2025 color ban

The start of the ban coincided with the announcement of a Christmas art contest at /ChristmasWorld.

(OP) fp: owot lost its Technicolor™ license

[...]

(OP) fp: colors are off because it's a really good pressure to get me to deploy the hide-images feature within a day or two rather than MONTHS

On December 19th, 2025, FP temporarily disabled color on the Mainpage after a video script was used to broadcast NSFW footage at Spawn. This decision was a part of a long running effort to combat image pasters in OWOT, with FP choosing to maintain the ban until he is able to implement an "image safety feature."

The color ban sparked backlash from large portions of the userbase, while others appreciated it for putting an end to (pornographic) image paste spam. A variety of methods were used to work around a lack of text colors, such as using emojis and URL/coordinate links to render colored images. On the other hand, several scripters simply opted for black and white image pasters.

In many ways, OWOT's Mainpage was made visually similar to that of Your World of Text, a text canvas which has never supported more than one text color on any given page. Though there were still some differences stemming from OWOT-exclusive features like Symbols for Legacy Computing and text decorations. Colored landmarks on the Mainpage also retained their color after the ban, and when damaged FP would continue to restore them in their original states.

Lead up to the color ban

i've said this several times before but octant pastes are genuinely beautiful with colors disabled

for an event, fp should disable all colors at spawn for a week or so

— Rscr on December 14th, 2025

The week leading up to the ban was marked by several NSFW pastes from a single user. After the ban, Sylveon came up with a successful way to brick that specific image paster.

atp with how much porn that gets pasted on the front page, fp can't just say he can't do anything about it. it's got to count as willingly exposing minors to porn, especially how he gives them wiper perms to get them to do his job for him.

I guarantee he knows all this by now, and by not shutting down the canvas entirely or removing colors it definitely falls under being intentional

— Catha'vi on December 18th, 2025

The color ban started on December 19th at 2:13 P.M. EST, after FP was alerted of a NSFW video that was broadcasted to Spawn the night before.

not cp, it's actually a youtube video on cyclops sydrome (from a medical channel)

but I still disabled colors globally out of precaution until the image safety feature is implemented and rolled out

— FP on December 19th, 2025

Previous color bans

At least one other frontpage color ban had occurred before 2025. On March 7th, 2024, color was very briefly disabled by Poopman in response to porn being pasted at Spawn.

• 
  2024 color ban
• 
  2022 messages from the YWOT Discord

User reactions

OWOT IS GOING YWOT!!

unfortunately that means that confessing something in black text is no longer fun

because everyone's in black text

— Katiserie on December 19th, 2025

Chat on December 19th, 2025

💗GoldShip🤍: owot without colors is just glorified ywot

💗GoldShip🤍: like

💗GoldShip🤍: literally the same shit but with worse people

💗GoldShip🤍: 0/10 won't try again

🖥️Fun.com💚: meh

🖥️Fun.com💚: OWOT has much more new features than colours

💗GoldShip🤍: man god FORBID someone uses the site for what it was intended for

💗GoldShip🤍: (programming)

💗GoldShip🤍: like ngga you made this shit you should know what it'd cause

[...]

ℓ≻ marie: when do we get the colors and image pasters back front page

💗GoldShip🤍: when fp stops being a pussy

ℓ≻ marie: i wanna paste uma yuri again front page

rscr: i want the color ban to go on for a while

💗GoldShip🤍: YES

📱(Ꙥ) JanTechPL: i

rscr: it's interesting to see how people work around a lack of colors

💗GoldShip🤍: lil ngga thinks he's white diamond removing them colours

📱 (Ꙥ) JanTechPL: wanna know

💗GoldShip🤍: and individuality

[8185]: imagine an owop color ban

💗GoldShip🤍: and being hot

≺ℓ≻ marie: The color ban is dumb asf💔

rscr: like using emojis and links for color

💗GoldShip🤍: oh i have one

💗GoldShip🤍: grayscale hentai

📱 (Ꙥ) JanTechPL: when the sock of publicity will have a public space

[8185]: and then they make all emojis grayscale and max contrast

December 20th, 2025

i remember someone saying a few days back that sites like owot looks prettier with no colour and i can see why,

this looks awesome

— Blancrenarde on December 20th, 2025, commenting on an extravagant script display that used emojis instead of colored text

• 
  "Sorrow for a bygone era" by Dupy. The stickman's message was vandalized. (December 20th, 2025)
• 
  Later revision with unvandalized 2-row text

man fuck sylveon and fp for causing this problem, no more colors, no more image pasters, no more SLC, just boring ass stuff with pasting image of dots

• 
  Schjessu's protest alt(December 20th, 2025)
• 
  Spam that replaces text with #BRINGCOLORSBACKFP
• 
  December 21st, 2025

OWOT Discord on December 20th, 2025

Rscr: this might legitimately be the most fun i've had on this site

Rscr: it feels like every time i check back on the canvas something interesting has happened

Rscr: it's so cool to see the entire owot community go through this event together

d9eoead: we’re all going insane in a spectacular show of tomfoolery

d9eoead: like a star’s dying breath being a dazzling explosion, the chaos of owot ruptures out into a show of multicolored letters and numbers

Rscr: everybody(im the only one feeling this) learning to see the site from a different perspective

[...]

thorium1256: our world of images is gone, fp be actively working

blancrenarde: finally, a world of text, and its our world of text

[...]

