Fandom Sucks Sometimes

I am deeply uncomfortable with fans being encouraged to report each other, especially anonymously, because it is a system that can easily be abused. It would be easy for someone to fabricate dirt on someone they dislike and anonymously report them. How far will the mods look into it? Anyone with Photoshop can make fake discord texts, ao3 fics, or tumblr posts. How can they expect to verify these tickets?

I am deeply uncomfortable with their refusal to engage with fandom etiquette. Most of us on tumblr are more than willing to accommodate creators with DNI tags, but Pyro has repeatedly shot the idea down. Refusing to follow fandom etiquette puts the responsibility of what he sees online, and subsequently their relationship and mental health, on fans. This creates a fandom where harassment and policing is the norm.

Pyro plans to move on from this without addressing it on stream. A statement in their discord sever is not public enough. Many fans will not see this if it is only in the discord.

Both Maddy and Pyro plan to continue flirting with their friends. They plan to have nothing change on their end.

I find this dismissive and disrespectful, but hey, what post-covid minecraft youtuber isn't? It'll probably all be swept under the rug and forgotten in a month. Except for the harassment, of course. That will stay until the community collapses

I've seen a certain beloved fandom creator who is well respected within the fandom (and by the Lifers too) tell their audience that they think Scott is a bad person and that he has a bad attitude.

I'm not saying who because it would be my head on a spike, but when the controversy with Skizz happened, they blocked the people asking if they would keep Skizz in their AU despite saying previously that they would no longer keep any controversial or problematic creators and won't bring back any creators even if they apologise. They said this as a way of shutting down questions about why Scott wasn't in their AU

So the problem is that you are not the only person who incorrectly believes that Gem has a higher level of medical expertise than she actually does. This imo makes it *worse* that she gets on stream and gives out potentially dangerous health advice. People are far more likely to take her advice because they think she is more trustworthy due to her background. And ironically enough, if she had actually gone through nursing school, she very likely wouldn't be telling people what medications and supplements to take because this exact issue is explained in nursing and medical school.

So when Impulse recommends some medication, it's much easier to be skeptical because he doesn't have a medical background. But, when gem recommends taking a dangerously high level of Tylenol because she doesn't know the term paracetamol, people are far more likely to trust her because """she was a nurse."""

No, vitamin D won't "boost your immune system" unless you currently have a deficiency, same with vitamin C. Also no, Mucinex is not great for colds! Same with phenylephrine! Both medications are widely criticized for being basically useless. Phenylephrine is very likely to be pulled from US shelves because it can't prove any effectiveness! That's how bad it is! And Mucinex contains guaifenesin and dextromethorphan which basically cancel eachother out, and if you have a wet cough, using dextromethorphan could slightly increase your risk of developing a more severe infection.

But it's not like I actually expect any of the hermits to know these things. My gripe is that just because you can buy something otc doesn't mean that it is safe. If you're a youtuber/streamer stop making medication recommendations! Otc medications ARE medications, supplements ARE medications, and they 100% are equally capable of being dangerous so SHUT UP ABOUT IT.

Anyway here's your psa from your friendly pharmacology student who is annoyed with the misinfo youtubers are spreading.

If you are sick, pain relievers like ibuprofen or acetaminophen (aka paracetamol) are good for reducing fever. Don't use asprin for fever control. Also do not take "PainQuil" of similar products that contain alcohol and acetaminophen/paracetamol because you are risking liver damage. Same thing goes for hangovers, never use acetaminophen if you've been drinking with the past 24 hours.

If you have a wet cough, you want to cough it out. Try not to take cough suppressants. If you have a dry cough, treat the symptoms not the cough itself. Cough suppressants can be dangerous and even addictive, drink tea with honey, gargle with salt water, and use throat lozenges. Cough suppressants should be your last choice only if you are in pain from the coughing (like your throat is too sore or it's giving you a headache from coughing so much.) Also those sudden uncontrollable coughing fits you get when you're sick are often caused by your sinuses not your throat. Blow your nose occasionally to get mucus off the back of your soft palate. It helps prevent coughing fits.

Also don't use anti-histamines as sleep aids. I know it's generally considered safe, but the risk of addiction is extremely high. It may help you get to sleep, but they actually reduce the quality of the sleep you get, so you'll likely be just as tired as you would have been without it.

Clear ANY supplements you take with your GP (even if it's just melatonin) because it's basically impossible to make any broad safety or benefit assessments about them.

In conclusion, don't listen to mcyts for medical advice despite the fact that they routinely give it out. And also, don't listen to me! I'm a stranger on the internet! If you take anything away from this, it's that you should clear things with your GP first. (At the very least, call your office's nursing line OR talk to your pharmacist next time you pick up your medications.)

TLDR: mcyts need to shut up and stop giving horrible medical advice on stream...

I can understand Gem giving occasional medical advice, as she was a nurse before becoming a YouTuber, but it's still a terrible idea to get any type of medical advice from some guy on the internet because they don't know your specific situation

Anything someone from the internet recommends might work for them but hurt someone else

Edit: Geminitay was not a nurse, she was a lab technician

This is because people scrolling through a tag are doing so the enjoy the thing they like, and don't want to see people bashing it!

Similarly, people scrolling through a negative tag don't like the thing and don't want to see people gushing about it!

