{{Short description|Internet phenomenon and art form}}
'''Internet checkpoints''' or '''internet pitstops''' are a phenomenon that began in the early 2010s, primarily on the video sharing website YouTube.<ref name="Thélot-2023">{{cite book |title=A Cyberarchaeology of Checkpoints |last1=Thélot |first1=Ruby Justice |publisher=Irrelevant Press |url=https://www.irrelevantpress.com/store/pre-sale-a-cyberarchaeology-of-checkpoints-ruby-thelot |pages=1-186 |date=2023 |access-date=24 October 2025}}</ref> Users of the website used the comment section of uploaded videos to identify that moment in time. Comparisons of this phenomenon have been made to 'temporal landmarks', stepping stones between past, present and future.<ref name="Srirachanikorn-2025">{{cite journal |title=Internet pitstops: YouTube as a place for reimagining social time with nostalgia |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0961463X251358588 |volume=34 |issue=4 |doi=10.1177/0961463X251358588 |journal=Time & Society |pages=627-653 |institution=Concordia University |date=28 July 2025 |last=Srirachanikorn |first=Richy |access-date=23 October 2025|url-access=subscription |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title=Put Your Imperfections Behind You: Temporal Landmarks Spur Goal Initiation When They Signal New Beginnings |journal=Psychol Sci |last1=Dai |first1=Hengchen |last2=Milkman |first2=Katherine L |last3=Riis |first3=Jason |pmid=26546079 |date=5 November 2015 |pages=1927-1936 |url=https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4839284/ |volume=26 |issue=12 |access-date=24 October 2025}}</ref> Videos with music, often in the style of vaporwave or lo-fi ambience would be auto-played to users, with their comments sections used for personal reflections, each comment starting with the phrase "checkpoint". This word being a reference to checkpoints in video games, where the game is automatically saved and respawns can occur.<ref name="Yalcinkaya-2024">{{cite web |last1=Yalcinkaya |first1=Günseli |title=Inside the online communities trying to preserve our digital memories |url=https://www.dazeddigital.com/life-culture/article/61689/1/youtube-comments-online-communities-preserve-digital-memories-checkpoints |publisher=Dazed |date=8 January 2024 |access-date=23 October 2025 |ref=DGY}}</ref><ref>{{cite thesis|url=https://dspace.library.uu.nl/bitstream/handle/1874/351188/Dissertation_Final_FLGEERTS_2017_Final.pdf|title=Saving the Game is Shaping the Game: Defining and Understanding the Save Mechanic |last=Geerts |first=Femke Lucienne |publisher=Utrecht University |date=2017 |access-date=24 October 2025 |page=12–13 |hdl=1874/351188 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211117084748/https://dspace.library.uu.nl/bitstream/handle/1874/351188/Dissertation_Final_FLGEERTS_2017_Final.pdf |archive-date=2021-11-17}}</ref>
== Known examples == [[File:Taia777 video art.jpg|thumb|right|Edited art from ''Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest'' used by Taia777 in their original 2012 YouTube checkpoint upload]] === ''Internet Checkpoint'' === In 2012, a video titled {{langx|ja|"とげとげタルめいろ・スーパードンキーコング2""|lit=Thorny Barrel Labyrinth ''Super Donkey Kong 2''}} was uploaded to YouTube by a channel named 'Taia777'.<ref name="Srirachanikorn-2025"/> The video featured the track "''Stickerbush Symphony''" along with visuals from the video game ''Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest''. Neither the video or channel had any description or profile picture respectively.<ref name="Rahmil-2024">{{cite web |last1=Rahmil |first1=David-Julien |title=Caché dans les recoins de YouTube, l'espace des commentaires de certaines vidéos permet aux internautes de faire le point sur leur vie. |url=https://www.ladn.eu/media-mutants/cest-quoi-les-internet-checkpoint-ces-petits-coins-numeriques-de-nostalgie/ |publisher=L'ADN Tendances & Mutations |date=19 November 2024 |access-date=23 October 2025 |language=fr |ref=LADNDJR}}</ref> These videos were often recommended to viewers by YouTube's internal algorithm.<ref name="Savina-2024">{{cite interview |last1=Savina |first1=Anya |title=Checkpoint saved: Archiving our digital past with Ruby Justice Thelot |url=https://anyasavina.substack.com/p/checkpoint-saved-digital-archives |website=Anya is typing... |publisher=Substack |date=1 February 2024 |access-date=24 October 2025 |ref=SAIT}}</ref>
==== Comment section phenomenon ==== The comments sections of the videos uploaded by Taia777 consisted of viewers writing about milestones, either upcoming or recent, personal or impersonal, usually beginning with 'Checkpoint:'.<ref name="Srirachanikorn-2025"/> It is unknown when this started.<ref>{{cite web |title=Link: Taia777 |url=https://www.kickscondor.com/taia777/ |website=kickscondor |date=28 May 2021 |access-date=24 October 2025 |ref=LTKC}}</ref> This phenomenon correlates directly to video game automatic save points, with the viewer taking the place of the character within the video game.<ref name="Yalcinkaya-2024"/> Documented examples of these checkpoint comments include:
*'Checkpoint: I'm an adult now but I really don't feel like one.'<ref name="Thélot-2023"/> *'Checkpoint: Finally quit a job I hated and started doing something I love. Game saved.'<ref name="Srirachanikorn-2025"/> *'Checkpoint: Not too long ago, I graduated from Community College with an associates degree.'<ref>{{cite web |last1=Sloan |first1=Robin |title=Checkpoints |url=https://www.robinsloan.com/lab/checkpoints/ |website=robinsloan |date=18 July 2021 |access-date=24 October 2025 |ref=CPRS}}</ref>
