Is Your Reddit App Icon Pixelated? Here's Why It Suddenly Looks Different
Following the latest update to the official Reddit app, many users have noticed that the app icon is now pixelated — causing them to wonder what in the world is going on. While countless third-party Reddit apps are available for Android and iOS, the official Reddit application is bar far the most popular. It's free to download, easy to navigate, and offers quick access to all of your favorite subreddits no matter where you are.
One of the best things about the Reddit app is its deep customization. Users can customize their Reddit avatar, change the home page view, enable/disable autoplay videos, edit thumbnail size, etc. The Reddit app allows you to change its app icon. Open the app, tap the profile icon in the top right corner, tap 'Settings,' and tap 'Change app icon.' Some of the options include Classic, Alien Blue, Neon, and Doge (just to name a few). If you're tired of the boring orange Reddit logo on a white background, changing the app icon is a great way to freshen up your home screen.
However, within the last couple of days, you may have seen that the Reddit app automatically changed icons on its own. More specifically, the Reddit app icon recently turned pixelated. It's the same orange logo on a white background, but now it looks like someone created it in Microsoft Paint. Reddit user u/Spectre_Of_the_Night posted a picture of the pixelated icon on r/MildlyInfuriating and said, "Anybody else found their app icon to be pixelated or just me?" Over in the r/Pixel4 subreddit, user u/cp2434 posted, "I updated the Reddit app and right after it updated the Reddit app icon on my home screen appeared blurry. That's the only icon that is like that. Anytime know how to fix?"
There's actually a very good reason behind the pixelated Reddit app icon. In short, it's Reddit's way of promoting the r/Place subreddit it's brought back for April Fools this year. r/Place debuted on April 1, 2017, as a digital art project. Reddit users could visit the subreddit, fill in a pixelated square on a large virtual canvas, and work together to create whatever they wanted. The catch? Users could only fill in one square every five minutes. While that sounds like it'd be a recipe for disaster, over 1 million random Reddit users placed 16 million colored squares to create the picture you see above. It's a mishmash of Rocket League logos, a digital drawing of the Mona Lisa, various country flags, and a portrait of Steve Irwin holding a baby crocodile.
Five years later, Reddit has re-launched r/Place for April Fool's 2022. You'll be able to visit r/Place starting April 1, 2022, at 9:00 AM EDT. So long as you're logged in to your Reddit account, you can visit r/Place, put a colored pixel square wherever you want on the canvas, and do so up to every five minutes. r/Place will be available until midnight on April 5, giving the Reddit community just a few days to create whatever they want. While Reddit hasn't confirmed when the pixelated app icon will go away, it'll likely go back to normal once r/Place ends on April 5.
Source: Reddit (1), (2)