Using the right tags makes it so others can block whichever tag they don't want to see, making everyone's lives easier

These work for negative posts:

#[thing] neg

#[thing] hate

#[thing] critical

first i want to establish: i think his character DOES have a weird manipulative streak, but honestly so does the rest of the cast. it’s part of the death game, figuring out how to survive. it’s not a scott thing in particular, he just has a very recognizable STYLE of manipulation that i think a lot of people are drawn to because it’s so interesting.

scott does say some WEIRD things. his whole “you have to whittle jimmy down” thing was WILD. and i LOVED IT!! it created such an interesting dynamic to explore.

imo, i think part of it is a matter of how deeply people read into things. i personally like reading into the bits as something more serious. it’s a fun way to engage with the media and i think leads to some really interesting analysis! i like seeing the life series as a sort of tragedy. it’s fun for me!

so i LIKE reading all of the characters as toxic. they’ve all had really deranged moments and have said wild things about each other within the context of the game.

i think people do not discuss the toxicity of the other members enough, and that is entirely an internalized homophobia thing (which you can have !! and still be queer yourself !! that’s why it’s internalized!!!!).

so tldr; there is a lot of homophobia, absolutely, but i think also there are some really different interpretations of the source material out there because of the nature of minecraft youtube roleplay.

Oh, yeah I get that. I personally am not big on the "reading into things" side of fandom since I don't see it as a roleplay server but I have no issue with people reading into everyone's actions

I don't even think reading into everyone's actions and being an apologist for one or two characters is a big deal either

It's when Scott haters try to pose him as the Only Toxic One that it's very obviously homophobia

The social game is a huge part of the life series, and a lot of different players play all sides (Impulse, Martyn, Etho, Tango, etc) but Scott is the only one who regularly gets hate for it.

When Big B always has a secret alliance with Grian or lies for no reason it's funny and how he is. When Bdubs complains about his team behind their backs and acts like he would leave if he could, it's funny and everyone knows he's not being serious. When Scar offers help to opposite factions kill each other or stirs the pot, it's funny and Scar's so silly.

When Scott dares to help a team other than his allies because he likes chaos, suddenly he's evil and manipulative and toxic and it's not funny anymore.

I'm not saying that the "it's funny when people are toxic" idea is wrong, just that it should be applied equally

There's always some excuse/fondness for the straight guys being toxic, and that's why I think it's mostly homophobia

Personally, I come at it from a "everyone's having fun and this isn't serious" view so I forget that other people think the toxicity is what makes it fun, but I totally get that view too

It's when there's that double standard in which the straight men actions are toxic in a fun way but the girls and the gays' actions are toxic in a bad way that bothers me

I've been looking for them as well since he made his subscriptions private, and thankfully someone has found them using the Wayback machine

I knew that the apology wasn't great, I'll be honest, but I didn't want to undermine that the mods were gone by focusing on criticism

I understood why it sucked and thought we weren't gonna get much better. Skizz is an old, stubborn man who only apologised because he felt like he had to. He doesn't understand why people are upset at his friends because 1) they deleted the tweets and I doubt he went through the effort to find them and 2) they're nice to him so he assumes they're nice in general

I never expected Skizz to actually address the contents of their tweets. I wanted him to, but I acknowledge that he would think addressing serious topics (even to condemn them) would "bring down the vibe", which as he's said many times, he doesn't want to do

But yeah, now that the first hurdle is jumped, that makes it obvious that there are more down the track

There are a lot of concerning folks he's subscribed to, far too many to be a coincidence (and someone got not only a screenshot but a way to view all the subscriptions! Yay, I've been looking for that)

BunnyBond completely ignoring her own racism is expected of a bigot, and there's no response I'd like from her unless it's to leave the internet, go to therapy, and become an empathetic person. Her parting response in Skizz's chat is so disingenuous. "I'm sorry if you found what I said offensive" is the textbook "apology" for bigotry.

Hey, BunnyBond, your actions and words are your own and any hurt they cause is your responsibility. Don't push blame onto the people you ostracised

And god I would pay money to have a psychologist examine what the hell SokaSop thought he was doing with that parting tweet. It's foul. He says the words "I don't agree with LGBT choices", says he's entitled to his opinions about queer people, and calls anyone who criticised him idiots. All in the same tweet he said "let kindness prevail". The man is not winning any Oscars with that mess. "I believe in LGBT rights" yeah no shit, they're not a ghost. Everyone believes in them because they exist, but whether or not you support them is an entirely different question

And to address the third mod: I made a post about Skizz's other mods and noted that he was republican but didn't seem too problematic. Clearly I did not scroll nearly far down enough on Bengineer's twitter because holy shit

My bad for not checking thoroughly enough, that guy's views on women's healthcare scare me

I still feel like Skizz's apology, while it sucked and didn't address anything directly, is the best we're gonna get from a guy so clueless to other's perspectives. I've said it before and I'll say it a thousand times, Skizz's claim that he "just gets people" is 1000% cishet white man hubris

His mods behaviour is their own and while I'm not impressed by how much he praises them or how he's still following them, they are no longer in a position of power in his community, which I feel was his only major responsibility in this situation

His continued friendship with them is reason to be cautious and more firm with conversations his (past and inevitable future) blunders, but it's not something we can demand he change. At the end of the day, he chooses his crowd and we can only make our disapproval clear, not force him to drop them entirely