Most glowstringers sooner or later reach halts in their progress where they can't think of what else to do or improve in anyway. This is a time where the majority of stringers decide to give up on the art. On GSC we have come to know of this as a plateau. But is it possible that one day all glowstringers as a whole will eventually reach a "Universal Plateau?"

The Universal Plateau is the idea that glowstringing innovation will one day cease to exist and that all following “discoveries” will only be repeats of ideas from the past.  

The thought of this phenomenon both motivates and discourages glowstickers. Its existence creates an incentive to string because it influences members to want to be part of the era that “creates” the moves in glowstringing rather than the time that “copies” them from the past. It discourages members as well however, because many might not want to dedicate themselves to something they think will eventually lose all form of evolution.

But is this plateau even possible? Will glowstringing’s evolution really one day conclude?

Zin, a long time member, responded to this question by stating, “it will never reach [a] plateau…” He believes that when members stop creating new moves, if they stop creating new moves, it won’t be because the art itself is limited, but rather because the “stringers only limit themselves.” Keep in note that zin has been a member on Glowsticking.com (GSC) since day one of its existence in 2002. Because of this, he has been able to see how glowstringing has evolved over the ages with its ups and downs.

Another point of view is that of alfff’s. In a discussion on the topic, alfff said “it’s gotten so technical to the point where everything is so small, and it just can’t get much smaller.” What he means is that as glowstringing has evolved, the moves created later in time seem to have become “smaller” than what the initial moves were. For example: by looking at basic wraps (video), which have been done since the beginning, versus duowraps (video) which was popularized in 2004. As you can see, the basic wrap seems to have much more “space” than the crammed area of the duowrap.

This idea is suggesting that glowstringing will keep on advancing forward, but ever so slowly up to a specific limit, and that every time it does advance it will be a smaller step forward than those taken in the past. This can be greatly related to the world record in the 100 meter dash. Since the beginning of the Olympics the record for this race has been broken time and time again, but just as in glowstringing, each record is broken by less and less every time.

Another opinion is similar to the last one. It follows that glowstringing innovation will approach a limit, but will often have jolts. These jolts, which would be introductions of new concepts, will set the limit at a higher section in the graph, making the process start all over beginning with more big steps and going down the path until we get smaller and smaller steps. Theses jolts themselves, however, will begin to form a limit of their own where less and less of them will occur as time goes on. For example: In the beginning you may see a jolt every month, but as time goes on you might see a jolt only every year, and then every few years, and so on.

 With this point of view held in mind, the only way to keep stringing strong and alive is to keep creating concepts and sharing them with the glowsticking community. This all falls back to you guys, the glowstickers. The more and more that is created, the longer glowsticking will last.

 For discussion on this topic, please visit this thread! Discussion Thread

Written by melvenorc12.