Where do these badges come from?

[Davroth]

Uhhhm, so, I have recently received two new badges, seemingly out of nowhere and baring any explanation where they came from or what I did to get them. I'll just be honest here, this kind of freaks me out. They are currently the first two in my 5 badges under my profile, the tiara and the trident.

Can someone please let me know what they are and how I got them? I'm not joking when I say I'm freaked out. I am freaked out.

 

[Lilani]

Some badges are given out at random during holidays like Halloween and Christmas, basically as festive decorations you can put on your badge list. That would be where your trident and tiara badges come from, if you hover your mouse over them you can see they were from the week of freak in 2012. Some are like achievements like your Notable Poster one there, for having so many posts without mod wrath. Others are for watching a certain number of episodes of a show like Zero Punctuation, Unskippable, Feed Dump, etc. or reading a certain number of articles. Others are for participating in things like personality quizzes, like your frozen one there. Some are made for viewing special articles or shows.

They're basically little things awarded for visiting and looking at things on the site, and you can arrange them to be a little peek into your interests.

 

[Davroth]

I know generally where they come from... it's just... like, they just appeared. The trident a few days ago, the tiara today. Kind of out of nowhere... is that something that just... happens? I mean, we are way past 2012...

 

[DoPo]

I know generally where they come from... it's just... like, they just appeared. The trident a few days ago, the tiara today. Kind of out of nowhere... is that something that just... happens? I mean, we are way past 2012...

During 'halloween week 2012', one of those badges was assigned to each piece of site content for that week. (One for that week's ZP, one for that week's Unskippable, one for that week's Jimquisition, etc.)

Specifically, the videos here [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/content/halloween/] award the badges

 

[Davroth]

Ah, well, I'll guess it's a glitch then. Sorry. They appeared so suddenly that I didnt know what to make of it.