Remote

A remote control, also called a remote, a television remote, a TV remote, or a clicker, is an an electronic device that can be used to operate another device, usually a television. Remote controls are long and plastic, with buttons across the top performing various functions. They operate wirelessly and on battery power.

Function

The components of a remote.

The modern remote control is essentially an electric wand. Its batteries provide it with energy, which it uses to manipulate the probability that a television screen will be showing a given combination of pixels at a given time. In accordance with Moore’s Law, the number of buttons on a remote control tends to grow exponentially, doubling every year. As the amount of buttons increases, the value of any one button decreases, approaching a limit of total uselessness. As a result, remote controls are projected to fall significantly in value as actively detrimental buttons begin to be added by the year 2025. There are, however, extremely useful functions that have not yet received corresponding buttons on any remote. Remote theorists speculate that the most useful button will not be feasible until 2064.

Creation

Main article: History of the television, 1912-2112

Pre-Halloween

Before the creation of remotes, wizards would entertain themselves by manipulating actors on a stage. This process was highly taxing on these wizards, who needed to maintain active and complete concentration while simultaneously devising a complete story. This was fun for the spectators, but the wizards hated it.

Attempts to automatically or algorithmically manipulate the actors resulted in bizarre and often horrific performances. These strange performances were outlawed by the Wizard Council in 1902, and remain banned through the present day.

Alexander Graham Bell would later, in 1912, invent the television as a means to create new images. The television would display random assortments of colors and shapes with no pattern, changing ten-- and later thirty, and then sixty-- times a second. These “performerless plays” became the subject of much public fascination as televisions became more readily available. While the shapes were completely random, an uptick in apophenia caused many of these plays' spectators to attempt to discern truths from the meaningless information being broadcast. Spectators would get into gruesome brawls betting over which shapes would appear, so transfixed by the flat images on the surface in front of them that they began to ignore the rest of reality.

Naturally, as with all captive audiences, the wisdom of the time dictated that the television fans' obsession could be exploited for profit. Manipulating actors was taxing, but manipulating shapes was easy. Clever wizards of the time began with subtle tricks: occasionally manipulating probability to make triangles appear more often than squares, or red appear more often than blue, or similar such bends in the flow of reality. The period of time in which these tricks were unknown to the public is now known as the "kayfabe era" of television. The "kayfabe era" unceremoniously ended when a mischevious wizard (best known for other work) tricked its colleagues into revealing their secret in front of an audience of 10,000 aberrant creatures that they had believed to be wizards in funny disguises. This event would later become known as the Halloween Goof.

Post-Halloween

After the Goof, the probability manipulation industry exploded. Audiences demanded an increasing number of shows, with increased capacity, and newer, funnier shapes every time. At the same time, Nikola Tesla was well into his attempt to create a home consumer magical product that non-magical people could use. On April 1, 1999, Nikola Tesla and Alexander Graham Bell released the result of their combined labors: the first television remote. Measuring over ten stories tall, the device served as a "portable" wizard tower containing a 24/7 staff of wizards casting extremely intensive probability-manipulation spells to bend the television's images into incredibly complex and detailed shapes. Some of these shapes were so detailed that they could be heard. The wizard tower was on wheels, allowing it to be pushed around from village to village.

The next day, on April 2, 1999, Girl Nikola Tesla and Alexander "Girl" Bell used their own combined invention, a shrink ray, to steal the wizard tower by shrinking it down until it could fit into their shared pocket. The wizards, tired of being tall guys, decided that they liked being small guys after all. Tesla and Bell, capitalizing on this, hired more tall wizards to become little guys in tiny little towers. Where else can you get an experience like that? Being a tall guy's hard. You don't get to be a small guy when you're a tall guy. It just doesn't happen. Not unless you get to be in one of these little small guy towers.

On April 3, 1999, however, Girl Nikola Tesla and Alexander "Girl" Bell's empire crumbled. They were manufacturing more little small guy towers, hiring tall guys by the hundreds, when two interlopers appeared in wizard hats and fake beards: Girl Girl Nikola Tesla and Alexander "Girl" Girl. Girl and Tesla, just before getting shrunk down, presented their own combined invention: a freeze ray. Freezing the tiny towers, as well as their normal-sized creators, made it trivial for the pair to steal hundreds of frozen towers and bring them to the world's largest duplication machine.

On April 4, 1999, millions of tiny wizard towers flooded the market. The television industry would never be the same. However, the first generation of mass-produced television remotes had a major flaw: the frozen wizards kept melting, and dripping through holes in the tiny masonry of the towers. As a result, Tesla and Girl devised a button-down tower with the help of notable architect Frank "Girl" Wright. This tower kept all the wizards safely inside, giving them the opportunity to refreeze during the cold winter months. This generation's design would persist in all future iterations, giving scholars cause to consider these buttoned towers the first "real" television remotes.

