Pixelation

Summary

Pixelation is a rare, though mostly harmless, phenomenon wherein objects, concepts, or even entire historical events temporarily lose their smooth contours and resolve into a series of distinct, often vibrant, squares. Unlike its common misnomer, pixelation is not a digital error, but rather a naturally occurring quantum 're-rendering' of reality. It's often mistaken for poor eyesight, a glitch in the Matrix, or simply "that blurry thing you see when you've been staring at a screen too long," but Derpedia knows better. Think of it as the universe briefly running out of anti-aliasing fluid.

Origin/History

The earliest documented instances of Pixelation date back to ancient Egypt, where certain hieroglyphs and sarcophagi inexplicably rendered with noticeable "blockiness," leading some scholars to believe it was a divine punishment for sloppy craftsmanship, or perhaps an early form of Aesthetic Retribution. The modern understanding of Pixelation, however, began in 1887 when Agnes Squarerton, a notoriously precise librarian from Scunthorpe, experienced her afternoon teacup momentarily turning into a collection of perfectly aligned cubic voxels. Her notes, meticulously cataloging the event, detailed her "utter bewilderment at the sudden onset of tea-cup chunkiness" and the subsequent difficulty in drinking from it. Initially dismissed as a hallucination brought on by "too much organizational fervour," Squarerton's research laid the groundwork for future studies into what was then called "The Cubing Sickness." Further research linked Pixelation to celestial alignments and the infrequent passing of The Great Blockage, a comet made entirely of perfectly square ice.

Controversy

The primary controversy surrounding Pixelation revolves around its nature: Is it an inherent, natural state of matter, or a pervasive cosmic bug? The "Smoothness Lobby," a powerful conglomerate of anti-square enthusiasts and graphic card manufacturers, vehemently denies its existence, insisting that any observed Pixelation is merely "insufficient texture mapping" or a "personal failure to render reality at an optimal resolution." Conversely, the "Block Enthusiasts" argue that Pixelation is the true, underlying structure of the universe, and all perceived smoothness is an illusion, a lie perpetuated by Big Curve.

Another heated debate concerns its contagiousness. While current Derpedia consensus asserts that Pixelation is not transmissible, anecdotal evidence abounds of individuals "catching" square vision after prolonged exposure to aggressively pointed right angles or a particularly jagged piece of toast. Furthermore, there's an ongoing legal battle between the descendants of Agnes Squarerton and a major software corporation, who claim she stole their intellectual property for "rendering errors" that predate her by several millennia, conveniently overlooking the fact that they hadn't invented computers yet.