Best of r/RWBYCritics

They go on about how fans “can’t take criticism towards their faves” until the detractor is criticized for their criticism.

Oh sure, the one responding to the criticism might lack a bit of tact to put it generously but that doesn’t mean they might not have a point or that their views shouldn’t be considered.

Toxic positivity does not just manifest in people being rude, it manifests in various biases that allow people to consider shitty actions to be virtous. Canonseeker is an example of the peak of toxic positivity. But there are others too. The easy acceptance in calling people homophobes/fascists etc, the outright dismissal of people critical of the show as illiterate, pretending that all critics no matter how much they post have no life and are obsessed etc. These are common views in the FNDM that go unchallenged and contribute to an attitude of toxic positivity.

And that is just passive effects in the FNDM, some people actively contribute to the problem, knowing they do so, making discourse worse. Its funny that you tagged Xelwriter in the comments. He is a guy who secretly supports canonseeker, he has conspired behind the scenes to mass report with his friends and get accounts banned based on outright lies, even after WF was proven to be about the racial justice movements in the USA, he still pretenss its about the Irish, knowing he is wrong.

And he isnt the only one, how many times have i seen posts existing claiming that criticism outright shouldnt exist? Too many. It is to the point that in the RWBY FNDM criticism has sequestered itself to separate tags and subreddits ao that the FNDM would not have to see them, yet many people in the FNDM still decide to visit those tags/subreddits, even sequestering themselves away did not help critics because toxic positivity people come into those spaces to cause problems.

Also, you bring up that even if someone is rude in shutting down criticism, that does not mean that they dknt have a point. Fair enough, not always, but people who are toxic can have good points. But i have to ask, what is this double standard?

Miles was worshiped for slagging off rude criticism, critics in moderated spaces have to be polite and walk on egshells to not be banned and them being even slightly agressive is seen as something that ruins their entire argument. And yet the same does not apply to toxic positive fans? Weird, that.

Redacted the usernames and pfp out of respect because two users are prominent in the Rwby community and they get enough harassment as is.

This basically sums up the eventual failure of Rwby as a whole. The only way crwby know how to "market" the show is to use the parasocial relationship they fostered with their fanbase. The parasocial relationship they use to emotionally manipulate their fans to be their sword and shield to deflect criticism of any kind, especially when it was used to downplay work place abuse and bigotry.

Any good faith i was attempting to go in with (on principle, and to have the most objective criticisms of the material rather than merely taking common FNDM criticisms as my own) has been lost by this discovery.

To me this is far more damning of his character than a shitty fanfic.

https://nitter.net/Raymond_McNeil/search?f=tweets&q=Xel

You and your buddies are crashing out because one of your (extremelly toxic) buddies got their work covered? Really? You are holding a flame for the guy that pretends to be nice but behind closed doors conspires to get peoples accounts banned with false accusations and report campaigns? Something that Xel organized with Lilith?

Also, these don’t mention any of the things you just accused Xel of. They’re just targeting the positive things they’ve say about RWBY.

Any good faith i was attempting to go in with (on principle, and to have the most objective criticisms of the material rather than merely taking common FNDM criticisms as my own) has been lost by this discovery.

To me this is far more damning of his character than a shitty fanfic.

https://nitter.net/Raymond_McNeil/search?f=tweets&q=Xel

You and your buddies are crashing out because one of your (extremelly toxic) buddies got their work covered? Really? You are holding a flame for the guy that pretends to be nice but behind closed doors conspires to get peoples accounts banned with false accusations and report campaigns? Something that Xel organized with Lilith?

Also, these don’t mention any of the things you just accused Xel of. They’re just targeting the positive things they’ve say about RWBY.

This is what youtubers do. If you want to defend Xel, just say that you dislike how your friend got criticized instead of pretending that this is some kind of "higher cause" about how "youtubers should use their platforms more responsibly".

Okay i'll give you some evidence of the tone of the posts and thumbnails being the same as the livestream.

an hour and 42 minutes into this livestream about Xel's video on Cinder's intelligence and they've barely gotten past the first 30 seconds of the eleven minute video.

Their arguments in this livestream react are half-baked, long-winded, and poorly (if at all) sourced.

They complain about Xel generalizing RWDE and then do the same thing with the FNDM.

The entire stream is them laughing at Xel. Not just responding--laughing at them. There is no interest in meaningful discussion. There is no mention of any of the accusations you initially responded to my post that tried to justify them doing this.

the title is literally "Xel Writer is as smart as Cinder Fall" with the implication within the video made that Cinder is very stupid.

Oh yeah also they constantly misgender Xel. That's fun.

also it'd be great if any of them could explain to me how one of these girls looks young enough to be at beacon and the other looks too old, cuz whether Beacon is "high school coded" is something they spend a lot of time on.

They also did have discussions and made responses, which you would know if you watched the live-stream instead of pretending to have watched it.

Also, again, stop with the "responsible with muh platform", you are not an activist, this has nothing to do with responsibility, you just dont like that your internet friend got made fun of, which is fine, but dont pretend that you are representing some "higher cause" here.

Also, i never said that the accusations i made were mentioned by them, i mentioned the toxicity that Xel has caused in the FNDM as a way to counter your point that you and your buddies are against negativity and toxicity, you aint, you are friend with Xel, the guy who has spread toxicity in the FNDM.

