Project Digiclipse, The Online Digimon Cult | Esoteric Internet
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- čas přidán 11. 07. 2024
- "Project Digiclipse is the combination of hope, belief, and the theories of members of all digimon believers."
Very few remember Project Digiclipse, but it will forever live in infamy. An odd group that emerged from the darkness of the internet. Based around the belief that Digimon were real.
What information remains of the forum and group is little. Though an image can be constructed from what mysterious bits remain. The strange tale of Digiclipse, its adherents, and its enemies. And what brought about their downfall.
Now that Halloween is about, it is time to recall this tale of Internet madness.
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Video Sources (Support the creators/uploaders):
-Computer Code Scrolling on Black 2: bit.ly/2Q85szS
-Typing on laptop - Stock HD Free Footage: bit.ly/2RvhCDa
-OLD COMMERCIAL COMPUTERS - COMMODORE: bit.ly/2QcBZoc
-Digimon Digital Monsters Season 1 Intro - English: bit.ly/2ER1me6
-Digimon Adventure 02 Finnish Ending: bit.ly/2PCJfg8
-Digimon Frontier Opening (ENGLISH): bit.ly/2qpZWgJ
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Music:
Kevin MacLeod - "Static Motion" (00:00-00:53)
Frédéric Chopin - "Galop Marquis", preformed by Aya Higuchi (00:53-01:03)
Kevin MacLeod - "Gloom Horizon" (01:03-03:03)
Kevin MacLeod - "Awkward Meeting" (03:03-04:19)
Kevin MacLeod - "Dark Walk" (04:19-05:36)
Kevin MacLeod - "The Escalation" (05:36-10:52)
Kevin MacLeod - "Quinns Song-A New Man" (10:52-11:38)
Kevin MacLeod - "Midnight Meeting" (11:38-12:26)
Kevin MacLeod - "Crinoline Dreams" (12:27-12:56)
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All copyrighted media, images, and music respective owner(s).
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Sources:
-DigiRaid: bit.ly/2OkbMTc
-CollarMe and Digiclipse: bit.ly/2DfC4ot
-Wiki Of DigiClipse: bit.ly/2QcR61d
-Please answer my question about PROJECT DIGICLIPSE?: bit.ly/2CVeCvO
-DigitalDuskEclipse: / digitalduskeclipse
-What Is Project Digiclipse: bit.ly/2RzCidl
-Digiclipse: Kids believe they are going to the Digital World: bit.ly/2AEWBQE
-DIGIMON ARE REAL - BELIEVE: bit.ly/2PEhK5M
-We killed the Digimons: bit.ly/2PAENi3
-So DERP is finally learning and shutting down: bit.ly/2EZEJnR
-I don't know where else to turn: bit.ly/2ziNGT5
-Hundreds Of People On This Forum Believe That Digimon Is Real...No Joke..: bit.ly/2zkOLKi
-And now, for your daily dose of wtf...an online community that believes that Eminem was replaced by an imposter years ago: bit.ly/2RvkK1S
-The Digital Research Project: bit.ly/2SAGXNf
-Pokéclipse: bit.ly/2DgJIz0
-Millerites: bit.ly/2RrgGQ4
- Checklist of Cult Characteristics: bit.ly/2DhqPvJ
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We are Digital: "Thank You For Watching"
When we're all fighting off Digimon in a few years, we'll wish we had listened.
It's been three years and it still hasn't happened 😢
@@pigeonsoul1672 it's coming trust me
So I didn't expect anyone to actually give a shit about this after it all blew over, but I was one of the admins for digiclipse back in the day so maybe I can provide some insight. Throwaway account because no way in hell am I gonna be linked to this as an adult lol
I'm not gonna lie, I really hate the tone of this video, but I suppose it's not your fault because all of the information that survived about digiclipse came from sites that were made for the purpose of making fun of it/talking about how creepy and cult like it was. One thing that all these threads and videos neglect to mention is that in the beginning everyone involved, including the "staff", were children. Digiclipse spun off from an msn group called Real Digimon Believers (started by a girl who was 12/13 at the time) where it was literally just a bunch of kids getting way too into an RP fantasy about what they'd do if they had digimon in real life. Most of the threads were like "if I had a digimon I'd take them to school with me in my backpack! Or hide them with my stuffed animals! ^_^", shit like that. Everyone insisted they were deadly serious about it, but it was kind of an unspoken assumption that everyone was just playing. We drew pictures and wrote fanfiction. I remember we used to have art competitions to design banners and mascots and things like that. It was all very innocent stuff and most of the kids who joined ended up hanging out in a big msn messenger chat (this was before skype/discord) where we'd talk about how school was going and what cartoons and video games we were into that week. The reason digiclipse spun off into its own site rather than staying in the msn groups was because a couple of the kids had just started experimenting with html and css coding and they wanted to practice running their own thing. That's why it looked... Well, bad. And why the writing was so janky and gave off weird vibes. It was a kid's first website and they had no idea what they were doing.
