EFFORTPOST The story of April30th2015: How a doomsday larp caused mass chaos and panic

I've lately felt the need to make a few posts looking back on the days when Reddit wasn't completely lame and normie-fied, and this seemed like a good place to start. This occurred back in the days of 2015, ten years ago now, before Reddit would go on to become completely buckbroken by Trump's victory and G*mergate, thus ushering in the soulless website that is modern Reddit. The drama sub was in its infancy, culture wars and Tiktok hadn't ruined online discouse, it was a simpler time.

Back around the end of 2014, a subreddit would appear by name of 'April30th2015' with a sidebar message and post from user '20141220' explaining that he had mysteriously time traveled in his sleep back to the year of 2014 and felt the need to warn everyone of the impending solar flare disaster on April 30th, 2015 that would effectively plunge the world into chaos. Note: I had difficulty finding the original post as the sub OP eventually deleted their account but most of the sub's other posts are still readily available. The sidebar reads:

At 0250 UTC on Friday 1 May 2015 (which is late on Thursday, April 30th in the US) the power goes out throughout the world due to a solar storm on the level of the Carrington event of 1859 (though most people won't know the cause for several months): the power has gone out and there's no more running water or food deliveries ... and it will be this way for many years to come.

Within a the short period of time leading up to April, the sub amassed a decent amount of attention and as expected, reactions were very mixed.

Most immediately suspected it was a larp and reacted accordingly, quickly developing a meme culture around it and shitposting about the coming 'skeleton apocalypse'.

If the power goes out, people will say 430 blaze it instead of 420 blaze it because they will need to light candles

MRW the power goes out

April 29th be like...

BREAKING: Time Traveler has brought back photographs of the world after the power outage. Warfare and banditry become comonplace.

But this is Reddit and inevitably, some would take the bait.

Realscienceguydude comes to explain to us why time travel is impossible:

Why all of this is Bullsh*t

And 2015 Reddit responds as 2015 Reddit does:

Another brave skeptic steps forward:

Why This Can't Be True

And of course, some would play into the larp to the ridicule of most of the users.

Preparing

The OP would eventually gain his own cabal of edgelords playing along in every post

Horrible... very horrible things await this poor planet

April 30th is not what you think it is. And it's exactly what you think it is. It is probably the end of Humanity as we know it.

I did it, but I couldn't stop them. Their plans have only been delayed for a year.

However, the reactions that would attract the most attention would be the ones genuinely panicking under the conviction that societal collapse was upon us.

I'm legit kind of freaked out about this, someone tell me why I shouldn't be, please.

This guy is a fricking butthole

Gullible person with anxiety here, is this roleplaying?!?!

Is this real?! D:

Now in the days leading up to April 30th, the larp would start to amp up: 20141220 would prophesize that a Malaysian Airlines planes set to take off the morning after April 30th would crash. Reactions were, again, mixed but largely skeptical but this wasn't enough to stop one user from rising up to the occasion.

20151220, you are terrorist and a fear monger. You either release a public message saying that this is a load of bullshit, or I and countless others will report you to authorities. Who's with me?

He'd go on to argue in a now deleted post about his valiant efforts to stop this terrorist.

Now, after rumbleshit had supposedly contacted the authorities over this, 20141220 would abruptly delete his account and a gloating thread would follow.

HE DELETED HIS ACCOUNT

With the bulk of his gloating occurring here

But that wouldn't be the end of this as new accounts stepped in to push the larp.

I am 20141220, and I do not live in Greater London

Many would argue in the comments section about whether he was the legitimate 20141220 or not, but a new account would soon appear. The user SaveTheSpyCrabs would step forward with a post announcing he was 20141220 and this had merely been an epic troll.

He never broke character, *I never broke character.

He'd go on to try to argue some sort of proof in the comments but users remained skeptical. April 30th of 2015 soon approached and to no one's surprise, nothing happened. Users responded accordingly.

GET FRICKED C*NT

SpyCrabs himself would show up to shitpost and try to revitalize the edgelords.

I can't keep hiding.

But this time around, Reddit users weren't biting.

SaveTheSpycrabs most recent post is just him roleplaying.

The subreddit would die a slow death as users got tired of skeleton posting and many moved on to other pastures. Nonetheless, this sub is one of the last remaining vestiges of what Reddit was like in a time not wrecked with culture wars slap fighting.