In the beginning of 2020, the world went on lockdown to prevent the spread of COVID-19. People who had grown accustom to going to work or school for the majority of their days were now stuck inside. Many picked up new hobbies during this time, setting the stage for a myriad cultural shifts across the globe. In the middle of all of this, the funniest thing happened.
On April 20, 2020, YouTube commentator Drew Durnil posted a video titled "Creating 1 country to battle 184,028 other Countries in the World", in which he joins and plays NationStates for the first time with the nation Deruuu. As of this post, the video is sitting at 504,338 views. Legions of his fans followed in Drew's footsteps, leading to a massive population boom on the site that the servers were hardly prepared for. New nations created during this time were greeted with a lag spike that lasted for around an hour.
The existing Gameplay community was on high alert immediately. A discussion thread was started by Cappedore about the video and its impact on the site, which lasted for 29 pages. The 20th post in the thread saw Federal Spanish States coin the term that the community would use from this point onward to describe the unfolding situation: the Drewpocalypse. The term appears in 165 Gameplay posts at the time of writing, making 7 pages of posts using the term. The community was abuzz with every type of opinion on the matter, and many regions were quick to capitalize on the resulting boom. With over 30,000 new nations on the board, everyone wanted a slice of that pie. Regions grew by the hundreds, and some lucky few were able to hold on tightly to the players that joined them.
10 days later, Cappedore once more brought news to Gameplay that Drew Durnil had released a follow-up video after realizing the impact that his video had made on the NationStates community. Everything about this follow-up was less notable than its predecessor. The thread itself lasted 7 pages, devolving into spam at the end, but the posts within lament a similar lag spike as occurred in the first "Drewpocalypse". The video currently stands at 125,020 views at the time of writing. The number of new nations flooding the game was far less as well, though still significant.
Much followed, but I'd like to take a minute to specifically shout out the myriad of god-awful badge-hunting Security Council proposals came out of this, targeting the Deruuu nation. I don't even know if I managed to track down all of them, but none of them passed. At least one got to vote though, because AMOM's proposal was featured the Drew video.
On May 28th, 2020, Drew Durrnil (no relation) reported to Gameplay that the time had come for the nations that had no activity since the first video's release to begin ceasing to exist. The 2-page thread was met with lackluster response, most at this point no longer invested in the continuing narrative of the Drewpocalypse. Interestingly, it was observed that a respectable number of nations from the Drew Boom continued to be active to this point, and that the expected die-off would be more gradual than anticipated. Some of these players were here to stay.
On June 25th, 2020, Pencil Sharpeners 2 shared some research they did on the overall effect of the Drew Boom on select regions. There were some clear winners, most notably in the research The Region That Has No Big Banks, which was apparently 20 nation backwater before the Boom. At the time of writing, it sits at 358 nations. There were definitely more winners than just those regions, however (looking at you, Conch Kingdom!), and I'd love to hear about your own.
In the 2020 Gameplay Awards, the community voted the Drewpocalypse as "Event of the Year", beating out the breaking of Mikeswill's 18 year delegacy streak. By this point, the Drewpocalypse had become not only an important historical event, but the defining event of the tumultuous year of 2020. In a year historically considered to be dominated by raiders, the invasion of Drew's fans from outside the game outshined all of it.
On September 8th, 2021, Drew Durnil posted a third installment, returning to NationStates with the doomed nation of Long PP Land over a year after his arrival. The video has amassed 412,207 views at the time of writing, though it notedly had a slower start than the first installment due to it being on his second channel, designated for gaming. Merni was the one to start the Gameplay thread this time, which went for 8 pages. Overall, despite the success of the video, and the ensuing lag spike, the boom was generally overlooked.
Throughout 2022, the Drewpocalypse was primarily brought up as a cultural phenomenon, being the subject of multiple threads wistfully pondering the lasting effects of a man who had only existed on the site for a few collective minutes. At this point, folks were talking more about the TikTok boom, which due to its nature had a consistent recurring effect as The Cool Website Girl's video kept falling out and back into the algorithm. Booms in general at this point almost always get compared to the Drewpocalypse.
So, now that the Drewpocalypse has firmly entered the territory of "old news", I wanted to take this time to look back on it as a community. Specifically, I'm curious about something:
How many active Gameplayers did we get out of it?
- Minskiev, the sitting WA Delegate of The Rejected Realms, was founded on 4/20/20 and has publicly stated that he joined the game because of Drew's first video.
- Triseria, also known as Bronyleader, was founded on 4/24/20 and is also a Drew Boomer. He is a Sergeant in The Black Hawks, and a prominent figure in NS Cards.
- Drew Durrnil, also known as Banexet, joined with the second video on 4/30/20 and obviously takes heavy inspiration from Drew. They are a Legislator in The South Pacific.
- Socialist Platypus was founded on 5/1/20 thanks to the Drew Boom. He is the sitting delegate of Conch Kingdom, and hardly the only CK mainstay that resulted from the boom!
- Timiskrane founded their first nation, Tim Hortonia, on 4/20/20 right after watching the first video. He is the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Conch Kingdom.
- Charville, the newly appointed Prime Minister of Conch Kingdom, was founded on 4/30/20 after the follow-up video.
- Aelandi, former Chancellor and RP Moderator of (say it with me) Conch Kingdom, was founded on 4/21/20 after the first video.
- Darlingtown founded their first nation, Costa Ambrata on 4/20/20 as a result of the first video. While not a Gameplayer, they are active in International Incidents.
- Refiria, a.k.a. Qekitor, made their first nation on 1/6/21, but is "90% sure" they first heard of NS through Drew. They are the founder of Ijaka and Lieutenant in The Black Hawks.
- Felix Femboi was founded on 1/4/2022, after having first watched Drew's NS content long after its release. He is the current WA Delegate of Thegye.
If you came to Gameplay after being introduced to the game, I'd love for you to share your story in this thread and help me expand this list. If you're a region leader, tell us how the Drewpocalypse affected your community! I'd like for this thread to act as a somewhat-definitive archive of the cultural impact of this phenomenon and how its effects ripple throughout history.
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