I did some sleuthing this morning instead of writing oops on the origins of the below image, which is often sited as a very early version of Elden Ring's map. It's got all sorts of differences and as far as I can tell we can't link this to a particular phase of development.
My investigation dug up that the image had been in circulation on Twitter as early as 2024 (markedly before the dlc came out) according to one Facebook post. While the post I found from the person I am more confident tracing this back to is from 2025 and not 2024, seen here which appears to be the more high res 'cleaned up' version people share more often, the same account apparently had access to a build of the game back in 2021 a full month before the network test, seen here on his twitter and here on a YouTube reupload after the original was taken off YouTube.
I'm willing to tentatively say it's a legit thing. Or as legit as it can be without me knowing more about the supposed 'leak' that brought it to the internet. The only thing I care about is that I can now have my silly AU Lands Between be connected to another landmass instead of an oddly shaped island in the middle of the ocean and say it's for a reason now.
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The invasive TikTok sleuthing I experienced was not an isolated instance, but rather the latest manifestation of a large-scale sleuthing cul
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On Sept. 17, 2021, my long-distance girlfriend, Lauren, paid a surprise visit to me while a friend filmed my reaction. Three days later, she set the 19-second clip to a hokey Ellie Goulding song and posted it to roughly 200 TikTok followers. The first commentersâLaurenâs close friendsâhad positive things to say. But soon strangersâamong whom the video was less well receivedâbegan commenting, criticizing my reaction time or my being seated on a couch next to friends who happened to be of the opposite sex. âGirl he ainât loyal.â âRed flag! He didnât get up off the couch and jump up and down in excitement.â âBro if my man was on a couch full of girls IM WALKING BACK OUT THE DOOR.â
As comments accusing me of infidelity rolled in, the video quickly became the topic of fierce online debate, Ă la âThe Dress.â I, an ordinary college sophomore, became TikTokâs latest meme: Couch Guy. TikTok users made parody videos, American Eagle advertised a no-effort Couch Guy Halloween costume, and Rolling Stone, E! Online, The Daily Show, and The View all covered the phenomenon. On TikTok, Laurenâs video and the hashtag #CouchGuy, respectively, have received more than 64 million and 1 billion views.
While the Couch Guy meme was lighthearted on its surface, it turned menacing as TikTok users obsessively invaded the lives of Lauren, our friends, and meâpeople with no previous desire for internet fame, let alone infamy. Would-be sleuths conducted what Trevor Noah jokingly called âthe most intense forensic investigation since the Kennedy assassination.â During my tenure as Couch Guy, I was the subject of frame-by-frame body language analyses, armchair diagnoses of psychopathy, comparisons to convicted murderers, and general discussions about my âbad vibes.â
At times, the investigation even transcended the digital worldâfor instance, when a resident in my apartment building posted a TikTok video, which accumulated 2.3 million views, of himself slipping a note under my door to request an interview. (I did not respond.) One viewer gleefully commented, âEven if this guy turned off his phone, he canât escape the couch guy notifications,â a fact that the 37,600 users who liked it presumably celebrated too. Under another video, in which hall mates of mine promised to confront Couch Guy once they reached 1 million likes (they didnât), a comment suggested that they âsecretly see whoâs coming and going from his placeââand received 17,800 approving likes. The New York Post reported on, and perhaps encouraged, such invasions of my privacy. In an article about the âfrenzy ⌠frantically trying to determine the identityâ of the âmystery manâ behind the meme, the Post asked, âWill the real âcouch guyâ please stand up?â Meanwhile, as internet sleuths took to public online forums to sniff out my name, birthdate, and place of residence, the threat of doxxing loomed over my head.
Exacerbating these invasions of my privacy was the tabloid-style media coverage that I received. Take, for example, one online magazine article that solicited insights from a âbody language expertâ who concluded that my accusers âmight be onto something,â since the âangle of [my] knees signals disinterestâ and my âhands hint that [Iâm] defensive.â This tabloid body language analysisâsomething typically reserved for Kardashians, the British royal family, and other A-listersâmade me, a private citizen who had previously enjoyed his minimal internet presence, an unwilling recipient of the celebrity treatment.
