Posted on July 3, 2022
Last updated on July 3, 2022
Kept you waiting, huh?
I can't believe I'm doing one of these again after so long, but I'm glad I am, because today
we're going to be talking about something I'm very passionate about for all of the wrong reasons
Social Medias, most specifically, Twitter.
My distaste for social medias has been made clear multiple times, not only on my website like in
the "Early 2000's Internet" blog post and even on my Newgrounds account, but everyone who had the
displeasure of knowing me personally knows how much I despise social medias, with most of this
fierce hate going towards Twitter, and for a little time, I tried giving Twitter a chance once
once again after such a long time, specially since a lot of time has passed, and a lot has changed
including me, and maybe giving it a chance again could give me a different perspective on things
It fucking didn't, all it did was to remind me why I despise that place to begin with.
Let's start with arguably the least offensive thing about Twitter; the site design
One of the main reasons why I even made my own website to begin with was to spite on every single
lazy and uninspired site out there that decided that having no personality nor intuitive navigation
was a good idea just because everyone else is doing it too (AKA corporate designs/logos)
Let's make one thing clear; I don't hate simplicity, in fact, I love it, just because you're
streamlining things and cutting the unecessary fat doesn't mean you're making things dull, in fact
it can be quite beneficial to a lot of things, such as designing websites or even creating character
designs, but what I hate is when people strip features or personality out of something either because
everyone else is doing it, or because they're too lazy to come up with something new or creative
Simplicity is not the problem, lazyness is.
And Twitter's design (and by extension sites like Facebook and Instagram) is absolute god awful
both in terms of how they look and how you navigate through them
First; everything looks absolutely bland, no personality at all, the most amount of personality
you'll see on the site is the fact you can change the color of the buttons and go into dark mode
Yeah, you can still put a profile picture, cover and a bio, but that's something that every site
in the goddamn existence has, and Twitter does the bare minimum
What's that? You want to put more than one link in your profile, because maybe not only you have
more than one website or platform, but it's just a nice thing to have? Tough luck, dumbass!
You'll either have to create some shit like a linktr.ee or make place for a pinned post that you
might already be using for stuff like comission sheets, which sucks
is it really that hard to add an option to add more than one website on your profile?
Newgrounds, however, let's you add up to 10 links on your page, and they can all be easily found
on your profile, and not only that, but you can also edit and give the links actual names so they're
not only displaying the URL, but an actual title or explanation of what the website linked is used for
AND IT DOESN'T END THERE, you can actually change so much about your experience on the website
like filtering content you'd like to see, from SFW and NSFW content, to tags and things you wouldn't
like to stumble upon, from the way you page looks not only for you, but for everyone that visits it
by giving pages a lot of color options, from the background color, header color and even the links
YOU CAN EVEN CHANGE THE SHAPE OF YOUR PROFILE ICON, A FEATURE THAT MORE SITES
DESPERATELY NEED TO IMPLEMENT.
Yeah, you do need to pay for NG Supporter in order to change the shape of your icon or your level badge
but everything else is pretty much free, it gives you a lot of things to make your page unique from any
other, even allowing you to put custom pronouns if you're into this sort of shit, which allows you to get
REALLY WACKY with your profile
and even with all of that, Newgrounds is just oozing with colors and life, the first thing you see when
you get into the site are cool site backgrounds made by talented users that shows everything the site is
all about or the current thing that's happening in the community right now, such as Pico Day
and navigating through it isn't difficult at all too, it's very simple and straightforward to use it
everything you need to find is either in your own profile or even in front of your face, it doesn't
fill the site with useless features like Lists, Explore or any of this bullshit, it's just the necessary
and a little bit more, so why can't the other sites be like that too?