Eventually some of the kids had decided they should get more people to join the msn group (hey, more friends!) and that it would be a good idea to make youtube videos to advertise. That caught the attention of folk on ED and /b/, who spent the next year or so harassing a bunch of children because that's how you get your kicks when you're bored on the internet I guess. It started off as your run of the mill online harassment but it really quickly spiralled into "holy shit this is straight up illegal" territory. Kids having porn and gore sent to them. Pictures of them being taken from the groups and posted on 4chan after being photoshopped to look like child porn. I remember at the time one of the kids was doxed by them and had really disgusting phone calls and things mailed to their house. Calling their parents to say "did you know your child fucks dogs" and rape/murder threats and things like that. Again, we're talking about 12-15 year olds. For what was essentially a digimon roleplay. A lot of the original members got scared and left, or their parents stopped them from using the internet entirely. I know some of these kids were in abusive households (hence the escapism fantasy game) so I can only imagine what kind of punishment they got after they disappeared forever.
Because of all the attention a ton of people started swarming the forums and that's what you see when you see the really out there screenshots, almost all of them were troll accounts made for the sole purpose of disrupting conversation or to lurk the forums after they panicked and made it private. Pentium is cited as a key figure in everything probably because he was one of the few members who posted who wasn't a young child, and the guy just WOULD NOT stop posting his actual name and face everywhere, but he had nothing to do with the organisation of the site. He was just an autistic teenager from canada who really liked computers and the reason so many screenshots exist of him on ED and elsewhere is because he was harassed within an inch of his life because he was an easy target and the poor guy didn't know how to handle it. Even he was underage and in school at the time, btw, I know it's hard to tell from his photos. They doxed him, catfished him, leaked his nudes, and I'm still horrified by everything that happened to him. I remember it really messed him up and I hope he's doing okay because he didn't deserve any of it, especially not for making up some bullshit story on the internet about how he found a digital world in his computer.
After some g00ns rooted the forum (because of course a website run by a 13 year old wouldn't have any kind of competent security) different groups splintered off. I remember there were a bunch of bad freewebs sites with xat chats where people would hang out. Some 20-something dude from WY who none of the admins had ever met before decided he'd take it upon himself to restart digiclipse and bought a proper domain name and everything. (Side note, shortly after this he got arrested for flying out to NY to see his underage girlfriend who he met through a member on the site. I have no idea who this guy was originally or where he came from but YIKES.) Almost all the trolls followed and some of the kids went too. The mixing of the two ended up in this weird toxic feedback loop between older teens and adults who wanted to fuck with people and kids with bad home lives who wanted some kind of outlet to escape, and it genuinely ended up messing some of them up. I know there are people who joined around this time who are still involved and were diagnosed with serious mental and physical illnesses in their late teens/early 20s. Digiclipse disappeared (replaced with the DRP at one point, run by another newcomer who had nothing to do with the original group) but the DAR community still exists in private discord servers and it's honestly really sad to see what happened to them. Last I heard they don't believe in "digimon" anymore, it's "warrior spirits" and they're off fighting battles together in the astral plane and shit like that. I know most of them are in their mid to late 20s now and I hope for their sake they move past it soon. But I think anyone who's still hanging onto a childhood fantasy game like this probably needs some professional help to get to that point.
tl;dr. A bunch of kids played a game of pretend online to escape the shittier parts of being a kid, people thought this was hilarious, joined in to mess with them, and genuinely ruined the lives of some actual literal children. I know at least one person who was so traumatised by the experience they had with the harassing phone calls and death threats that to this day they don't use social media at all anymore and have even considered legally changing their name. It's not the story of a depraved cult, it's a sad tale of a child's game that was hijacked and twisted into this manipulative fantasy where adults exploited them "for the lulz."
