Twitch Plays Pokemon
A Pop Culture Case Study of Convergence Culture, Participatory Culture, and Collective Intelligence
Twitch Plays Pokemon and Collective Intelligence
Collective intelligence is defined by Jenkins as "Pierre Levy's term to refer to the ability of virtual communities to leverage the knowledge and expertise of their members, often through large-scale collaboration and deliberation" (Jenkins 281).
The culture surrounding Twitch Plays Pokemon is almost impossible for any one person to keep up with as the stream for the game continues around the clock and new inside jokes and happenings can occur at almost any time. If a person were to join this bandwagon late, they might be confused as to why there is a Bird Jesus and Lord Helix, for starters.
Some websites and blogs have taken the liberty of locating all of the information that has compiled since the start of the game and put it into a summary in case anyone missed what's happened. One such website with a full view of the entire fan culture and major events and characters during the game can be found at: http://www.dorkly.com/article/59505/the-majesty-of-twitch-plays-pokemon/page:2
In addition, the style of gameplay forced players to collaborate with one another to achieve goals. No one person could have stayed up all hours of the day with eyes on the computer. Players were forced to look to fan-created sources to catch back up on what they had missed. Websites such as http://www.twitchplayspokemon.org/rb/ and http://twitchplayspokemon.net/ sprung up with up to date information on the game. A google document created by fans was also officialized as the source for updates and goals for the game.
Twitch Plays Pokemon not only relied on collective intelligence to understand the culture surrounding the game, but also to navigate through actual game play.