In popular culture

As a common and beloved thing, remotes are ubiquitous in popular culture. In the Wiki Camp 2, for example, they appear throughout many of the 200 scenes comprising the show's first season. Below are a selection of notable remote appearances.

Episode 1 ([ME], [MYSELF], and [I])

Head of Lettuce's campaign manager uses a remote to click between slides during the announcement of thons candidacy.
When Michael Bloomberg watches a news broadcast about his candidacy during his flashback, he throws the remote at the screen after seeing his polling numbers.
When Bloomberg's flashback-self flashes back to his childhood, Baby Bloomberg also throws a baby remote (full of baby wizards) at a baby television.
Isaac's Mother uses a remote to alternate between several Christian broadcasts on the television.

Episode 2A ([ME], [MYSELF], and You)

For one frame at 11:24, the mobile device Emoticon is present on disappears before Emoticon herself does. As a result, her face appears to be superimposed onto a remote on the couch in the background of the scene, which takes place in Playlist's Pad. Because the result bears resemblance to an object character, especially given Emoticon's similar appearance to the default BFDI assets, this "character" is often referred to as Remoticon.
Hardware Overclock Sound Team uses a remote to pause the music blasting from their speakers when LiSt receives the notification that their page has been merge-requested.
When Isaac transforms into The Forgotten, he uses a Clicker to do so.

Episode 2B (Halftime Show: [ME], [MYSELF], and Who?!)

At the very beginning of the episode, The Divine Goddess uses a remote to change the channel back to The Wiki Camp 2 from Jeopardy. This remote continues to appear at the beginning of the second part of every two-part episode.
9150625 uses remote access to infiltrate Houston Omniversal Science and Technology's servers. This proves unsuccessful, because the wizards kept forgetting who they were trying to hack. They were also unfamiliar with computers, making beginner-level CSS mistakes in their attempts to probe the institution's servers. Also, the servers weren't real.
When Dexter Cut lowers the disco ball in the auditorium to name it and give it a funny backstory, she uses its remote to do so.
During Playlist's internal argument between Clash Royale King Laughing Emote and bingus music, several remotes with color schemes corresponding to the members of Playlist are visible next to their television. Curiously, a blue fuzzy remote is also present.

Episode 3 (Recent Changes)

During Drake's final unaltered appearance, before he encounters The Divine Goddess, he is searching for his remote. As he does this, he wonders aloud: "Now, if I was a remote, where would I be...?" (Drake's remote does not appear until Episode 5, however.)
The Divine Goddess uses a remote to eliminate Ad after their failure to vote. She then snaps the remote in half, thereby preventing Ad from ever being recovered.
Several contestants attempt to control the Edit War with remotes. Unfortunately, due to the Wizards' Strike, the remotes cease to function, and the Edit War spirals into chaos. The Wizards' Strike would continue until the Black Hole reset the state of labor relations worldwide, along with the page.

Episode 4 (But Here's The Corresponding Hole:)

During the cold open, a remote is visible among the other devices present on Hal Emmerich's desk. Positioned a dirty shovel and a robotic arm, the remote is significantly larger than many of its time, likely containing twice as many wizards as other iterations of the device. Emmerich adds more wizards to the remote, sobbing and shaking his head, before removing his wallet from his pocket to look at a picture inside. Sighing, he resumes tinkering with the remote. Just before the title sequence, he closes the panel on the remote and presses one of its buttons, causing one of the arm's fingers to wiggle slightly.
After the title sequence, when Statler and Waldorf return home from the Edit War, a remote is present on the table. Statler nearly picks it up to turn on their television before Waldorf puts his hand on top of Statler's, gently pushing the remote back onto the table. The remote is present throughout the remainder of the scene.
When Michael Bloomberg begins removing all of the electronics from his house, tearing wires out of the walls and throwing appliances into his backyard, a remote is briefly visible amid the heap of debris.
Several remotes are present in the pile of stolen possessions in The Ultimate Heist Crew's lair, including Bloomberg's. While Drake's remote is not present, a picture of it is barely visible on the bulletin board in the background labeled "STUFF STOLEN FROM US???" at 1:12:52. When Toy Blocks converts Arlo into a Thing, she uses a remote to seal access to her laboratory for the duration of the upgrade.

Gallery

ACRONYM in their living room. A remote is present.
A tradegy. Benson is offering to use a remote.
The formation of the team Epic Evil.
A group photo of HOST.
The I Like This Team Name promotional photo.
Mike Bloomberg's remote, prior to breach.
A difficult moral choice. The wizards may not provide assistance.
The Mario Party's second convention. A remote is present, but unattended. (Do not try this at home.)
The cast of The Wiki Camp 2.
An unrecoverable remote.