Going a little bit outside of the profiles and customization, the way your feed works is so obnoxious
You followed an artist because you thought their art is cool? Have fun having your timeline filled with
useless retweets and quote retweets about some shit you don't care about, or you see an unwanted post on
your feed because the same artist liked that one post or because they replied to it, and even after you
mute them, unwanted shit still pops out in your feed because Twitter keeps recommending you tags and
annoying garbage "based on your likings" even though you already clicked to dismiss it countless times
Filtering your timeline on Twitter is fucking annoying, and even scrolling through the medias of someone
when trying to find their art is unecessarily awful because they don't show only the stuff they posted
directly into their timeline, they show all of the images and videos they posted THROUGH THE ENTIRETY
OF THE SITE, INCLUDING REPLIES, making the media tab incredibly convoluted and obnoxious to scroll
take all of that in consideration, with the fact that even when you follow someone specifically for
their art, you're still going to have your feed invaded with unwanted shit like shitty political takes
because filtering stuff on Twitter is a fucking shore
But that isn't even with the worst part about it
Let's talk about the users and the moderation of the site
The people using Twitter are, in the best way to put it; insufferable and stupid
You'll get into arguments for the stupidest shit you could ever imagine, like how someone got mad at me
because I said that Sonic.EXE OCs are the laziest shit, and I stumbled upon them on about five different
posts about the same topic, trying their hardest to defend what's essentially a shitty creepypasta
or how people will obsess and go crazy over the unfunniest shit of the moment, and you'll see the same
thing on your feed every few seconds to the point that even if you initially found it funny, you'll end
up hating it because of how people drive the joke into the fucking ground
The worst thing is that the concepts of opinions are non-existant in there
This sounds like an exaggeration, but people will get genuinely irate at you because you said you don't
like a certain thing or a certain someone, to the point they'll legitimately turn any situatio that
could be solved privately into a shitshow for no fucking reason at all besides the fact they don't
know how to handle situations like a functioning human being, so they decide that turning anything
and everything into a school drama is the only way to handle things
But would you believe me if I told you that's not even the worst part?
Now let's talk about the genuinely awful moderation in there
First of all; let's keep in mind that the unfunny tesla man said that when he bought the plaftorm
he'd give everyone the right to speak freely, and I know I shouldn't be surprised about a rich guy
lying on the internet, that's the expected, but I at least expected the slightest of improvements
either on the bans or the systems surrounding them, but somehow, I think it only got fucking worse
It's okay to make a mob to cancel someone (which by the way, stop being a fucking moron, cancellation
does jackshit to the person you're trying to cancel besides give them even more attention, the complete
opposite of what you're trying to achieve when trying to cancel someone, you fucking retard) but when
I tell a random guy to kill himself on his replies, my account is instantly locked
I'm sorry, how the fuck is a rando telling you to kill yourself on your replies somehow gets you in
trouble while a guy trying to make a mob to essentially ruin someone's life doesn't even land them a
slap on their shoulders? and honestly, if you can't handle some random guy on Twitter telling you to
kill yourself, when you have multiple options to choose from, from ignoring, blocking them, or doing
like any sane person would and just not give a shit, you definitely shouldn't on the internet, period.
But it gets worse.
A few hours ago, some random guy was saying some schizo shit on a post because an FnF' mod didn't had
any lore on it, you know, basic FnF' fan type of shit, and I legitimately just said;
"its a fucking mod you schizo you it doesn't need to be that deep lmao"
And I moved on with my night.
That is, until an hour later, when I got notified that my account got locked for 11 hours
For calling someone, a schizo.
I was already pretty pissed about the fact that I got locked out of my account for no good reason
but I was still willing to give the site a chance, I could wait, specially since I could still
scroll through my timeline afterall, and after 11 hours, everything would be fine
Except the fact that when I tried to like a post, it didn't allow me, because my account was suspended
YOU CAN'T LIKE ANY POSTS, IF YOUR ACCOUNT IS SUSPENDED, EVEN THOUGH YOU'RE STILL FULLY CAPABLE
OF SCROLLING THROUGH EVERYTHING ON TWITTER NORMALLY
I'd be absolutely fine if I couldn't comment or quote retweet anything, but the fact that a basic
and harmless feature is locked away from you legitimately disgusts me
Imagine getting banned from reviewing on Newgrounds for a week, and out of the sudden, you're unable
to vote or favorite anything on the site. do you see how fucking ridiculous it is?
