Herobrine



Herobrine is the subject of a community-made creepypasta. He is one of the major community icons of Minecraft, yet Herobrine has not been present in any version of the game.

The first story and image ever posted about Herobrine, as well as the Brocraft streams, are regarded as canonical, as they were fundamental to the creation and popularization of the character. Any content posted after these events is considered fan-made adaptations and variations.

Existence disclaimer
Herobrine is not in vanilla Minecraft, and never has been. There are no references to him at all in the source code, and there is no code to allow for any entity to act like Herobrine. It is not possible for Herobrine to have ever existed in any unmodded clients or servers. Any appearances of Herobrine are caused by either mods being installed or because of another player using the skin.

Origins and popularity

 * For more detailed information regarding the Brocraft events, see the wiki's interview with Copeland and his recounting of the events.



The first canonical sighting of Herobrine, and the first media about him in general, was posted as a now-deleted story on 4chan's paranormal board, /x/, around August 19, 2010. The story details an encounter in Minecraft with a nameless human entity in a single-player world who displayed strange behavior such as stalking the player from afar, creating unnatural constructions such as sand pyramids in the ocean and long 2x2 tunnels, and removing leaves from trees. The writer then attempted to start a topic about the encounter on the Minecraft Forum, only to have it be repeatedly deleted, followed by a private message from a seemingly nonexistent user named "Herobrine" telling them to stop. Further research by the writer revealed that Herobrine was the name of the dead brother of Notch (in reality, Notch has never had a brother ). The 4chan post also contained a screenshot of the encounter, showing Herobrine in the distance amidst the fog.

It was only after this post that Herobrine grew in popularity, when the Brocraft streamer Copeland edited Herobrine into several screenshots to show to his chat. He had recently taken a liking to the story, and wished to be a part of it. After getting largely good reactions, he decided to stage a hoax; he changed the texture of a painting to display Herobrine and put it in a work-in-progress house in his world, planning to show it on a livestream.

On August 30, Copeland played through the world as a normal player would, deliberately avoiding the work-in-progress room he had set up for the hoax, until about 20 minutes and 45 seconds in, when he entered the house and saw the re-textured painting. Copeland then screamed and ran out of the room, promptly ending the stream. He pretended to be shaken up in the chat, and later posted a message onto the forums, linking to the video to spread it around in the hope of getting similar reactions. Other users in the thread began debating whether Copeland's sighting was real and started posting their own screenshots with Herobrine edited into them. After a while, Copeland removed the painting and reverted to normal textures. He proceeded to stream further, pretending to be scared. He announced that he would delete the world to never meet Herobrine again.

Later on, another streamer, Patimuss, made a stream showing Herobrine in a user-made lava pool. This Herobrine was free-standing, unlike in the previous stream, likely meaning he was a re-textured door. The livestream went down after Patimuss ran away and saved his game, only to resume ten minutes later, where Herobrine had supposedly disappeared. Afterwards, during the second stream, Patimuss could be heard talking to his wife, stating he was trolling. This flooded the livestream chat with outrage. He then faked a game crash. Copeland disliked that Patimuss outed Herobrine as a fake.



It is unknown when exactly it happened in relation to Patimuss's video, but Copeland posted links in chat leading to the website http://ghostinthestream.net/him.html (archive). This is likely where the nickname "Him" originated from. The page features Steve's face, but with his original eyes made pitch black and replaced with real, frantically rolling eyes. Below the face, there are a jumble of characters and letters. After removing all non-alphabet characters, the text is revealed to be a slightly edited version of another creepypasta, entitled "Wake Up?", which is written as a note to the reader explaining that they have retreated to a "fantasy world" due to suffering from torture (specified as rape in the original text) and that they need to "wake up".

The stream proceeded later with no further Herobrine sightings. Copeland continued to adamantly state Herobrine was real for about a year onward. Since the streams, there has been a huge increase in his popularity over the character, propelling Herobrine to meme status, and making him an icon of the community. There are numerous mods, animations, pieces of artwork, constructions and videos of Herobrine that have been created, with the earliest among these being created on the same day as the original livestreams.

