YWOT is advertised across multiple 4chan boards, introducing hordes of users to the newly created site.

August 9th, 2009: YWOT reaches the top of r/programming.

August 25th, 2009: YWOT gains popularity on Chrome Experiments.

August 27th, 2009: Andrew opens beta testing for user accounts.

September 23rd, 2009: First Mainpage reset, site moved off of App Engine.

Early Development(2010)[edit | edit source]

May 31st - June 6th, 2010: The subworld known as /msernst experiences a rapid rise in popularity.

June 8th, 2010: Rate limits are added to curb spam scripts.

  • Andrew creates Our World of Text as a version of YWOT where scripters can spam without restrictions.

September 11th, 2010: The YWOT Fandom wiki is created by Akiake, who disappeared soon after and left the wiki to decay in stagnancy for the next decade.

Vsauce Explosion, Golden Age(2011 - 2013)[edit | edit source]

March 29th, 2011: Vsauce features YWOT in a video, ushering in the most active period in the site's history.

  • To this day Vsauce is the primary avenue through which new users discover YWOT.

2012: User Spacenut creates a list of subworlds at /comprehensive.

June 9th, 2012: /msernst blows up once again, owing to a reddit post which details u/ProtrudedDemands' spiritual journey down an ASCII line.

August 2012: /~orson_welles/4chansports is advertised across 4chan and experiences rapid growth over the course of roughly three days.

September 19th, 2012: Andrew publishes a new website named Jotleaf.

  • In Jotleaf, users could add text, images and sound files to infinite canvases similar to YWOT.

December 21st - 23rd:[1] Andrew locks the Mainpage for Christmas, making it so that only Mormons could make edits.

  • At least two more lockdowns of the Mainpage would occur after this.

Spam Wars, Dark Times(2013)[2][edit | edit source]

An era characterized by heavy spam, with many users banding together into spammer factions.

January 2013: Several important YWOT users, including Infraraven and JA, wage war against a spam group known as Deathcloud.

January 2013: 4chan users invade the site yet again, destroying many prominent landmarks.

February 24th - March 15th, 2013: The Spawn Box disappears for a short period of time.

February - May, 2013: User Randomguy_ creates a YWOT wiki on a series of interconnected subworlds.

  • Much of the wiki would be deleted at an unknown point (after July 2013.)

March 22nd, 2013: Another Mainpage lockdown.

Early 2013: Many users begin advocating for a Member-Only YWOT in order to combat spam.

April 22nd, 2013: JA, a veteran user and a leader in the Member-only movement, leaves the site.

  • Many users change the color of their worlds in order to mourn his departure.

July 8th, 2013: Andrew changes the naming format for user worlds.

  • Users used to be able to claim subworlds, now they generate worlds based on the "/~username/worldname" format.
  • There seemed to have been an option to transport the contents of old worlds to the new naming format. (Ex. /~infraraven/infraraven, where /infraraven was the name of the world pre-update.)

July 2013: A user named Lol007 gains notoriety for leaking scripts and griefing worlds.

  • They were once part of InfraRaven's circle.
  • Lol007 quickly becomes public enemy #1 for the YWOT community, gaining the nickname "Hitler007."
  • Several users retaliated by DDOSing Lol007's pages.

Summer of 2015[edit | edit source]

July 15th, 2015: Mainpage wipe as a result of a particularly aggressive spammer.

August 20th, 2015: First OWOT shut down, domain passed to InfraRaven.

November 2015: Jotleaf shut down and open sourced.

Recovery(Late 2015 -2020)[edit | edit source]

The days immediately after the 2015 wipe can be found at /~fp/waybackYWOT

2015: SPLATOON Guy rebuilds Deep City and begins making the SPLATOON Line.

October 8th, 2017: Current OWOT is opened by FP and Infraraven.

Unknown Period: Drama between Melimeli and various other users.

April 16th, 2020: The YWOT Explorers server was founded by travelers of the North Road.

June 23rd, 2020: The podcast Cult or Just Weird releases an episode about YWOT and the /msernst Line.

  • One of the hosts was able to interview Andrew Badr, shedding light on the inspiration behind the site and its significance in the wider internet.

