Herobrine -- a study in superstition in... a haunted video game

[Safe-Keeper]

Okay, so I caved in (pun intended) and bought Minecraft, and yes, I'm one of those people who didn't intend to play it obsessively, but of course ended up doing so anyhow.

Thing is, though, there's a really interesting urban legend about Minecraft. I don't know how it got to be so widespread, though it might be due to the large number of kids playing the game nowadays, but anyhows,

Herobrine.

"Herobrine" is a bit of an inside joke. Every time a new update is released, the changelog includes the change "Herobrine removed". There's a fairly uninteresting background story for this, but the end result, probably not predicted by the developers, is that there is now a significant number of people playing Minecraft, particularly new players, who genuenly believe in Herobrine. It seems that all the time, especially when there's just been a major release, such as this week, there's reports from people encountering him, as well as people who report stuff they don't understand in the game and attribute it to "Herobrine". This is by conspiracy theories that claim "Herobrine" is either a kind of bug or virus that was added to Minecraft by a hacker, or some kind of mystical supernatural entity that haunts the software, and that the reason why the changelogs keep saying "Herobrine removed" is that he always slips right into the game after the developers have removed him.

What's interesting is how widespread and self-sustaining the belief seems to be, and how it's upheld exactly the same way we reinforce our beliefs in UFOs and ghosts. People who believe in Herobrine post sightings or secondhand accounts, complete with statements like "I know my brother, he's not a liar". Newbies in the game experience things they can't explain, such as ambient sounds in cave systems, and attribute them to "Herobrine".

The really cool thing about this is that unlike when we discuss ghosts and flying saucers, we know Herobrine is not in the game -- this is evident when we look through the game files. This gives us an opportunity to discover a "paranormal phenomenon" we know is not paranormal at all, and contrast it to real-like stuff like, oh, psychics and ghosts .

Am I the only one, MC-er or not, who finds this cool and interesting?

 

[geni]

The really cool thing about this is that unlike when we discuss ghosts and flying saucers, we know Herobrine is not in the game -- this is evident when we look through the game files.

There are plently of ways to hide its inclusion if the developer wanted to.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

Well, ya, probably, but the point remains, we know he doesn't exist, and either way it's pretty interesting to see how there's a whole "superstition" around him in the MC community.

 

[ehcks]

Herobrine is kinda like Slenderman. It makes no sense, it can't possibly be scary, and we know it's fake... but we still can't help but think it's there somehow anyway.

 

[arthwollipot]

The XBox360 version of the game has a splash text that says "We think [production company*] has removed Herobrine from the game, but we're not sure."

*that I can't remember the name of

 

[Aepervius]

If you are starting pülaying minecraft you might consider a few modes :
* railcraft
* buildcraft
* industriual craft
* redpower
* thaumcraft
* millenaire
* better than wolf
* timber! (makes all tree blocks fall once you cut one down)
* single player command
* backpack mod
* chest mod (iron, gold etc...)

Some are adventurng mods, some are mods to build complex system with automatic feeds of machines.

 

[Cobalt]

This may or may not be related.

DISCLAIMER: TVTropes will ruin your life, I take no responsibility.

 

[Moss]

This may or may not be related.

DISCLAIMER: TVTropes will ruin your life, I take no responsibility.

I hate you.

 

[Weak Kitten]

Bad TV Tropes! Don't go, don't look!

 

[Almo]

I saw Herobrine when I was playing the Minecraft alpha. I wonder if they really ever did do the removal, or if they just say they do to mess with us.

 

[mike3]

Well, ya, probably, but the point remains, we know he doesn't exist, and either way it's pretty interesting to see how there's a whole "superstition" around him in the MC community.

I'm not familiar with this game. How do we know it's not real, never has been real? Though I suppose it doesn't make sense that a developer would keep removing something that had already been removed...

 

[100]

I'm not familiar with this game. How do we know it's not real, never has been real? Though I suppose it doesn't make sense that a developer would keep removing something that had already been removed...

I'd read this:

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/herobrine

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to copy the image, so just look at "Notch's Response." (notch was the creator of Minecraft)
He says that Herobrine doesn't exist in any way.

Although, since notch has left the development of Minecraft as of December 2011 it could be possible for Herobrine to be in it, however unlikely.

 

[Ladewig]

Bad TV Tropes! Don't go, don't look!

That kinda sounds like a common trope. I'll go look it up.


D'oh

 

[Safe-Keeper]

I'm not sure if I'm allowed to copy the image, so just look at "Notch's Response." (notch was the creator of Minecraft)
He says that Herobrine doesn't exist in any way.

Okay, now that I've read the full story, including the nonsense about the thread being deleted, I'm now more convinced than every this is a hoax.

The perpetrator should've just stuck with the hazy screenshot and the man-made structures and not made a full-blown conspiracy theory about a ghost hacking accounts and MC moderators conspiring to silence people. The story went from "slightly unnerving" to "obvious hoax" at that point.

I'm not familiar with this game. How do we know it's not real, never has been real? Though I suppose it doesn't make sense that a developer would keep removing something that had already been removed...

If I was Notch and working on a video game with a large following, I would definitely be up for adding something like this in deliberately in order to draw publicity. Nothing ridiculous and overt, but something really subtle, like a random number generator producing a certain number (or set of numbers) more often than random chance would suggest, or a figure in the fog, or, as in this case, random structures that shouldn't be there. Then I'd hide the code as well as I could, and I'd let it slip in some trailer or interview, really casually, that some figure or number or colour or whatever had special significance to us (for example that 6/3/1987 was the birthday of some random significant person).

Then I'd sit back and wait for the community (or some strawman pretending to be a random player) to pick up on it.