Side note to make this slightly less depressing: I know a few people who met their partners through the digimon forums. As in, human partners lol. Two couples are happily married and one just had a kid of their own. All of them moved on from digimon when it stopped being fun and games but the relationships they made were real. I know that doesn't make for an interesting clickbait cult video, but hey. Sometimes real life is kind of mundane or just a bit sad. But that's why people play pretend on the internet.
Damn.
Thanks for the info. Sorry if the video feels one-sided. Like you said, I only had access to stuff on the outside about DigiClipse. And I had no idea how to find anyone who was involved with this stuff. I'm really grateful someone came out to tell there side of the story an all that went down. I was surprised how many people involved in this stuff my shitty little video reached. I really had no idea how to approach it.
That's sort of what I was looking for with this video. See if there was anyone still around to talk about this stuff. It feels so long gone I thought it was all buried. So I was kinda surprised with this and other people posts.
If you're ever interested (I know you already posted a lot), I'd love to go over this stuff some more. Just to try to show your side. Feels unfair sense I did not have anyone involved in this stuff to talk to. I'd love a perspective from the other side. Don't know if you'd be up for an interview (text or speech or something), but I would love to do something. Even if you'd just be fine with me using your post to talk about this stuff at some later point. Just offering.
Just really thankful you posted this.
@@Pseudiom You're welcome to use any info from my comment, but I don't think I'll be doing an interview about this, sorry. I'm an adult with a career and a digimon-free life now and I don't particularly want my cringey childhood group fanfiction tied to me anymore, you feel me? I just didn't want the only record on the internet of this to be made by the people who were harassing minors for fun. The whole thing was pretty fucked up.
@@namasurnama1460 hypocrite.
@@GribbleGob why?
Thank you for sharing this perspective. I was involved in those early days and I believe I splintered off into a group that truly believed Digimon were real. Like you said, I had an awful home life and the forums were an escape for me. I believe it also really messed me up when trolls started spilling onto the forums who were acting like they believed - I think I made a few "friends" that were essentially catfishing me and it really messed me up.
I have disassociate amnesia, so I've forgotten a lot of things until I started therapy this year, and this is one of the things I started remembering. I wish I remember what my username was because I remember having a lot of friends from the forums back in the day. But anyways... I'm glad to see this perspective, because what I remembered about Digiclipse is a lot different from the perspective found in a lot of videos today. Thank you.
I think one fascinating aspect that might have drawn people to Digiclipse was the fact that the Digimon anime covered some really serious shit for a kids' show. Stuff like divorce and abusive parents and feelings of isolation and inadequacy. In the show, Digimon are often a vehicle used for resolving these problems (especially in the rather lazily written second series). I wonder how many kids on that forum were going through some hard times themselves and were looking for hope in the form of Digimon.
Also completely unrelated: a part of me really misses that old, pre-web 2.0 forum culture of the web. There was some truly fascinating shit that always seemed to be happening, and the communities were always way less isolated than you might imagine if your only frame of reference is today's social media dumpster fire web.
Dang I almost forgot this happened. My favorite thing to come out of it was the "I wish Blastoise was my dad" post from Pokeclipse. I still reference it with some friends from time to time.
Okay...
*Deep breath*
I will be honest here. I haven't seen the whole video. I watched up to the point where one of my stupid old comments was shown, and I was startled. Very startled. I may watch the rest of this video sometime, or I may not. I haven't decided yet.
That comment was me being silly. Yes, I was diagnosed with schizophrenia in the past, and yes, I have been hospitalized on four separate occasions. If I were to attempt to explain absolutely everything we would be here forever, but… god. The past really comes back to haunt you, doesn’t it?
