The ant Facebook group is apparently loving Grounded, a game where you shrink to the size of an ant.
We all know about Grounded, the new survival game from Obsidian where you play as a shrunken juvenile that has to fend off attacks from predatory insects in order to figure out a way to return to normal size, all while gathering food, water, and shelter from whatever you find in a single backyard. Apparently, Grounded is doing quite well for itself.
So instead, we’re going to talk about “A group where we all pretend to be ants in an ant colony” Facebook group. Yes, that’s the full name of the group, and it’s pretty much what it says in the title. Everyone in the group pretends that they are an ant. And it has 1.9 million members.
I think there’s a lot to be said about this Facebook group’s popularity, especially with how it relates to labor in a capitalist society.
However, we’ll forgo those analogies in favor of discussing what the group mostly does, which is post pictures of ants consuming various food items and describing their actions with either “LIFT”, “DIG,” “BITE,” or “BUILD.”
The group is weird but relatively wholesome. Buzzfeed did a writeup about them in May, in case you want to learn more. The group started out as an open one but was forced to go private due to its popularity. That said, I was auto-approved to join in order to see what they were getting up to.
As one might expect, video games do find their way into “A group where we all pretend to be ants in an ant colony”, including Pokémon GO and Minecraft. And, as Rock Paper Shotgun notes, “a steady stream of posts about Grounded.”
Although several of those posts involved explaining to their fellow ants just what Grounded is, afterward they seemed to take to the new ant-based media with gusto, sharing screenshots and Steam links alike.
Ants in Grounded are largely neutral creatures, but they will attack if provoked. Worse, if you kill a few of them, others will come to investigate and also attack, eventually bringing down a swarm of ants led by a Soldier. I don’t recommend tussling with ants until you’re very well equipped, and even then, beware.
Source: Facebook, Rock Paper Shotgun