Canonical
Herobrine is said to be Notch's dead brother, somehow embedded into Minecraft as a human entity with the player skin of Steve, but with completely white eyes and no visible irises or pupils. In Copeland's livestream, he had the beard seen in Steve's original design. In the original Herobrine image and Copeland's edited screenshot, however, the beard appears to be absent.

Herobrine is able to build and destroy in the game. The original story states the player found long 2×2 tunnels, small pyramids in the middle of the ocean, and trees with no leaves. The full extent of his building capacity is unknown, but the given examples indicate Herobrine has awareness of shape, and can differentiate materials from each other. He shows a lot of characteristics of being a form of virus, such as manipulating game worlds, deleting Minecraft Forum topics and sending messages to forum users.

Herobrine seems to solely target human players. He did not seem to interact with any other mobs nearby in the Brocraft streams, some of which were spiders and zombies. His canonical relation to further mobs added since he appeared is a complete mystery. His interactions with other mobs are not mentioned in the original image. While there is a chicken present in the image, Herobrine does not seem interested in it at all, and is solely focused on the player.

In both the original creepypasta and the Brocraft streams, Herobrine appears in the world without any apparent cause, and his presence is not implied to be due to a player's actions. In the creepypasta, he seems to avoid the player and appears to only be active in unexplored areas, whereas in the streams he seems to intentionally get close to players and appears mainly near player constructions.

Community
Though his hands are usually empty, Herobrine is sometimes depicted holding tools, such as pickaxes. This stems from the widespread community belief that Herobrine is a dead miner, killed long before the player's arrival. His appearance does not suggest this is the case, though with Minecraft's mineshafts and strongholds, as well as mining being a large part of the game, the game itself has shaped public perception of the character to suit this persona.

Herobrine occasionally interacts with other mobs. He is sometimes able to take control of passive animals, causing them to also exhibit his blank white eyes, and revive/spawn undead mobs. He seems capable of drastically changing his environments with no viable source of resources to do so. Most expansions to his abilities involve cobblestone placing, dungeon building, using redstone torches and setting traps. He exhibits all the behaviors of a Creative mode player in the game. While he is usually mute, some interpretations have him communicating with players, typically by sending them ominous messages through signs or chat such as "Stop" or "Only God can save/help you now", or by screaming as he jumpscares them.

Herobrine's intentions vary, but they usually fall under two categories: the "stalker" variation, based on the original canonical events, and the "vengeful" variation, derived from community interpretation. In the "stalker" variation, he stalks the player, disappearing if approached. In the "vengeful" variation, he tries to ensnare the player in traps, presumably to steal their items. He waits for people to enter his dungeons, then either seals them inside, or teleports behind them, presumably killing them. Some rarer variations of the latter state he breaks the player's creations and steals their items from chests. These ideas are likely inspired by griefers and trolls.

A popular idea in the community is that Herobrine can be "summoned" through the use of a special arrangement of blocks; such a structure is usually referred to as a "Herobrine altar", "Herobrine shrine", "Herobrine totem" or "Herobrine spawner". Typically, this is a 3×3 horizontal square of gold blocks, with a block of netherrack placed on top and four redstone torches placed upright on each side. The block beneath the netherrack varies between versions, with common choices being mossy cobblestone, soul sand, more netherrack or more gold. Igniting the netherrack is supposed to "activate" the structure, which then supposedly summons Herobrine into the world. These concepts are likely stemmed from, or served as inspiration for, the mods featuring the character.

Modded versions


Many user-created modifications have been made to add Herobrine into Minecraft. The earliest known Herobrine mod was a server plugin created on December 10, 2010, by the user tkelly. In the plugin, Herobrine can be summoned by building an altar made of gold, netherrack, redstone torches and mossy cobblestone, and igniting the netherrack on top. The mod's version of Herobrine exhibits behaviors similar to those in the original creepypasta and livestreams, as well as new behaviors, such as placing redstone torches, building underground dungeons, teleporting behind players, and luring players into traps. Updated versions of this plugin created by other users still exist on the internet, but the original plugin from the original creator is currently lost.

