Windows XP Bliss Wallpaper

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About

Microsoft XP Bliss Wallpaper refers to edits and parodies made to the image of a rolling green hill and a blue sky that acts at the default Microsoft XP wallpaper.

Origin

The original photograph was taken of a hill in Napa, California on June 24th, 1996, by photographer American photographer Charles O’Rear.^[1] Window XP was first released to the public, with the default wallpaper, on October 25, 2001. The first parody was published on a message board thread on Getpaint.net^[2] titled "The Bliss Parody Gallery," which was started on July 19th, 2006. The first edited image was submitted by forum user wontstoptalkinga on July 20th and featured fighter jets flying through the sky.

Spread

The trend quickly spread to fan art community DeviantArt. On October 2nd, 2006, DeviantArt artist Mahochan^[3] submitted an imaged titled "Windows Invasion by Osaka" which featured the anime character resting her head on the hill. As of April 2014, the image has gained over 3,000 views.

On June 25th, 2007, DeviantArt artist fallowbuck^[4] submitted an image that featured Bliss with a Tardis from Doctor Who sitting on the hill. As of April 2014, the image has gained over 15,000 views.

On November 5th, 2008, Deviant artist azure2526^[7] submitted an image that featured Bliss with two anime characters resting on the hill. As of April 2014, the image has gained over 19,000 views.

On June 20th, 2009, Deviant artist mearling09^[8] submitted an image that featured Bliss with Gir, an Invader Zim character flying over the hill. As of April 2014, the image has gained over 400 views.

The photo editing trend moved to Tumblr in 2013. On August 23rd, 2013, Tumblr blog badpicsofbrendonryandpete^[5] posted Bliss with the head of Panic at the Disco vocalist Ryan Ross poking out over the hill.

Other Bliss edits uploaded to Tumblr in 2013 include blimeyisagreatword's^[6] Doctor Who edit which gained over 200 notes as of April 2014.

Burning Hoax

On October 24th, 2017, Imgur user TINYshark^[10] uploaded several images suggesting Bliss Hill was on fire as part of wildfires that had been affecting California for several weeks. The same day, Twitter user aestheticnon^[9] tweeted the images, gaining over 9,300 retweets and 16,000 likes (shown below).

However, this claim was false. A public information officer told Gizmodo^[11] that there were no fires reported in Sonoma County. The image which purported to show Bliss Hill on fire was tweeted on October 9th by Twitter user @KateKisset^[12] and is of the Gundlach Bundschu winery, which is near Bliss Hill (shown below). Select All^[13] also reported on the hoax.