"Operation Love" was a reddit sourced campaign to help the community become more friendly, productive, and fun-oriented during the Gen 2 playthrough.
Origins[]
Before Operation Love began, the "civil war", or "Gator Wars" was in full force. Many members of the community noted that both the stream's chat and the TPP subreddithad become mired with negative posts and in-fighting between community members. Perhaps feeling the pressure of dropping viewership and a lack of canon for Gen 2, some members had begun turning their frustrations towards other members and towards LazorGator, who was cited by many as being too "OP" at the time.
The Movement[]
On March 6, 2014, reddit user vikingnipples posted a simple infographic that asked for the community to begin
The original Operation Love post
working together and to be more positive. After the post, many players began posting purple hearts in the stream's chat. The post generated favorable responses from the TPP reddit community. Operation Love was followed by Operation Love 2.0, another post by vikingnipples made two days later asking the community to continue with the positivity.
Effects[]
While there may have been many factors involved, many members of the community noted a positive change in the attitude of the community around the time of Operation Love, and soon after the "Release the Gator" campaign became more of a running joke than an actual movement.
In addition, during one of these Operation Love events Burrito evolved into Espeon; since this particular Eevee evolution is triggered by high Friendship and associated with light, love, and other positive emotions, Burrito himself became a living symbol of the movement and an encouragement - both in lore to his party-mates, and out-of-lore to the stream participants and community.
Burrito depicted in a pile of purple hearts (courtesy of 7ofDiamonds)