I wasn’t diagnosed or hospitalized because I used to believe in Digimon, or while I believed in Digimon. I was hospitalized because of suicidal thoughts that I had in the past, because I struggle with things like depression and extreme anxiety. My current psychiatrist thinks that schizophrenia may have been a misdiagnosis after all, and that I actually have an extreme form of OCD or something (and I may possibly be bipolar, which would explain the depression). So, chances are, my former belief in Digimon was not related to my mental illness in any way. I did not know this when I posted that old comment.
I believed in Digimon AGES ago. I have absolutely no such beliefs now. Want to know what I believe now? I happen to be an atheist. I don’t believe in anything religious or spiritual, and I sure as hell don’t believe in weird cartoon monsters who live inside of computer worlds or whatever. We were all young once. We all go through weird phases. I just happened to have some… very, very weird phases, mainly during a period of time that I think of as “the mistake years”. I regret so much of what I used to think and believe, and I’m ashamed of myself for ever believing in that ridiculous bullcrap. I don’t even know if I ever truly believed, or if I just wanted to feel like I belonged to something. Again, we were all young once and we all go through ridiculous phases. I wanted something cool to be real, so I tried to make myself believe that it was.
Seriously. I expected this to stay dead and buried. I had no idea my teenage idiocy was going to come up like this. Funny, because it was super recently when I was telling a friend about my 2008 stupidity and how people eventually forget and move on. Maybe I wasn’t as correct as I wanted to be. I was fourteen for most of 2008. I was on Digiclipse as “Duskleaf” and CZcams as “DigitalDuskEclipse” (among other things; that was my “Digimon believer” account). Yes, I made all those shitty Windows Movie Maker videos uploaded to the DigitalDuskEclipse account. Yes, they make me cringe now. I can hardly believe they even still exist after all this time. I would have taken them down, most likely, but I long ago lost the password to that account so I can’t.
There’s so much more I could say about this topic, but this comment is long enough, so I’ll leave it at this for now.
Thanks for the comment. I'm not trying to dig anything up or treat anyone bad. The only purpose of this video was talk about a weird brief online event. We all did stupid stuff. And this is not intended to make anyone feel bad. I'm not trying to encourage anyone to dig up people or annoy others. This video is born out of an odd interest from the event than any intention to mock anything. I am very glad the people around this have developed. And this comment means a lot to me that you're comfortable enough to tell your part. Many thanks.
...a closing statement for an interesting event
How did you find this video though? A video you're mentioned in with 3000-ish views and you coincidentally find the video? I get its related to digimon, something im sure you still love, but the likelihood of this is crazy.
@@jordanred3273 I was just looking up stuff about Digiclipse on CZcams for the heck of it and came across this video. There isn't a lot of content out there about Digiclipse anymore, so it makes sense to me that I would run into this while searching for it. When I search for Digiclipse on CZcams, this is the first video that comes up.
...okay
I remember someone in a math class saying something about someone apparently 'maladjusted' saying things about being the 'Digimon emperor' and going back 'to the Digital world'--it's why I decided to click on this video.
When I first posted this video I thought DigiClipse was a pretty obscure little group, but I've been getting a surprising number of stories from people who heard about it in school and stuff like your comment. Very strange.
Late 2000s internet history is very interesting.
I miss those bygone days... Don't miss the slow downloads though.
When you try to bring about the digital world but you end up summoning the Godhand.
I was a young kid when I was part of this forum, and I actually believed in it for a short period. From what I remember it was a good mix of older trolls and younger folk who genuinely wanted to believe it. Mostly it was just a fun place to imagine what it would be like if Digimon were real, as a form of escapism. It's a funny memory to have
I'm a huge Digimon fan, and I didn't know this existed. Jesus.
Could you imagine a world where this was all true? One where the Miniclipse did indeed occur. It is being covered up. An unspecified number of “digidestined” have gone missing and are believed to have entered the digital world. Currently, they are thought to be working towards a return to the “real world” by breaking down the barrier from the other side. The Digiclipse operation is still underway...
I believe a world like that exists, Multiverse theory supports the idea that even fictional universes and events have a possibility of existing somewhere.
Maybe in some alternative universe, the people on the Digiclipse forum successfully made it to the digital world, and are working to build a bridge between our world and theirs.
Absurd? Yes. But I am enticed by the thought of it.
