Randonaut

Submission 11,269

About

A Randonaut is a person who participates in location scouting determined by coordinates provided through random number generating techniques in order to find personal life synchronicities with an intention in mind. The activity of randonauting was inspired by the gambling platform The Fatum Project and led to the start of a Telegram bot @shangrila_bot by Joshua Lengfelder in March 2019 which provides coordinates to those seeking to travel. In February 2020, the Randonautica app was released and became popular during the coronavirus pandemic as a social-distancing-safe activity. Randonauting trips were often recording and uploaded to YouTube and TikTok in Spring 2020.

History

On May 28th, 2018, Medium^[1] published an article introducing the concept of the Fatum Project, a proposal that randomized number generating could create a fair gambling platform. The article explains that "with Fatum punters can check the random numbers after the game and ensure that nothing was tampered with during the course of events. Fatum will make itself open to a series of checks, balances and in depth analysis beyond anything ever attempted. It will become the most fair and transparent gambling platform ever conceived." On March 17th, 2019, Redditor unitiveconsciousness posted an introduction to the theory behind the Fatum Project to r/dimensionjumping.^[2] The post explains that "The Fatum Project was born as an attempt to research unknown spaces outside predetermined probability-tunnels of the holistic world and has become a fully functional reality-tunnel creating machine that digs rabbit holes to wonderland." A link was then added to r/randonauts which was created the next day. The post also describes memetic responses to travel including the "despair meme" which causes paranoia or anxiety in the traveler due to the universe's alleged negative response to a shift in natural traveling. The post was created by the person who ran the Telegram bot, Joshua Lengfelder which provides randomized coordinates called @Shangrila_bot^[3] (shown below). Medium^[4]^[5] published several articles on Randonauting.

Randonautica App

In February 2020, the Randonautica^[7] app was released and made available through the Apple iStore and perform much like Telegram bot and provides options like "Void" and "Attractor" which are based on quantum points generated by measurements of electromagnetic field fluctuations. The highest density of quantum points in a given area is labeled an attractor destination while the lowest density is labeled void. On February 21st, YouTuber Ready or Randonaut uploaded the first episode of a randonauting reality show which utilizes the app (shown below). The video gained over 22,600 views in three months

Impact

In May and June 2020, media outlets such as Wired^[9] and In The Know^[10] reported on the rise in popularity of randonauting while social-distancing. The Randonautica app reported high traffic numbers during this time on Twitter^[8] (shown below).

TikTok

In May 2020, randonauting became a popular activity and subject on TikTok with TikTokers sharing their randonauting experiences and eventually creating the hashtag #randonautingchallenge which involves filming a randonauting trip. On May 16th, TikToker gothboithrift posted a video of a randonauting trip that took him to a relatives gravestone (shown below, left). The video garnered over 1.1 million likes in a month. On May 25th, TikToker apemareee uploaded a video in which friends found person standing in the darkness outside using the app (shown below, center). The video received over 987,400 likes in a month. On May 29th, TikToker raccoonqueeen posted a video about finding a group of raccoons while traveling and accumulated over 696,600 likes in a month (shown below, right).

Human Remains Found

On June 20th, 2020, TikToker ughhenry posted a video of one randoauting trip in which they found a suitcase on the shore of a beach in Seatle which ended up having human remains inside (shown below). The video gained over 3.6 million likes in a day.

That same day, Redditor Falls1234 posted a screenshot of a CNN article confirming that the TikTokers sound human remains to r/randonauts^[13] and captioned the post "Peers of mine found the remains of a body inside a suitcase due to randonautica. Please try to have good intentions when randonauting, and stay safe" (shown below). The post garnered 230 points (98% upvoted) in a day. The Daily Dot^[11] also reported on the TikTok video that day.

Fandom

On March 18th, 2019, r/randonauts^[6] was created and used to share randonauting experiences. The subbreddit acquired over 66,300 member sin a year. As of June 2020, the TikTok^[12] hashtag #randonauting has gained over 69.3 million views.