If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times; I am fascinated by the mind of a video gamer. We often think illogically, act irrationally and respond emotionally. Give us a few ingredients or components and we can solve practically any puzzle, riddle or challenge before us. We are the MacGyvers of the digital underworld and I gave up a long time ago trying to understand us. Like Jane Goodall sitting in the bushes spying on chimpanzees monkeying around, sometimes I just find joy in watching gamers behave like gamers. But one thing is for sure, I think I know and understand less about gamers today than I did 10 or 20 years ago. One of the most unpredictable and difficult factors to comprehend is things gamers find entertaining.
To prove this point – welcome the Creeper.
Even if you’re a console gamer, you might’ve heard of this character that is already becoming somewhat legendary and iconic. And if you haven’t, you might’ve seen its likeness and just not realized it.
If you’re a fan of Minecraft then no doubt you have your own personal experiences and stories, probably more than a couple, about your encounters with the dreaded creeper. There are YouTube videos showing off random encounters of gamers who stumbled upon a creeper and their ensuing surprise response.
The creeper has a bad habit of scaring the bejeebus out of unsuspecting players.
The creeper – the meme of Minecraft.
I’m going to be honest – I’ve heard the word “meme” so much I just assumed I knew what it meant but in doing the leg work for this blog I looked it up to see what the book (or at least the Wikipedia) definition of the word was.
The term Internet meme is used to describe a concept that spreads via the Internet. An Internet meme is an idea that is propagated through the World Wide Web. The idea may take the form of a hyperlink, video, picture, website, hashtag, or just a word or phrase, such as intentionally misspelling the word “more” as “moar”. The meme may spread from person to person via social networks, blogs, direct email, news sources, or other web-based services.
An Internet meme may stay the same or may evolve over time, by chance or through commentary, imitations, parody, or by incorporating news accounts about itself. Internet memes can evolve and spread extremely rapidly, sometimes reaching world-wide popularity and vanishing within a few days.
So, what is this creeper, this creature responsible for scaring unsuspecting gamers and drawing a crowd of followers? In this day and age, you might think it is this graphically complex and gruesome creature rendered with numerous polygons and hi-res textures resulting in beast so life like you’d swear it was real.
No, quite the contrary.
The Creeper is 8-bit or less, and on its own removed from its gaming environment, looks like a cactus. I started seeing people all over Team Fortress 2 and other games use the creeper as their avatar and honestly had no idea what it was until I started seeing more and more of it making appearances across the Internet (I’m not a Minecraft player).
The Creeper is a type of enemy (mob) found in the video game Minecraft. It sneaks up on unsuspecting players, and blows itself up within a certain range. It is also the only offensive creature that can be out in sunlight; spiders become neutral during the day. The other enemies (zombies and skeletons) will burn and die once the sun comes up. With the new 1.66 update, Creepers struck by lightning will become supercharged and become roughly 5 times more explosive. Although rare, these creepers have a different texture and are often kept as pets.
Players will often lure creepers into a box in which they cannot escape. On Survival Multiplayer or (SMP) it is common for players to lead the Creepers to an enemy’s house and allow the Creeper to explode, and destroy that player’s base. This practice is commonly referred to as “creeping”, “griefing”, or “leading”.
I’ve seen plushy toys and gaming apparel – all sorts of goodies.
The popularity of the Creeper is on the rise and yet again I am fascinated with trying to understand why. In an era where we have graphics capable of near photo realism and character models so life like they’re scary, we have a Lego block character constructed of a basic palette of colors – yet it’s capable of striking fear in the most battle hardened gamers while melting the hearts of others.
Why are gamers fascinated with the creeper? I have no idea. None. I just know they are.
“That sure is a nice house you have there. It would be a shame if anything happened to it.”