Any good faith i was attempting to go in with (on principle, and to have the most objective criticisms of the material rather than merely taking common FNDM criticisms as my own) has been lost by this discovery.

To me this is far more damning of his character than a shitty fanfic.

https://nitter.net/Raymond_McNeil/search?f=tweets&q=Xel

You and your buddies are crashing out because one of your (extremelly toxic) buddies got their work covered? Really? You are holding a flame for the guy that pretends to be nice but behind closed doors conspires to get peoples accounts banned with false accusations and report campaigns? Something that Xel organized with Lilith?

Also, these don’t mention any of the things you just accused Xel of. They’re just targeting the positive things they’ve say about RWBY.

This is what youtubers do. If you want to defend Xel, just say that you dislike how your friend got criticized instead of pretending that this is some kind of "higher cause" about how "youtubers should use their platforms more responsibly".

Any good faith i was attempting to go in with (on principle, and to have the most objective criticisms of the material rather than merely taking common FNDM criticisms as my own) has been lost by this discovery.

To me this is far more damning of his character than a shitty fanfic.

https://nitter.net/Raymond_McNeil/search?f=tweets&q=Xel

You and your buddies are crashing out because one of your (extremelly toxic) buddies got their work covered? Really? You are holding a flame for the guy that pretends to be nice but behind closed doors conspires to get peoples accounts banned with false accusations and report campaigns? Something that Xel organized with Lilith?

Also, these don’t mention any of the things you just accused Xel of. They’re just targeting the positive things they’ve say about RWBY.

Any good faith i was attempting to go in with (on principle, and to have the most objective criticisms of the material rather than merely taking common FNDM criticisms as my own) has been lost by this discovery.

To me this is far more damning of his character than a shitty fanfic.

https://nitter.net/Raymond_McNeil/search?f=tweets&q=Xel

You and your buddies are crashing out because one of your (extremelly toxic) buddies got their work covered? Really? You are holding a flame for the guy that pretends to be nice but behind closed doors conspires to get peoples accounts banned with false accusations and report campaigns? Something that Xel organized with Lilith?

Also, these don’t mention any of the things you just accused Xel of. They’re just targeting the positive things they’ve say about RWBY.

Is your argument that Celtic cant make videos that cover Xels? Or is it that you dislike the thumbnails? In which case, if thats all you have, then lol.

Any good faith i was attempting to go in with (on principle, and to have the most objective criticisms of the material rather than merely taking common FNDM criticisms as my own) has been lost by this discovery.

To me this is far more damning of his character than a shitty fanfic.

https://nitter.net/Raymond_McNeil/search?f=tweets&q=Xel

You and your buddies are crashing out because one of your (extremelly toxic) buddies got their work covered? Really? You are holding a flame for the guy that pretends to be nice but behind closed doors conspires to get peoples accounts banned with false accusations and report campaigns? Something that Xel organized with Lilith?

They reveal that they are dependent on reinforcement and lovebombing. If a RWBY reactor watches the show and agrees with the FNDM (They dont mention that they influence and try to influence the reactor) then they are beloved symbols in the community who will see at least an initial burst of support which will eventually shrink.

They reveal that they think that people who criticize the show should be "punished", but not just punished in any way, no, they should be specifically punished in a way that cults punish their own, through social ostracization and by showing them how "happy" the cult is without them.

Whats worse is that on twitter these people target mentally ill teenagers too, specifically targeting people that are easier to influence.

Funny for him to say that because...

This bias has and still exists in most RWBY FNDM spaces. A RWBY fan will either outright say (rare) or just go around the edges implying that you are either a nazi/fascist/homophobe etc. They will mostly avoid saying it directly but be very general, for example "If you believe x you are y". Or they will be passive aggressive, imply that you are stupid or illiterate for basic disagreements. They will be polite of course.

If you respond in the same tone, and are known to be critical of the show, you will instantly get clipped by the moderators. If you get attacked and even ganged up upon in the comments, those attacking you will not get punished, but you will if you defend yourself and god forbid, lose your patience.

Lets say there is a rule to not generalize the fndm. Moderators will make sure to enforce it when talking about the positive FNDM, but bringing up and generalizing RWDE for example? Thats free game.

The fact that someone is critical of the show is seen as inherently "disruptive". While this applies to all RWBY FNDM spaces, r/RWBY was the perfect example of that. They directly admitted to me after the banning of all r/RWBYcritic users that the reason they did it was not because of the bigotry accusations (those were made up), its because they did not want to moderate the subreddit and because the fans could not behave. Because if someone was critical of the show, the fans would eventually turn every conversation hostile.

But moderators of FNDM spaces do not see the fans being hostile as a problem, they see that the existence of criticism is what is causing such a response, and thus they will target the critics while thinking that they are "fair".

Toxic positivity is not just about aggressive fans being so into their show that they start attacking those that do not like it as much, it also manifests in more subtle ways, like for example the belief that anyone critical is inherently disruptive and thus has to be moderated more strongly, which eventually results in the making of a echo chamber by the removal of anything perceived as negative.

If you are hostile as a fan, it is seen as a "good" behaviour by moderators, you can get away with things that would be considered rule breakages, but it will be ignored. But if you are critical of the show? You will be under a microscope for even the most minor infraction.

The goal, of course, is to remove anyone critical of the show, because the fans of the show are not critical, and i wont accept any "No, we have criticisms, actually good ones unlike you" bullshit, because thats all it is, bullshit said by fans of anything.