rant board

[Augustus]

community getting toxic?

something is familiar in this quote...

Why do you ask?

I don't know. I just, I am feeling it is. And I wonder what you guys have to say about this. Because the fact is that I don't feel like making videos anymore since I lost enegry and fun for it. Every theory that is being made some time before BTM 7 and especialy after is not taken serious. And I think that the discord community and skype forum community are growing apart. I feel like this place lost it's fun. Thoughts? Maybe it is me tho.

[Vortex]

I haven't had much time to catch up, I didn't notice many changes so far but I think I get what you mean.

At risk of oversimplifying a lot, I believe it's basically due to individual differences in personality. Some people like Apoc or Ant are usually more serious and analytic, while people like Prupp or Ehnic are usually more happy and laid-back. As time passes in a closed group, people tend to homogeneize their ideas with time (the hivemind effect), so it's completely normal that (not saying either one is right or wrong, nobody get offended please XD) the Skype group becomes increasingly disillusioned with theory writing/SNEE updates/speedruns/whatever while the Discord gets overly enthusiastic at times. That's just my impression from an outside perspective anyways, I might be completely wrong on this.

I don't think these are symptoms of a toxic community at all though, it's just normal group dynamics and evolution like it would happen with any group of friends

[Empoeria]

Yeah Vort p much got it spot-on. It might also be general age difference between Skype and Discord.

Maybe, Ko9 (and correct me if I'm wrong), what's bothering you is just that some prominent people have been more open about some issues they have with theorizing/SubVerse/whatever, but those things have been building for a long time.
To be fair, a few days ago I brought something up on Skype that was bothering me and asked everyone to be a little more mindful, some agreed with my points, and others at least agreed to keep it in mind.

My experience with this community has still been largely positive, and I believe that most of us can be reasoned with and talked to, and whenever something really is wrong, people will listen and try to help. So that to me is actually the farthest from a toxic community you can get, but if you're getting that impression of course there's a reason for it. Hope this helps though.

[Jatsko]

The community is not toxic.

The biggest thing that's changed is, like Vortex said, people have differentiated around their shared traits more often, which isn't a bad thing. It doesn't make us "less divided" or anything. People who tend to be younger and are typically more energetic and do things like hard speedrunning/extended theorizing/shitposting are on the Discord, conversations that people want logged that include discussions about other things like the Wiki and upcoming events (the more planning/coordinating/long talk side) are on the forum, and then the Skype is less actual Pastel-related and more about getting to know each other on a slightly more personal level through calls and stuff. I actually think it's sorta nice that we have the three main options to cater to different types of people, and they're all easily accessible for people to move back and forth between them as they please.

For the record though, I'll say that for the past few months I've been getting quite irritated with the prospect of theorizing and spending a lot of time on it, and I allowed myself to get hypersensitive which means I can't absorb a lot of active lively energy, and since a lot of that comes from Discord I would often get irritated at the after a while. Really all I needed to do was to step away from that and realize that that's not the place for me. And the last few days sine I released BTM 7 and got that out of my system and feel much.

So to you Discorders I have no hard feelings against you even though I've amplified my snide and sarcastic nature to you guys recently. You all have good hearts and you bring energy to the community, and I'm sorry that my attitudes rubbed up against that. So Ko9 if you feel any of the tension is coming from that, know that I want to resolve that there.

[Augustus]

Thanks for the helpfull replies.

[Prupp]

And we all converge in the streams~

[Jatsko]

Though I should ask, @Ko9, why exactly it seems like me making BTM 7 brought up these feelings for you because you've alluded to multiple times now that "BTM 7 has more or less destroyed you", and now you're wondering about the community being toxic as a direct continuation of that.

However, BTM 7 didn't focus on the Pastel community at all, or even about other people's theories specifically. It was completely about the games themselves and Mat's reasonings for doing things in certain ways. So I don't see how that's connected to a "toxic community".

Correct me if I'm wrong but it seemed you were alluding to a connection there.

[Augustus]

Well destroy not. I try to be more in the background of everyone. But like, to see the flaws of something I so love... not to say that critizing Submachine is not okay, do what you want. I don't know. It is like, the hy part is out of it.

[Empoeria]

okay here's a life hack: you can acknowledge the flaws in a piece of media you love and still appreciate it despite those flaws.

or you can make up your own mind and maybe you'll come to the conclusion you disagree and don't see as many flaws in it, or decide you like them.

[Anteroinen]

As they say: "It's both possible, and even necessary, to simultaneously enjoy media while also being critical of its more problematic or pernicious aspects."