Mercifully, my memedom has died downâinterest in the Google search term âCouch Guyâ peaked on Oct. 5âand I have come to tolerate looks of vague recognition and occasional selfie requests from strangers in public. And my digital scarlet letter has not carried much weight offline, given that Lauren and the other co-stars of the now-infamous video know my true character. Therefore, my anxiety rests only in the prospect that the invasive TikTok sleuthing I experienced was not an isolated instance, but ratherâas tech writer Ryan Broderick has suggestedâthe latest manifestation of a large-scale sleuthing culture.
The sleuthing trend sweeping TikTok ramped up following the disappearance of the late Gabby Petito. As armchair TikTok sleuths flexed their investigative muscles, the appâs algorithm boosted content theorizing about what happened to Petito. Madison Kircher of Slateâs ICYMI podcast noted how her âFor You page just decided I simply needed to seeâ TikTok usersâ Gabby Petito videos âover and over again.â It appears that a similar phenomenon occurred with my lower-stakes virality, as I found myself scrolling through countless tweets bemoaning the inescapability of âCouch Guy TikTok.â One user despairingly reported seeing âfive tik toks back to back on my [For You page] about couch guy.â (I assure you, though, that nobody despised Couch Guyâs omnipresence more than myself.)
The most recent target of the appâs emerging investigative spirit was Sabrina Prater, a 34-year-old contractor and trans woman, who went viral in November after posting a video of herself dancing in a basement midrenovation. The videoâs virality began with parody videos, but quickly veered into the realm of conspiracy theory due to (you guessed it) the videoâs apparent âbad vibesââat which point I got a dreadful sense of dĂŠjĂ vu. As Praterâs video climbed to 22 million views and internet sleuths came together to form a r/WhosSabrinaPrater community on Reddit, Prater faced baseless murder accusations, transphobic comparisons to Buffalo Bill from The Silence of the Lambs, and overzealous vigilantes who threatened to go to her neighborhood to investigate further. This incident reveals the harmful potential of TikTok sleuthing. One expert aptly summed up the Prater saga to Rolling Stone: âIt was like watching true crime, internet sleuthing, conspiracy theories, and transphobia collide in a car crash.â
Given the apparent tendency of the TikTok algorithm to present viral spectacles to a user base increasingly hungry for content to analyze forensically, there will inevitably be more Couch Guys or Praters in the future. When they appear on your For You page, I implore you to remember that they are people, not mysteries for you to solve. As users focused their collective magnifying glass on Lauren, my friends, and meâcomparing their sleuthing to âwatching a soap opera and knowing who the bad guy isââit felt like the entertainment value of the meme began to overshadow our humanity. Stirred to make a TikTok of my own to quell the increasing hate, I posted a video reminding the sleuths that ânot everything is true crimeââwhich commenters resoundingly deemed âgaslighting.â Laurenâs videos requesting that the armchair investigation stop were similarly dismissed as more evidence of my success as a manipulator, and my friendsâ entreaties to respect our privacy, too, fell on deaf ears.
Certainly, noncelebrities have long unwillingly become public figures, and digital pile-ons have existed in some form since the dawn of the digital ageâjust ask Monica Lewinsky. But on TikTok, algorithmic feedback loops and the nature of the For You page make it easier than ever for regular people to be thrust against their wishes into the limelight. And the extent of our collective power is less obvious online, where pile-ons are delivered, as journalist Jon Ronson put it, âlike remotely administered drone strikes.â On the receiving end of the barrage, however, as one finds their reputation challenged, body language hyperanalyzed, and privacy invaded, the severity of our collective power is made much too clear.
The Dangerous Cocktail of Internet Sleuthing and Personal biases
Crime has become a genre of entertainment. Everyone has their favourite crime show or documentary series.
The million dollar industry spear-headed by YouTubers, bloggers, podcasters, and the traditional medium documentary filmmakers.
Gruesome and blood-churning crimes have been the fascination of humanity since the dawn of time. The change in how they are consumed has evolved withâŚ
I seriously need advice for something, and this is my safest bet on websites my family wonât find me on. How would I find an early 2000âs obituary? Or just anything that has to do with this person? Iâve tried searches like [personâs name] [city and state name] 2001, but the only results I find are behind a paywall
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