Later, on July 29, 2011, a more popular Herobrine mod was created by the user burnner. This mod also lets players summon Herobrine by building and igniting an altar made of gold and netherrack, though the arrangement and composition of blocks is different, and a new "Herobrine Totem" block is required. This mod's version of Herobrine retains many of his abilities from the canon sources and original mod while gaining many new ones, such as flying, placing signs, possessing animals, and spawning undead mobs. Herobrine is much more hostile in this mod and will regularly directly attack players, unlike in the original mod where Herobrine is more rarely encountered and less directly hostile.

Many subsequent Herobrine mods have been made since, many of them employing many concepts that originated in these early examples. The use of these mods in servers and videos likely accounts for a substantial percentage of reported Herobrine "sightings", since they are the only way Herobrine can actually exist in the game. As a result, many of Herobrine's characteristics and abilities in these mods have become established in the community as part of the character.

Potential addition to Minecraft


At MINECON 2010, early in Herobrine's popularity boost, Notch confirmed Herobrine was a hoax, but jokingly alluded to the possibility that he might not be. Notch later posted on Twitter about the subject of Herobrine. In reply to a tweet asking if Herobrine was a real entity in-game, Notch replied saying that he was not, but that he "might be soon". This further confirmed there was no Herobrine, but again suggested the possibility that Notch planned to add him at a later date.

Due to increased drama surrounding the Minecraft Wiki's page on Herobrine, a wiki administrator asked Notch over IRC if he would ever be added, to which Notch replied "i [sic] have no plans of adding herobrine as is, but I do like the rumors, haha". This showed Notch had decided against adding Herobrine. However, the use of the wording "as is" suggested that something like Herobrine may be added, further fueling beliefs that he would be added. Once again, the same user asked for clarification, saying that the Minecraft community was "getting frustrated by the hero-spam", to which Notch replied that he had no plans for adding Herobrine into the game.

Current stance on Herobrine
As the role of lead developer of Minecraft was passed on from Notch to Jeb, the chance of Herobrine appearing in an update is unclear. On August 22, 2012, Dinnerbone, current joint developer of Minecraft, tweeted "We have no plans at all to add herobrine. I doubt this will ever change." This confirms that Herobrine will likely never see an official addition in Minecraft, and that any claims of "finding" Herobrine in vanilla Minecraft in future updates are completely unfounded.

Mojang media appearances
Herobrine has appeared in official Mojang images as an inside joke. His first appearance in official Mojang images started with the Wedding Weekend, in which he was just behind Notch's Minecraft character. He then made several appearances in material related to MINECON 2011: firstly the website header, where he was just behind Notch yet again. He then appeared in the official MINECON 2011 trailer created by Hat Films, at 3:11. However, as users were asked to submit their skins to appear in the trailer, this was likely unplanned. In the convention itself, a Herobrine statue was present in the Xbox section, on the board behind the Xbox stations. During the closing of the convention, a user named Zaralith won the Herobrine statue by correctly answering the give-away question "How many Fable games are there?" correctly. Some users have pointed to this as proof of his future addition. However, there is no proof he has been portrayed for anything other than baiting fans.

Herobrine then appeared in the instruction booklets of some of the first LEGO Minecraft sets, among other Minecraft characters. He also appeared in Minecraft's Facebook page on the cover photo in summer 2012. It is notable to state that the image was created by a fan for a competition, with the theme of "summer picnic", hence his inclusion may not be fully intentional.

Changelogs


Herobrine has been mentioned to be removed from the game in several changelogs. The first of these mentions was in Beta 1.6.6, as a joke referring to the partial removal of the human mob's essential code, making it unspawnable within Minecraft. An ulterior motive may have been to troll the community, as this was around the time Herobrine had gained memetic status within the community. After that, most Minecraft update changelogs included the entry "Removed Herobrine" at least once every update cycle as a running gag, with some exceptions such as Java Edition 1.1 and Java Edition 1.16. The changelog of Java Edition 1.16.2 is currently the last one to mention Herobrine, and no further mentions have been made since.

Launcher changelog
In the changelog of Minecraft Launcher version 2.2.176x, which was released soon after the original Herobrine screenshot world seed was discovered, the developers say that they "removed Herobrine from Java Alpha 1.0.16_02", the version in which the screenshot was taken.