I know this video is taking a mocking tone towards everyone involved in this but;
I can't get the mental image of some poor kid, likely trapped in a bad household, holding up the V-Pet they have up to the moon, desperately wishing to escape their crappy life.
It's stuff like that that makes me more sad for everyone involved instead of mocking them.
This level of research and production deserves more views/suscribers.
I agree!
I genuinely cannot believe I'm about to post on this, especially after it's been an eternity since I've looked up anything about this, but hear me out:
I used to be heavily involved in Digiclipse/DAR, etc. I was very young at the time, probably around 12 years old or so. I actually knew Pentium, and still do. Last I talked to him was about two years ago, and he's... not doing very well IRL. A lot of problems, which is unfortunate because he was always a really nice guy. Just very troubled.
He also isn't the one who started Digiclipse, which I want to make VERY clear. He was a contributor to the forums, but IIRC a guy by the name of "TK" (Yes, like from the show) started it. Pentium actually was a bit of a troll on some parts, i.e. the BlackWargreymon thing. From what I remember, he totally fabricated that part. Not sure how much of the other stuff he was trying to do was genuine.
I still know a handful of people who used to be on the site and believe it and all, most of which are doing fairly well now. We've grown up.
I was online during Digiclipse and I can tell you, during its salad days no digimon related content was safe from them. Much like how nothing is ever safe from Sonic Fanboys.
It was truly a spectacle to see live. I'm a digimon fan, but these guys were literally insane.
Thanks for the info. Wasn't aware of DigiClipse when it was around so its good to have more info on it.
Dude your videos are crazy good, how come your channel is so underrated?! Keep goin' and you'll find success in no time, I'm sure of it. Much love, Pseudiom.
Hey guys it's me, Digimon
Wow, very nice to meet you Digimon.
Can I have my 72 virgin Renamon's
Hey, anybody from the goose Boose stream?
Bootleg_Zone here I'm glad that I got him some new people
Yo! This is weird, I remember back in 08, In art class some nerdy anime girl telling me about this. I thought she was just being random and obscure.
The username GreenDolphin is interesting since in Tamers there's a character who went by the name "Dolphin." In this iteration of the series, he was one of the Monster Makers who made the Digimon. I wouldn't be surprised if the kids that were on this forum back then (I read that throw-away account's story) were really inspired by this and the fact that the English dub has a commercial that says "you've played the game" (in Tamers it was some computer and card game) and "you've seen the show" even though the Japanese version (Latino dub as well. Bar the adoption of the majority of name changes from the English dub, the Latino dub script was from the Japanese script) didn't say that so maybe that, along with boring and/or cruddy lives at home made these kids seek escapism and now we're here with a twisted legacy because of trolls. What a pain. I hope these kids the best and the adults that are still stuck on it or the adults that have joined at their age grow up and stay safe. Can't blame these kids, I did that RP shit about 6 years ago. Didn't last long though lol. Still, it's interesting hearing about actual cults based on fictional stories like the Undertale one, even if the details (the picture of the bloody knife) are fucked up. With Discord, mayhap these fringe communities can lay in secrecy for a while longer if not forever.
you meaning to tell me there's an Undertale cult???????
Amazing work! You have earned a new subscriber. Boy, the 2000s were crazy! This reminds me of the Final Fantasy House; maybe not as malicious, but definitely more mysterious!
This reminds me of Final Fantasy House as well
Dang I forgot this existed til seeing your video. I love digimon and was doing lorediving into the series when I found this stuff remember reading about it way back. Like it had to have been at least a decade ago
Actually I think I was part of this Insanity back I the day lol. If I'm not mistaken the digiclipse actually branched off from Digimon Are Real (DAR) forums. I probably got my ansiety and panick attacks from there. That said though I did learn English the worst kind of way so it ended up as a trade-off.
There are people who believe in what's in the bible, why can't someone believe in something a random japanese guy wrote?