==== Copyright takedown and archiving ==== Videos containing video game music and visuals were taken down by YouTube in 2021, due to copyright and terms of service violations involving both YouTube and Nintendo.<ref name="Thélot-2023"/><ref name="Yalcinkaya-2024"/> As a result of this action, all checkpoint comments left on Taia777's videos were lost.<ref name="Srirachanikorn-2025"/> Some time later, Taia777's YouTube channel was terminated from YouTube entirely.<ref>{{cite web |title=Index |url=https://t3c.plasmaofthedawn.com/index |website=t3c |access-date=24 October 2025 |ref=T3CI}}</ref> Prior to the takedown of Taia777's video and channel, archive enthusiast Rebane2001 had saved all of Taia777's videos and their comments sections.<ref name="Yalcinkaya-2024"/> Following the loss of these videos, Rebane2001 uploaded the archived content to his personal website and released files in ZIP format on Reddit. These were then published onto a dedicated website designed to ensure accessibility.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Holliday |first1=Laura |title=YouTube's Comments Are an Internet Treasure We Must Protect |url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/youtubes-comments-are-an-internet-treasure-we-must-protect/ |publisher=The Daily Beast |date=26 June 2023 |access-date=24 October 2025 |ref=TDBLH}}</ref>
=== ''Thesoundof.love'' === A website was set up by Filipino artist Chiara Amisola in 2022, allowing people to view curated YouTube comments above a corresponding video or still images of album covers when a song is playing. Music makes up the majority of the website's entries.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Norman |first1=Max |title=Turning YouTube Comments Into Art |url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/rabbit-holes/turning-youtube-comments-into-art |publisher=The New Yorker |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221123112900/https://www.newyorker.com/culture/rabbit-holes/turning-youtube-comments-into-art |archive-date=23 November 2022 |date=23 November 2022 |access-date=24 October 2025 |ref=TNYMN}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Hrdina |first1=Matous |title=Pod čarou: Co by měla vystavovat muzea? Vaše komentáře pod článkem |url=https://www.seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/nazory-komentare-pod-carou-co-by-mela-vystavovat-muzea-vase-komentare-pod-clankem-274111 |website=Seznam Zprávy |date=12 April 2025 |access-date=24 October 2025 |language=Czech |ref=SZMH}}</ref>
== Commentary == === Media coverage === The checkpoint phenomenon has been discussed and analysed by multiple outlets. Nicolas Framont writing for {{ill|Frustration Magazine|fr|Frustration Magazine}} described the phenomenon as a type of misnomer to ''Proust's madeleine'' from Marcel Proust's novel ''In Search of Lost Time''.<ref name="Framont-2024">{{cite web |last1=Framont |first1=Nicolas |title=« The internet checkpoint » : nostalgie et entraide aux confins du web |url=https://frustrationmagazine.fr/internet-checkpoint/ |publisher={{ill|Frustration Magazine|fr|Frustration Magazine}} |date=15 November 2024 |access-date=23 October 2025 |language=fr |ref=FMNF}}</ref> Framont stated that invitations to create "checkpoints" are "rare", noting that people are "instead asked to grow" and that "looking to the past is seen as a sign of weakness"; he characterised internet checkpoints as going "against this injunction".<ref name="Framont-2024"/> David-Julien Rahmil of L'ADN made note of the phenomenon being "relatively little identified by Internet users themselves". Quoting a video by YouTuber ''Daryl Talks Games'', Rahmil reasoned that "it was the presence of this video titled in Japanese...which gave birth to this totally organic phenomenon. This idea of the checkpoint will not remain haphazard for very long. Playlists and videos stamped 'Internet checkpoint' are already flourishing on the Web."<ref name="Rahmil-2024"/>
=== Academic research === Richy Srirachanikorn examined the phenomenon in an academic study, analysing different parts of the phenomenon individually, including the videos and comments sections of Taia777's YouTube channel. Srirachanikorn defined checkpoint comments as "recycle[d] social time expressions that institutions produce", which "strangers can quickly relate with one another with souvenirs and postcards".<ref name="Srirachanikorn-2025"/> Anya Savina, interviewing author Ruby Justice Thélot, emphasised the importance of physicality, explaining from a personal point of view that "it's the materiality of that experience...to understand a memory requires presence. Any attempt for me to separate it from that ontological requirement of being there is essentially a travesty. I end the importance of being online essay with 'You had to be there, you had to be online.'"<ref name="Savina-2024"/> Describing the regulation of the internet by the large corporations, Framont concluded that ""Internet checkpoints" are part of these islands of resistance and freedom."<ref name="Framont-2024"/>
In 2019, the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision conducted a study, with lead researcher Jack O'Conner commenting on the concept of provenance in relation to YouTube comments, describing YouTube as a "fluid platform", with the argument made that YouTube comments could be "considered worthy of preservation". Using a ''Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records'' (FRBR) outline (a hierarchal structure that corresponds to four user tasks), YouTube comments were considered as a "work", it was concluded that FRBR proves a "need for describing 'aggregate works'", which includes comments made by users on YouTube.<ref>{{cite publication |title=YouTube comments as media heritage |url=https://publications.beeldengeluid.nl/pub/672/Internship-report-YouTube-comments-Jack-O-Carroll.pdf |last=O'Carroll |first=Jack |publisher=Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision |date=1 July 2019 |access-date=29 October 2025 |page=1-39}}</ref>
== References == {{reflist}}
Category:2010s in Internet culture Category:2010s in YouTube Category:Human–computer interaction Category:Internet art