July 22nd, 2020: Dreamer's Road was conceived and founded by members of the YWOT Explorers server; it is being expanded to this day.

Lockdown(August 10th, 2020 - January 6th, 2021)[edit | edit source]

See also Brazilpocalypse.

August 3rd, 2020: A Brazilian youtuber features YWOT in a video, leading to an influx of Portuguese speaking users.

August 10th, 2020: Andrew Badr locks down the Mainpage due to heavy racist pushback against the Brazilian newcomers.

August 11th, 2020: The developer of Cookie Clicker mentions YWOT in a tweet, describing the site as an "open world text processor."

August 2020 - January 2021: The Mainpage remains uneditable, leading many users to either leave the site, move to OWOT or seek refuge in one of YWOT's numerous subworlds.

Recent Developments[edit | edit source]

In the time after the 2020 Lockdown.

2021[edit | edit source]

January 6th, 2021: Andrew Badr reopens the Mainpage upon the request of InfraRaven and KKB, two veteran users.

  • There was an immediate burst of activity as the dormant YWOT community celebrated.

July 27th - August 17th, 2021: Andrew tested canvas rendering at stage.yourworldoftext.com.

  • This update, which blocked out scripts and decreased loading time, was implemented to base YWOT on August 17th.

October 13th - 25th, 2021: Kmccord's Among Us Virus spams AMOGUS blocks over all edits made on the Mainpage.

2022[edit | edit source]

2021 - 2022: Mandrake arrives and proceeds to explore much of the Mainpage, becoming the first person to reach 10k on all 8 major lines and roads.

  • During this period they traveled 100,000 coordinates on the West and East Roads.

January 2022: Korieum arrives in YWOT and triggers a spam war at Spawn.

April 14th - 18th, 2022: Kubex300 uses his five servers to paste an ungodly amount of spam at Spawn.

April 18th - 22nd, 2022: Kubex begins deleting Spam Central hundreds of coordinates at a time.

April 22nd, 2022: FP restores the damage done by Kubex, leading to a brief period of peace.

May 31st - June 2022: Kubex returns to cover hundreds of coordinates with black unicode.

  • The Void, as it was known, persisted over Spam Central for over a month before a bot was developed to erase it.
  • Towards the end of the incursion Spam Central was once again restored.

September 15th - November 15th, 2022: The Janitor's indestructible box of rules persists to the left of the Spawn Box, surviving countless attacks until Korieum returned to fight in the name of freedom(i.e. pasting ISIS flags everywhere until The Janitor surrendered).

November 17th, 2022: The Janitor deploys the first Roomba, a moving text object that cleaned up text within a small radius of the Spawn Box.

  • The default roomba and its variants would be a regular presence up to late 2023, much to the anger of several users.

December 2022: Multiple spammers collaborated to slander The Janitor at a massive scale.

2023[edit | edit source]

Mid - Late 2023: Factions of ASCII characters began appearing at Spawn.

Late 2023: Maticalman creates edit wars and hate pages on the YWOT Fandom wiki.

August 17th, 2023: The YWOT wiki is briefly shutdown when Fandom staff caught wind of the persistent drama.

2024[edit | edit source]

Early 2024: Moth Cult Leader becomes active, deploys moths and roombas at spawn.

April - July 1st, 2024: YWOT suffers immense lag as a persistent griefer overloaded the server with requests.

  • After multiple requests from YWOT users, Andrew hired a freelancer to fix the issue.

August 31st - September 4th, 2024: Moth Cult Leader links YWOT and OWOT using a series of bridges.

August 2nd - September 7th, 2024: LiquidVicinity creates a new YWOT wiki, leaving Fandom behind.

December 14th, 2024: Tech youtuber Aywen uploads a video about YWOT, triggering a flood of French users.

2025[edit | edit source]

December 27th, 2025: YWOT is reported and flagged as a potential phishing website.

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ https://github.com/ywothistory/ywothistory.github.io/blob/master/_posts/2015-06-01-christmas2012lockdown.markdown
  2. ↑ https://github.com/ywothistory/ywothistory.github.io/blob/master/_posts/2012-12-30-modernages.markdown
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