It only took 16 days, seven hours, and 45 seconds for what seemed impossible to come true: an online crowd that surpassed 100,000 at times beat Pokemon Red with a flurry of inputs. The game was broadcasted over the video game streaming website Twitch.tv on which viewers could all control the game at the same time by inputting commands (A, B, up, down, left, right, start). Trolls, input lag, bots, and chat scripts complicated the process for the earnest bunch of viewers who wanted to progress the game.

The player character, Red, struggled with tasks that would be simple under the control of a single player. Walking in a straight line was impossible: a zig-zag would have to do. Cutting down a bush required hours of coordination and trial-and-error. The Pokedex was frequently opened to examine Bulbasaur’s cry for the hundredth time. Using the PC’s Pokemon storage system was a precarious process that resulted in many Pokemon—including the starting Pokemon Charmeleon—being released.

It was cool when the stream beat the first gym leader Brock on the first day. It was surprising when they managed to keep up the pace and clear Mount Moon and win Misty’s Cascade Badge on the second day.

As the stream’s sensation mounted, the creator of the stream-an Australian programmer- was flooded with feedback and interview requests from the video game community. In one interview with Polygon, he expressed his interest in seeing the stream continue around the clock, and that he had his doubts about the game being beaten without improved coordination.

While some had hoped for the group victory to be accomplished without any help, the programmer did have to intervene by creating a control dichotomy of anarchy and democracy.

Anarchy was the name given to the default control method wherein everyone’s inputs were taken and executed by the emulator.

Democracy mode made it so that people would vote on the next command to be issued every 20 seconds, allowing difficult sections of the game to be dealt with in a slow, methodical fashion.
Some viewers saw democracy mode as cheap way out, and protested by spamming Start9, a command which brought the game to a halt until anarchy was restored. At other times, collaborators outnumbered the protestors and progressed the game until it seemed safe to let anarchy resume.

Conflict aside, the 391 hour journey sparked the creativity and humor of many as discussion boards shared fan art of their favorite moments and Pokemon and memes were spawned. The helix fossil acquired in Mount Moon became Red’s divine guide, Eevee and Flareon became the “False Prophet,” a manifestation (or scapegoat) of evil.

Although the stream was unbearable to watch on its own, it became something of a legendary journey.

It became the legendary journey that many viewers had set out on in their youth when the Pokemon Gameboy games were initially released. It was a real challenge to make it through, even with all the knowledge about the game firmly documented in guides and wikis. It was the challenge and group effort to get through the game with humor and coordination that made this two-week sensation a legend to go down in internet history.

With nearly 36.5 million views, it hasn’t reached the same quantity of views that Gangnam Style has accumulated (which is over 1 billion), but it was the story of Twitch Plays Pokemon that will make it be remembered as the story of a boy named Red who was tormented by the commands of thousands, but was not stopped on his quest to become champion of the Pokemon League.