Post by stunts on Apr 26, 2009 23:48:23 GMT -5
... when I came back after a two year (maybe more) absence of leave to find my beloved lewasite in a such a sorry state.
I left a while ago in haste. The forum was moving in a direction I found to be damaging, wrong... a direction that was dividing the site into two factions. There were the people who came over from the sodaplay website because the sodaplay forums were so bad, and there were the people who felt that lewasite was just a fun place to talk about their lives.
The sodaplayers were are more than likely young ones, interested in creation, wound up in building walking creatures and art in sodaplay, drawing pictures in Microsoft Paint... using the internet to it's fullest potential. They took refuge in lewasite (created by the late lewa) and used it to share other works of art, such as pivots, or even show off 3D art they may have created. There was of course discussion threads and such, but the site was built on the ruins of the sodaplay forums.
Somehow, the site became inundated with members who seemed to know nothing about what the site was meant for. They just seemed interested in what was going on, but never gave it an honest try or decent effort. Then they began talking about their plants or their home life. This faction was the serious business squad.
The squad found it impossible to find any Socratic humor in any of the sardonic, sarcastic postings that some of the older sodaplayers were expressing. They would have no light humor on their boards, apparently. The internet is serious business.
The board essentially became this: people who used the internet as form of entertainment or amusement, and people who used the board as a means of serious, no room for fun communication.
Eventually, I think we came to a sort of equilibrium. The serious internet folk were able to find the humor in posts, and the young ones were able to appreciate and respect the views of the older folk.
And then something happened...
I don't know what it was. Maybe it was the TMTD or bro_c incident. They were both posting a way that would be accepted, or even expected on other message boards on the web. I think that some of us were so used to the way they were posting that we thought the serious folk were over-reacting. Admittedly, had I been new to the internet, I would have found the pseudo-rude posts to be offensive, but having spent my entire post-adolescence connected to the internet, I (perhaps "we") saw nothing wrong with it.
Things got out of hand. A sort of vendetta began. bro_c/TMTD formed a conflict between the Blasts and the powers at hand. To me, it seemed that they thought their sudden grasp of power was ill-advised and potentially harmful to what was just a fun site to bulls*** on.
I think it all collapsed after Blastgirl posted a few pictures of herself.
The problem with posting pictures of yourself on the internet is that, with all the image editing software there is out there, you could edit anything into anything.
BG posted three or four pictures of herself that were completely different. One looked like she was at a party, and one looked like a professional shot - something you'd see in an advertisement in a magazine. Maybe it was just a lucky shot, but the majority of us didn't believe the pictures were congruent. The argument got heated, and it was at this point that people started getting banned, edited, deleted. A lot of us felt the site was settling into a new Reich of madness.
The remaining few found the site somewhat less fun to be on after a majority of their friends had been banned or left because of the changes. Then, farts.com collapsed and its members had no where to go... other than lewasite.
Normally, this would have been alright, and I recall myself not caring all that much, but a few people felt that the inundation of people with names like "GassyGary" or "fartingurl" was just too much.
And then they left for a while.
What happened? Why did this happen? Was it a clash of political, moral, religious believes? No doubt the younger people were liberal leaning, while a good portion of the older folk were conservative.
It's a shame this had to happen, as lewasite could have been good.
It all started with lewa, trying to bridge the gap from sodaplay... and it became of haven of hatred, insults, argument, and malice.
I want the old lewasite back. I want to feel what I felt when I first signed up and saw Sizzlepop write "Just want to say hi to a cool new member, Stunts" : I want to feel comfortable.
I'm not sure who's fault it is for ruining this, perhaps a little of both sides. Perhaps bro_c or TMTD didn't have to be so aggressive, and perhaps the Blasts didn't have to be so sensitive.
I guess one forum couldn't be inhabited by two generations.
I left a while ago in haste. The forum was moving in a direction I found to be damaging, wrong... a direction that was dividing the site into two factions. There were the people who came over from the sodaplay website because the sodaplay forums were so bad, and there were the people who felt that lewasite was just a fun place to talk about their lives.
The sodaplayers were are more than likely young ones, interested in creation, wound up in building walking creatures and art in sodaplay, drawing pictures in Microsoft Paint... using the internet to it's fullest potential. They took refuge in lewasite (created by the late lewa) and used it to share other works of art, such as pivots, or even show off 3D art they may have created. There was of course discussion threads and such, but the site was built on the ruins of the sodaplay forums.
Somehow, the site became inundated with members who seemed to know nothing about what the site was meant for. They just seemed interested in what was going on, but never gave it an honest try or decent effort. Then they began talking about their plants or their home life. This faction was the serious business squad.
The squad found it impossible to find any Socratic humor in any of the sardonic, sarcastic postings that some of the older sodaplayers were expressing. They would have no light humor on their boards, apparently. The internet is serious business.
The board essentially became this: people who used the internet as form of entertainment or amusement, and people who used the board as a means of serious, no room for fun communication.
Eventually, I think we came to a sort of equilibrium. The serious internet folk were able to find the humor in posts, and the young ones were able to appreciate and respect the views of the older folk.
And then something happened...
I don't know what it was. Maybe it was the TMTD or bro_c incident. They were both posting a way that would be accepted, or even expected on other message boards on the web. I think that some of us were so used to the way they were posting that we thought the serious folk were over-reacting. Admittedly, had I been new to the internet, I would have found the pseudo-rude posts to be offensive, but having spent my entire post-adolescence connected to the internet, I (perhaps "we") saw nothing wrong with it.
Things got out of hand. A sort of vendetta began. bro_c/TMTD formed a conflict between the Blasts and the powers at hand. To me, it seemed that they thought their sudden grasp of power was ill-advised and potentially harmful to what was just a fun site to bulls*** on.
I think it all collapsed after Blastgirl posted a few pictures of herself.
The problem with posting pictures of yourself on the internet is that, with all the image editing software there is out there, you could edit anything into anything.
BG posted three or four pictures of herself that were completely different. One looked like she was at a party, and one looked like a professional shot - something you'd see in an advertisement in a magazine. Maybe it was just a lucky shot, but the majority of us didn't believe the pictures were congruent. The argument got heated, and it was at this point that people started getting banned, edited, deleted. A lot of us felt the site was settling into a new Reich of madness.
The remaining few found the site somewhat less fun to be on after a majority of their friends had been banned or left because of the changes. Then, farts.com collapsed and its members had no where to go... other than lewasite.
Normally, this would have been alright, and I recall myself not caring all that much, but a few people felt that the inundation of people with names like "GassyGary" or "fartingurl" was just too much.
And then they left for a while.
What happened? Why did this happen? Was it a clash of political, moral, religious believes? No doubt the younger people were liberal leaning, while a good portion of the older folk were conservative.
It's a shame this had to happen, as lewasite could have been good.
It all started with lewa, trying to bridge the gap from sodaplay... and it became of haven of hatred, insults, argument, and malice.
I want the old lewasite back. I want to feel what I felt when I first signed up and saw Sizzlepop write "Just want to say hi to a cool new member, Stunts" : I want to feel comfortable.
I'm not sure who's fault it is for ruining this, perhaps a little of both sides. Perhaps bro_c or TMTD didn't have to be so aggressive, and perhaps the Blasts didn't have to be so sensitive.
I guess one forum couldn't be inhabited by two generations.
I'm definitely 100% positive that's one of the things Lewa never wanted to come of this place.