619Slipk So tragicomedic lol
I'm literally schizophrenic, but I'm not _THIS_ crazy. I just have the bog standard thing where I think the government and/or TV shows are filming everything I do, watching everything I do on my computer and phone, thinking I'm in a Truman Show type situation. And I was completely right about the government monitoring everything I do on my computer and phone thing, with the NSA and all that being revealed, and I was right about our phones listening to words we say and then providing us relevant ads about it. Still schizophrenic though, being right about it doesn't mean I'm not ill. I don't believe digimon is real, that seems like something other than schizophrenia
Why do you have so views? This is great, and I found you through a recommendation. So I hope that means the flood Is going to start. Keep it up man
Serious I was just about to post a comment saying the same thing. These videos are great, why isn't this channel bigger? Keep up the awesome content
Pseudiom!
Agreed, his content reminds me a lot of EmpLemon's youtube geographic.
severely underrated channel
Would you consider doing a video on the LUE board from the GameFAQs of old?
I unironically want to see a BITE model breakdown of Digiclipse
There is nothing on this so I'm glad you made a video on it collecting all of this so I didn't have to lel. Good job man, keep it up.
Good videos
I remember when I first saw the Project Digiclipse page on ED back in 2009. I was laughing my ass off but then it soon went quiet. Looking back at it now it's really not very surprising. I mean, the Internet is to this day a fertile ground for bizarre cults and conspiracy theories, and the Digimon franchise revolves around the idea of parallel universes and unseen forces governing the different universes, etc. Besides, it was the new millennium, the world was unrecognizable from 10 years prior and it felt like almost anything was possible. The average teenager outcast was the perfect victim for the first digital cult that popped up.
This is like Chris Chan's dimensional merge but somehow worse given how many believed in it.
I have been watching some of your video lately and am shocked at your low viewer/subscriber count! Really high quality stuff here.
My only real complaint is that your intro is not very indicitive of the content you make. I respect the more artistic approach in said intro, though.
The intro is something I cobbled together in Premiere/After Effects in like 3 Months before I started making any videos. I kow it is kinda outdated, but I have a sweet-spot for it and can not really put together anything better. I'll probably look about for commissioning a new one from someone with more skill when I have more time in the next few months.
It'd be a missed opportunity if the writers of the 2020 reboot don't make use of this; I can talk a lot about relating it more recent developments in the franchise but I'll just say for now how I'm worried that the reboot show will more or less be a compressed version of the first two seasons story-beats.
__
`_` This video reminds me of the Philip K.Dick story and 'Serial experiments lain' (thank you Chiaki J. Konaka ) vibes of 'Tamers'/'season 3'
they had to give up their personal goats too? man that’s ruff.
Your content is so good
If you like it, I'm grateful for every subscription and share. More eyes on it gives me more motivation.
Thanks to Goose Boose for the link to this, informative and interesting piece of internet history.
Ooohhhh real life Renamon, me want
the idea reminds me of what chris chan is up to nowadays
0/10 did not say Gundramon
We were young n naive..
I FUCKING REMEMBER THIS. I was like 12 or 13 at the time and was looking up pictures of "real pokemon" and subsequently ended up looking for pictures of "real digimon" and came across Digiclipse stuff. I assumed it was just people roleplaying. Boy was I wrong.
good times :D
Enter the digital god
there was also another spinoff of zealots called "Digimon Do Exist"
The digital world doesn't exist because its digital.
Could have been the funniest suislide cult of all time and they fumbled it.
Ha ha ha 7:35 Like: Partners United Achieving an Objective (Google Translate to Spanish).
I wish it was still 2008, fuck
Listening to this video, is funny, and sad at the same time...
For those who really believe in Digimon, not in the way as an escapism for the unwell, instead of just believing in Digimon being real like cultists, real Digimon fans should work hard for ways to make Digimon becoming real like scientists.
Digimon are not only spiritual, metaphysical creatures, they are also artificial intelligence entities, digital lifeforms. Make efforts for what's tangible.
huh
so thats why digiartist domain was weird
... Second-rate Pokemon..?!?
You've got some explaining to do!
Please don't blame schizophrenia for all of this. I used what I got to treat mine to become really focus on what I do and weaponize my condition for trolling people like these.
This is why you shouldn't drink past the first trimester, ladies.
I didn't write twice, that happened today twice; what happens with You Tube? and why are people liking this comment?
aw sweet a digi-schizo meltdown
Me:here digimon aren’t real
*excuse what the fuck*
Pokemon is better.