Eng:Scratch Trends

Scratch Trends are popular styles and events that have gone around on Scratch. Some trends have been influential on project styles that many people have used, and some other trends have been items that people use in their projects, instead. The trends are not always correlated with projects, however; others have had to do with profile pictures, usernames, or forum activities.

Trends are generally like fads, meaning they do not exist a long time. The trends listed on this page are not necessarily still ongoing and may have ended long ago; on the contrary, some trends on this page are still ongoing today. New trends form as popular media and Scratch-related events change.

Toki
The Toki, a fictional creature that was popular on Scratch, was created by the user Maki-Tak and became popular quickly in the community. The first Toki was created on August 21, 2008, and was used in a yearbook project. As the Toki was used again and again, the fad caught on, and Scratchers began making their own Tokis based off the original. The toki fad eventually sparked its own Wiki, filled with user generated content.

How it Worked
This trend incorporated a new type of creature, which was the Toki, into projects and a bit of the website as well. What one would do was create a character which was a Toki, and draw/color it how one wanted to. People would then use the Toki that they had created and put it into their projects; an example of projects they could've been in is an animation. It was common that one would create an account that was named "(your Toki's name)-Tak" as an account to do things related to one's Toki. Toki characters had appeared in many projects, and they were certainly a notable trend.

Popularity
The Toki was a popular trend, and it sparked many projects and users involving them to be created. As of October 2014, there have been around 2,500 projects that have the word "Toki" in the notes, instructions, tags, or title created, and there have been around 3,400 users with the word "Tak" (another name for toki) in their username. This trend inspired other fictional creatures such as brosses, blobs, and triangulums.

5 Random Facts about Me
"5 Random Facts about Me" was a project trend/meme that was mainly popular in Scratch 2.0. This trend involved users creating projects that included five facts about them that usually did not have anything to do with Scratch (e.g. hobbies, favorite foods, etc.).

How It Worked
A Scratcher would remix a project or create their own, filling out different background images with pieces of personal trivia.

Popularity
The phrase 5 Random Facts About Me is mentioned in the Notes, Credits, and Title of 4,060 projects. The original project created by the Scratch Team has more than 1200 remixes and 70000 views.

1S1S Projects
Popular more in the time of Scratch 1.4, 1S1S projects were developed by many users, often experienced, and used only one sprite and one script in the production of a Scratch project. In technical terms, Scratch is a multi-threaded programming language, so multiple different instructions of code can logically be executed within the same frame. A 1S1S project brought on the challenge of creating a single-threaded project, as some professional JavaScript games for instance are made.

With the release of Scratch 2.0, the trend died down quite a bit. Users still develop 1S1S projects today but they are less frequent and rarely on the front page. One possible reasoning might be the controversy that custom blocks and cloning could have brought into Scratch. There has been debating on the forums over whether or not custom blocks would still count as 1S1S. The unsureness could possibly be a result of the fading fad that once bustled on the Top Loved section of the old site.

How ________ are you?
"How ______ are you?" was a popular trend where users would share projects with information about themselves. Other users would then remix the project and compare how alike they are with the original users. After the first "How ______ are you?" project was released, it gained popularity fast. However, recently it lost popularity. Popular facts to be in these types of projects were similar to:
 * My hair color is _____
 * My eye color is _____
 * I do/do not wear glasses
 * I am a boy/girl

Coloring Contests
With Scratch 2.0's vector option being released, coloring contests became very popular. The creator of the contest would draw a base design for someone to remix, and color. Even now, one can go to the top-remixed and find a coloring contest since they are mostly on the front page. Sometimes these contests were judged, or they were just for fun. Some users complained it was a cheap way to get a project on top-remixed. These contests were commonly abbreviated as "CC".

Animal OC
Animal OC's are the term used for an animal character belonging to a Scratcher, to be used in their projects. An OC can range from pets, to wild animals, and to completely original creatures such as a Jabberbeak. They are mostly anthropomorphic which means non-humans which have human-like attributes. Some anthropomorphic animal OCs can talk like humans but still act like animals, while others fully function and live like humans.

