Tag Archives: New ARG

The Sun Vanished: The Rise of Twitter ARGs

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An obviously real picture from an obviously real news broadcast // Twitter: @TheSunVanished

If mankind ever found ourselves facing a post-apocalyptic situation, what would you do? Would you phone your loved ones to make sure they’re safe? Would you leave your house and go investigate yourself? Or would you go on social media and post about it, while finding out more info via that way. I know personally that the latter is the most common answer for most people.

With a resurgence in YouTube ARGs/metafiction, it’s only natural for it to progress onto different social media outlets. One in particular that gained fame was ‘The Sun Vanished’, a twitter account that poses the interesting question: what would happen if the sun vanished? (shocker!). The answer? Probably aliens.

THE ARG

Twitter user @TheSunVanished makes their first posts on April 30th 2018.

From then on, the creator combines tweets with photos and videos to create an immersive storyline of a post apocalyptic world in which one of the things we rely on almost everyday is taken from us. The eerie realism of the tweets lulls us into a state of belief, as even I found myself getting lost in the story. It truly makes us question, what would we do in this situation? Luckily, this ARG is an extremely easy read with all links mostly connected to the main twitter account (such as other accounts that are part of the ARG). I’d recommend reading it for yourself, especially as this is the first actually semi-active ARG I’ve covered on this blog.

Comment below if you’ve got any theories!

the introduction

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Hi,

I’m Orla, which you most likely could be able to tell from the title of this blog.

ARGs, short for Alternative Reality Games, have always fascinated me since I first found them. Any internet urban myth or horror story, I’ve always been deeply intrigued. Most of my Youtube subscription box is channels dedicated to breaking down and debunking them. But then I thought, who’s got the time to sit down and watch a half an hour long video about a Kanye West based video game that secretly was a cult indoctrination?

If only there was a blog that I could easily access and ramble on about the newest ARGs that fascinated me? Maybe this university assignment came at the right time.

Before I got into anything serious on this first post (I mean, we barely know each other, I’m hardly going to be telling you my mum’s maiden name), I thought I should give a brief description of what an ARG is for future reference.

All credit goes to user InsideAMind on Youtube who makes great ARG explanation videos!

Aside from the name, an ARG is a interactive storytelling method that uses the real word as it’s setting. Various things like social media and websites are used to portray the story to the audience as they can also help solve the plot/mystery. Some great examples are ILoveBees, The Cloverfield Universe, The Dark Knight ARG or Alan Resnick’s This House Has People In It (which I’ll touch upon on a later blog post). I’ll also just be talking about general quirky videos and stuff I find online.

hi i’m orla.

Talk more soon 🙂

ps. feel free to message me about any cool ARGs or stuff, i’ll be making a twitter soon