Xbox 360 changelog
In an update for Xbox 360 on July 13, 2012 (Xbox 360 Edition TU3), Herobrine was stated to be removed from the Xbox 360 Edition of Minecraft for the first time. He was then removed again in Xbox 360 Edition TU5.

Scrolls changelog
In the changelog for version 0.103.0 of Scrolls, another game by Mojang, Herobrine being removed was in the changelog's miscellaneous section.

Legacy Console Editions
One of the in-game loading tips in the Legacy Console Editions references Herobrine: "We think 4J Studios has removed Herobrine from the [console] console game, but we're not too sure."

Herobrine is part of the first skin pack released on the Legacy Console Editions. Because of this addition, "sightings" rose drastically due to players using the skin. However, the skin was omitted from the Bedrock Edition version of the skin pack. Herobrine then made more appearances: as a "Zombie Herobrine" skin in the third skin pack, a "Party Herobrine" skin in the first birthday skin pack, and an "Xmas Herobrine" skin in the festive mash-up pack.

Minecraft Earth
On the Minecraft Earth FAQ site, Herobrine used to be mentioned in one of the frequently asked questions about the game; the question was "Is Herobrine in this game too?" and the answer given was "". This was later removed from the FAQ page.

Mojang reactions
Mojang has, albeit rarely, shared their views on Herobrine. Their reactions have varied from plainly stating that he does not exist to Notch saying he appears only when players ask him.


 * Notch


 * Ezchili


 * Kappische

When asked if he would like to update his stance, Kappische replied:


 * Mollstam


 * JahKob


 * Carnalizer


 * EvilSeph


 * C418


 * Marc Watson


 * Searge

Livestream reference
The original Herobrine livestream was located here and the second Herobrine livestream was located here. Both livestreams were deleted at some point during the following months, and no backups are available.

Copeland, the Brocraft founder, and Livestream.com have all stated that they do not have a backup copy of these streams. Any users who may have recorded these streams for personal use are encouraged to share the footage for future generations of Minecraft fans.

Recreation
A recreation made in collaboration with Copeland of the Herobrine scene from the first stream can be found below:

Trivia

 * When asked about audio player implementation on the wiki, and the limits of what could be uploaded, C418 replied to Herobrine claims relating to disc 11. He stated that he cannot say a lot about 11, but that it has nothing to do with Herobrine.
 * There is a user called Herobrine registered on Minecraft servers. The account is a full account (meaning they have bought Minecraft after registering). They do not appear to have visited any MINECON events using the Herobrine username, due to their lack of a cape. Ex-Mojang employee Andrea Jörgensen stated that a friend of hers owns the Herobrine account.
 * In September 2013, Marc Watson created a series of skins for the head model. These skins were made to ensure a stable skin for various official entities could be used without fear that the skin could change. Herobrine was one of the skins that could be obtained through this system by using the command . The skin used to show Herobrine without a beard, which was not canon to Herobrine's origins in both the creepypasta and the Copeland stream, as well as official promotional materials Mojang often used. The skin was originally taken from the Herobrine account, whose skin was different from the originating materials. This was corrected in December 2017 to reflect Herobrine's original canon design, using the same beard that Steve and the human mob had before the release of Survival Test.
 * "Removing Herobrine" is an episode in the Java Edition 3D Shareware v1.34 April Fools' update.
 * The seed for the world used in the original screenshot is, with the player's position at the coordinates x=5.06, y=71, z=-298.54. The screenshot was made using Alpha 1.0.16_02.
 * The seed for the world used in the original livestream is . The livestream was made using Alpha 1.0.17_04.
 * Copeland eventually rediscovered the original world in which he had filmed the original Herobrine livestream, and made the world available to download here.
 * The original creepypasta states that the author heard back from their informant about a month after taking a screenshot of Herobrine. However, while the creepypasta was posted to 4chan on August 19 at the latest, the screenshot was taken in the version Alpha 1.0.16_02, which was released on August 13, making it impossible for that much time to have elapsed.
 * Vareide, the creator of several officially featured Minecraft trailers, also made a video about Herobrine.