How It Worked
Scratchers create a character based on themselves or a person who they would like to be, and incorporate their character into games, animations, and drawings. The character can be from a fandom, such as Warriors, Sonic the Hedgehog, or My Little Pony, or from the Scratcher's own imagination.

Popularity
The trend of Animal OCs has spiked in Scratch 2.0, being incorporated in Coloring Contests, Role Playing Games, and more prominently animations. As of 2/18/2015, 598,000 projects have the word OC in their tags, notes and credits. They have been more common than human and non-animal OCs.

Shipping
According to Wikipedia, shipping is support of an imaginary, usually romantic, relationship of 2 people, usually fictional characters. There has been many popular ships in the Scratch community such as SonAmy and Jelsa. However, shipping real Scratchers is not allowed as it can be disrespectful and embarrassing to the Scratchers being shipped.

Illuminati conspiracy theories
There has been a recent trend of scratchers posting conspiracy theories claiming that somebody/something is "illuminati". In these conspiracy theories, there are usually some evidence which includes some minor connection to the subject and Illuminati. A studio with illuminati conspiracy theories along with other conspiracy theories can be found here.

Adoptables
This involves a project in which there is a set of drawings of animals (usually the same species) in which a user can "adopt" them and use it in their projects. Characters, often chibis, are also often put up for "adoption". In a variation of Adoptables, called "Draw to Adopt", a Scratcher usually wins the adopt by re-drawing them the best in their own style. This trend is very popular in Scratch, as it is often used as a contest to celebrate a milestone (such as reaching a certain number of followers), as well in other sites such as DeviantArt.

...In a nutshell
This is a project which is an animation,in which the user sums up a certain topic in the fewest possible words. The title of the animation would end with 'in a nutshell. Some examples would be: School in a nutshell,Christmas in a nutshell, cats in a nutshell,cereal in a nutshell and so on. Sometimes the animation would have a funny twist to it, however that is not really a summary.

Add Everything
An Add Everything studio allows all projects to be added no matter what genre or style it is. They have random thumbnails from cats to dancing characters and usually have a goal of how many projects to reach (now combatted with the project number system change). This trend is controversial and resulted in many protests.

Add All Curators
Add All Curators studios is a variation of Add Everything studios, and is also controversial. However, instead of adding as many projects as possible, the goal of the studio is to add as many curators as possible. Some people think these kind of studios are annoying, as they spam their notifications with studio invites. A slight variation include managers instead of curators, where everyone is promoted as a manager upon joining.

Role Playing
Role-Playing Games are often played in studios, where it is played in the comments and the biographies are posted. Some of the most popular role playing studios are based off media (for example, Eragon, Warriors, etc.), while some are from the creators imagination (for example, Anthros, Jigglers, Goitz, etc.).

var0 User Icon restyles
A user, "var0", launched a project accepting requests of user icons. This was first unknown until djdolphin requested a restyle of their icon. This passed on to other Scratchers who then requested a restyle of their own accounts. This trend has transformed a small user icon shop to a base of this popular trend.

However, due to account migration by var0, the shop was closed and this trend is no longer alive.

Fake locations
This started by using locations with interesting names as a country such as "Antarctica", "Heard and McDonald Islands", "Christmas Island", and to revert to "Location not given". In addition, Scratchers have discovered that two letter country codes (must exist to work) can be set as a location in place of traditional countries, such as "United States", which could be replaced with "US" with Inspect Element. This became a popular tradition to make your account look interesting or even funny.

One of the most popular country code location is "ST", a joke reference to Scratch Team. In reality, however, ST refers to São Tomé and Príncipe. Some Scratchers who are really active in the Advanced Topics forum set their location to "AT" (Austria).

Roleplaying accounts
Some users have created accounts specifically for roleplaying as their own characters. They'll usually roleplay as the featured character and post projects about their character. It's common for fan characters and existing canon characters to be role played by account but rare for original characters.