Rscr: art and conversations are being griefed at a much slower rate(bengo's shennanigans aside), and are allowed to actually occupy the canvas every once in a while instead of always starving for attention between the shadows of image pastes

Rscr: spawn feels so much more lively now, whereas before it was always lifeless

YEET Te2: Seemed like the opposite for me

Condition for FP to restore color(December 20th, 2025)

the more yall beg for colors        

the longer hell extend the ban

hopefully it eventually becomes permanent

FP racist(December 21st, 2025)

no good reason to wipe

i get that you have strong beliefs about

the colour ban, but i believe there's better

ways to adhere to these beliefs other than

wiping innocous content. i hope that you will

take what i said into consideration and see

how you could change your character using this info

• 
  December 22nd, 2025
• 
  December 22nd, 2025
• 
  December 22nd, 2025

OWOT Discord on December 22nd, 2025

Katiserie: fair enough tho, i just think text colors are a form of self-expression

thorium1256: that is true but what they're being used for is bad

Katiserie: true, but you do realise braille porn could be pasted

Katiserie: the best solution is to ratelimit the mainpage

thorium1256: Yes

thorium1256: But it's better than full-color octant porn at least

December 22nd, 2025

actually i change my mind abt the whole color thing now,, its more fun without spam 24/7 ,_, — Schjessu on December 22nd, 2025

Poll by thorium1256(December 23rd, 2025)

Color replacements

Using emojis

Emoji pasters have always existed in OWOT, but are rarely seen due to their inability to accurately represent images.

• 
  December 19th, 2025
• 
  December 19th, 2025

• By Catha'Vi
• 
  December 21st, 2025
• 
  December 21st, 2025

Using links

During the ban, two text colors were still available using links: blue(url links) and green(coordinate links).

People on YWOT have been using links to make color all the way back in 2010. However the ability to create links is disabled on the Mainpage, so link art can only be found in select subworlds.

• 
  "Demo wave" by Dupy, an artwork made to show that coloured (green & blue) pastes are still possible via links (December 20th, 2025)
• 
  December 25th, 2025
• 
  YWOT link art from 2010

• Attempts to create new colors through dithering
• 
  JTPL dithering with URL links(December 21st, 2025)
• 
  Dithering attempt by e_g., where red emojis are used for the third color(December 22nd, 2025)
• 
  By Catzcute4(December 24th, 2025)
• 
  Cyan background
• 
  December 25th, 2025

• By Banksy
• 
  2025-12-20
• 
  2025-12-20
• 
  December 20th, 2025
• 
  December 20th, 2025
• 
  Slime effect by Rscr(2025-12-20)
• 
  2025-12-21
• 
  2025-12-22
• 
  2025-12-22
• 
  December 22nd, 2025
• 
  December 22nd, 2025
• 
  December 24th, 2025

Text density

By Schjessu(December 20th, 2025)

Can't produce actual color, but can be effective for shading.

See a tutorial below.

To Shade:

III;;;;;:::::.'.'.'`.`.`.```
IIIIII;;;;;;:::::.'.'.'`.`.`.````
HHHHIIII;;;;;::::::.'.'.'.`.`.`.````
IIIIII;;;;;;:::::.'.'.'`.`.`.`````
III;;;;;:::::.'.'.'`.`.`.```

Darkest: W V H 8 @ #

Second Darkest: I 6 9

Third Darkest: ;;;;;

Second Lightest: :::::: .'.'.

Lightest: .`.`.`. ````` .....

*You can also space out characters to make them lighter.
*Any character can be used for shading, not just the ones
listed above.

Workarounds for identification

Since color is usually the primary means for users to identify themselves on the canvas, the color ban posed yet another issue from which multiple solutions emerged.

Dupy/Fun.com created a script that applied alternating link types and text decorations to his messages, giving him a unique look in a canvas where only three text colors are available. However, he later removed the alternating text decorations and made the link type alternate every two characters instead of one due to readability issues.

Schjessu, on the other hand, opted for the simpler option of writing her messages with the bold and italic text decorations.

The ban also gave Katiserie an opportunity to bring out her message tagging script, which attaches note links to her messages so that a popup saying "Written by katiserie" will appear whenever you hover over them. After the introduction of this script, Dupy, Schjessu, lime, e_g., gimmickCellar, JanTechPL, and twinnie would all catch on to the message tagging trend within a couple of days.

• 
  Katiserie using note links to tag her messages(December 20th, 2025)
• 
  A user named nmm commenting on Katiserie's script(December 21st, 2025)
• 
  A similar mechanism by Dupy/Fun.com(December 20th, 2025)
• 
  New version that includes time
• 
  Banksy's version(December 22nd, 2025)
• 
  By 67x8(December 24th, 2025)
• 
  Cont.
• 
  Cont.
• 
  Cont.
• 
  December 25th, 2025
• 
  December 25th, 2025

Spam war

Main article: December 2025 spam war

A series of large-scale spam wars occurred during the color ban, during which emojis were used to replace text colors.

• 
  "Pasta Railgun" by bengobeklitava
• 
  Black hole spam by UntitledOWOT
• 
  A raywiper was used to combat the spam
• 
  Spam-cleaning tank by Banksy
• 
  Shape spam
• 
  Cont.
• 
  A sweeping wiper
• 
  ...