And you might be here thinking; "W-well, you shouldn't be mean, it costs 0 dollars to not be a dick"
Guess what dipshit, it's also free to be an asshole, and at times, it's way more fun than not being one.
I always hated this kind of mentality, the "always be positive and never voice your opinions if you're
being negative in the slightest, even if what you're saying is valid criticism or not"
Always being positive is not a good thing, we need negativity in our lifes in order to improve, there's
many times that negative opinions/criticism will help you far more than someone patting you on the back
for being mediocre, there's at times that an "asshole" might bring valid points that might genuinely
help tons of other people because all of the "nice ones" were afraid to voice what they were really
thinking, and even if you don't like what the other is saying, even if you think that the other person
is being too mean, you still shouldn't shut them down
Everyone should have the right to speak their mind, no matter if you like it, are offended by it or not
It's why our world is so interesting, it's how new ideas are formed and how we evolve as people
and there's a lot of things that I think that are absolutely ridiculous, things that legitimately piss
me off due to how dumb they are, and yet, I don't think anybody deserves to be censored just because
"I" find it stupid, because if I was going by that logic, other people should be able to do the same
the same with me and instantly dismiss anything I said because they simply don't like it
I can challenge them, have a discussion, try to change their views or even just straight up ignore them
but the moment I try and shut them down is the moment I fail as everything a human being should be
creatures that are constantly evolving, and you won't evolve by living in an echo chamber, you evolve
through life experiences and interactions that challenge you, and if there's no challenge, what's even
the point of existance, when everything is safe and there's no stakes in anything you do or say?
Am I saying that you should be free of consequences for the things you say? Fuck no.
If you try and call some random guy in the street a faggot, you shouldn't be surprised if you ever
find yourself missing a few teeths, or even wind up dead.
You should be free to say whatever you want, but remember that consequences still exist.
This kind of shit just made me appreciate places like Newgrounds even more, because even though
Newgrounds has a lot of problems on itself when it comes to a lot of the new users and the current
moderation, but at the same time, you barely have to hold yourself back, if ever.
One of my friends straight up does nothing but be mean and zero bomb submissions on the reviews
and yet most if not all of his reviews are still there, with the few that actually got removed
was straight up because he dropped a racial slur or two in there, but he's still there, doing
god's work and being mean to people on the reviews, god bless america (i dont live there idk)
In general, I feel like Twitter limits individuality a lot. I understand why people use it, specially
since if you need to promote your stuff or make it big in the art world, you most likely need the
audience from there, but I feel like in many ways, you have to drop whatever you want to do and force
yourself to do what everyone else is doing in order to have any ounce of success in there
while I feel if you meet the right people on Newgrounds or even if just a random guy stumbles upon
your submission and puts it on the frontpage suggestion, you have a chance to be the next big name
in there, everyone feels equal, like we all have the opportunity to shine for doing our own things
instead of trying to ride the wave like everyone else is
I don't want to call anyone a hack for hustling out there, at times you gotta do what you gotta do
and you're not a bad person for doing so, but seeing people limiting themselves because of numbers
will never sadden me
So, after all of these terrible experiences, I just deactivated my account, and quitted
Ironically, the event that led to me deactivating my account, happened a day before my birthday
In a way, it feels weirdly "ironic", I think that's the word I'm looking for
I'm now 21 at the time of posting this
I'm pretty much the same thing, and barely anything will change in my life, but it's still
a new chapter in my life nonetheless, new opportunities to get dissapointed at, new enemies to
to be made, and harder times to face, all of that, and the fact I'm now legally allowed to drink
in the states, but that's about it, it's just another day, and an unfortunate reminder that I still
have a lot to live and die for
I'm not sure what I want for me or for my life yet, but I'm going to make it happen, probably.
But, once again, we hit a roadblock
There's more tomorrow, there's more to come
We'll see each other again on the other side of the road
Until then, take it easy
I regret nothing.