LBGT Icons
In the month of June, it is a common tradition to have an icon in a theme of LBGT pride, which means to include rainbows. Most user icons were revamped to have a rainbow background, while some were original (not a revamped version).

Some scratchers which were against the LBGT pride converted their icons to black-and-white. This practice has been turned down already by the Scratch Team.

Licky Icons
Many users' profile pictures feature an animated animal/object licking the screen, usually a cat. This trend is still very popular today and is widespread on the Internet as a meme.

"(username)Rises/Revives"
In this trend, when a user reaches a certain number of projects, they'll create a new account called with the same username but with "Rises" at end. When they reach a certain number of projects on the new account, they'll create a new account with the username used for the first account, but with "Revives" at end. This practice may repeat at certain times.

This practice received some critiscm because some users may think of it as spam, much like namesnipes.

Some users have received alerts from the Scratch Team for project spamming, where they create a large number of projects simply in order to boost their number of projects.

Calvin and Hobbes
There has been a trend in which something related to Calvin and Hobbes, such as an icon, is used. This is not very popular and commonly used by "ATers", users who spend much time in the Advanced Topics forum.

Joke accounts
This trend is similar to the "Roleplaying accounts" trend except joke accounts are created for fun and aren't used much. Joke accounts may represent either a character or a feature and they may act like it. Many joke accounts are abandoned after a while and are sometimes considered namesnipes.

Glitchy Logos
This trend was started by TrapHD when they made a tutorial on making a "Glitchy Logo". This taught how to simly turn your user icon into a glitchy mess. Almost everyone who commented on the tutorial has a glitchy icon. People used this tutorial to impress other users or just make their user icon better.

t r x y e Logos
This trend was started by -Pineapple-. when they made the project "t r x y e meme-thing". It is based off of Troye Sivan's album cover for TRXYE. Many users remixed this project and made their own, and most of them use their version as profile pictures.

Chibi Harry Potter Logos
This trend was started when ceebee changed their icon to a chibi harry potter. Many people took it and recolored/edited them and used it as a icon.

Evil Kumquat
Several users have replaced their signatures with messages saying their signatures were eaten by an evil kumquat. This trend was created by cheddargirl during the Scratch 2.0 beta. "There's really no such thing as an evil kumquat (unless you count all the accounts claiming to be one). I just being too lazy to reconstruct the old sig I had from the 1.4 forums after the image hosting site I used was no longer supported, so I just went with the idea of blaming it all on an evil kumquat."

- cheddargirl

Joke studios and accounts have been created relating to evil kumquats.

A kumquat is actually a small orange fruit.

Support Words
In the Suggestions forum, there was once a trend where people would use a specific word for "support" instead of using the word "support" itself. Then they'll put the "translation" in their signature, many by saying "[random word] = Support". The words that people used were completely random, and if they supported a suggestion, they would post that word instead of the generic support. The trend is now rarely used after a Scratch Team member told people that it was confusing and advised people not to use it.

Semicolon Signature
In September 2013, a small and unharmful bug on the Scratch website resulted in a small semicolon that appeared at the bottom-left corner of every page. Very quickly it because popularized and after its removal people began placing the semicolon into their signatures in remembrance. After a year later, the semicolon is still present in some signatures of active users on the forums.

If you see this signature while scrolling
This trend involves a signature containing the following content: "If you see this signature while scrolling, (a picture) You have been visited/greeted by X Y will come to you only if you comment "Thanks X" on my profile."

There has been also variations of this trend, such as where the "only if" phrase is removed, or no image at all. Some also replaced X with their own username.

This was started by Zro716 and has spread slowly. The consequences of this trend is that the profile comments may be filled with comments saying "Thanks X!" or depending on what the signature requests users to do, which can be annoying and considered spam, which is why it's recommended to use this trend temporarily.

"thisandagain plz explain"
This is a catchphrase about a Scratch Team member, thisandagain, has become an occurring phrase and even a small meme in the Scratch community, usually in the Advanced Topics community. The origin is unknown, but most likely orinated from this topic. The phrase has also been parodied.