2B2T and the Actual Benefits of Gatekeeping

I've always been an advocate for gatekeeping, and many others on this server have shown to feel the same. On imageboards and forums the world over, there is a "Keep the normies out" sentiment. Protecting your subculture from the masses is a good thing, but you also need a steady trickle of new blood to keep from becoming stale. Gatekeeping then is not only the art of keeping people out, but also the art of allowing the right people in. I think that no place on the internet I've seen exemplifies this better than Minecraft's 2B2T.

2B2T is the oldest anarchy server on Minecraft. The premise is that there are no rules, and by that I mean NO RULES. People use hacked clients, post racial slurs in chat, grief, use exploits to track players, and have even hacked into the server itself to gain access to admin commands and NO ONE has been banned. Despite all the chaos, the community represents a macrocosm of human civilization. With the rise and fall of civilizations, political struggles, wars, and great works the history of this server is shockingly captivating for a block game. But that's a story best left told by the people who were there. I'm here to talk about how they treat outsiders, and how it not only protects them from normies, but how it filters in those who are best fit for the server. For that, we need look no further than the first thing a new player would see, spawn.

1638596371115.png


Spawn on 2B2T is to put it bluntly, a wasteland. There are lava casts everywhere. There is no dirt, let alone trees. The chances of finding food are practically zero. Nether portals lead to traps where geared players wait to kill without mercy. A new player has to perform difficult platforming just to navigate. There are trenches leading to bedrock, and lava walls reaching to build limit. Just finding a way to move without falling to your death is half the struggle. If that wasn't enough, veteran players patrol the area looking for easy kills. This naturally sets up the greatest gatekeeping system I've ever seen.

In order for a new player to escape spawn, they first have to navigate near impassible terrain with zero blocks, or tools. After that they must get past a trench leading to bedrock, a lava wall, and an obsidian wall. Keep in mind that these obstacles are a hike and a half away and the player probably hasn't found any food. The player must then find a highway and walk for thousands of blocks with little chance of finding any food. All this time, someone can spot them, and kill them and it's back to square one (Or block one). If they manage to make the journey without getting killed, or starving to death, then they can branch off and make a base and hope it doesn't get found and griefed. They can now start grinding for gear. Once high level gear is obtained, they can then start trying to make friends and hope they don't kill them. Then, they can probably become part of the wider community, and they would deserve it at that point. Anyone who goes through all that, is a good fit for the server and would probably do well and be liked by the other players. So how does an obscure subculture, or website filter in the right people who can make the community fun and engaging without such extreme and unique circumstances? Well it's simple; obscurity.

Obscurity is by far, the easiest way to filter people. If people flood in from some article, >redditcostanzayeahrightsmirk post, or YouTube video; most won't be a proper fit for the community. Through no fault of their own, they will erode what made it special in the first place. If people seek out obscurity for whatever reason, they will usually be a better fit; being naturally of the same breed of person who seeked out the community in the first place. These people are who you really want to come in. They will breathe new life into the culture by adding their new perspectives and talents. This is important because talent and perspective are rare. This is what makes it special. We join forums like Agora Roads to get away from the decay and monotony of the rest of the internet. People from the rest of the internet coming here would change it more resemble the rest of the internet. Luckily, we have very natural ways of keeping the masses out besides obscurity.

The very design of a forum stands in stark contrast to contemporary websites. Modern websites are designed to provide as much dopamine as possible in the least amount of time possible. A forum on the other hand, requires the user to work for their pleasure. In order to get anything out of this site, you must learn the community, go out of your way to make friends, spend long hours reading threads, and have interesting things to post yourself. This is more demanding of the end user, but the benefit is a much greater sense of satisfaction for those who put in the effort. Most people, even if they flood in from >redditcostanzayeahrightsmirk, will not be able to put in the effort and get bored. And that's the key to all of this: Effort.

The reason 2B2T's gatekeeping works so well is that it requires a lot of effort. Players have to take the time to become part of the community. They must put long hours in before they see a reward. But for those who dare, the reward is worth it. Everyone involved benefits from this too. The community gets cool and interesting people. The new players get a community that they can fit in. Those who get turned away are kept from wasting their time in a place where they don't belong. It's not a wall to keep people out, but a filter to allow the people who will be liked and respected in. To new friends I say cheers, to passers by I say adieu.
 
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I agree with your thoughts on this more positive view of gatekeeping. Most people oppose gatekeeping as a whole just because they feel they need to be included in everything. When you let people like "that" into a community, the community loses its "flavor" essentially. I've sought after some pretty obscure and niche interests of mine (hence why I am on Agora Road this very moment) and I can agree it takes effort to be apart of smaller communities on the internet. But we can even if we take it further and say how irl companionship has just become something people don't want to put effort into nowadays. I write my Agora posts almost to the same degree of thoughtfulness as my English essays. I want the most I can get out of a possible reply, and I always look forward to seeing what others are doing in the forum. There are few of us, but we work hard to create "content" (side note: don't like using that word, but it will have to do for the time being) And say some of the lazy "normies" were to invade this forum. Going to be completely honest here, I would probably leave. This forum being "the best kept secret of the internet" is what makes it special. And gems like this need to be protected.
 
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DeathToMicroWaves

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I've always been an advocate for gatekeeping, and many others on this server have shown to feel the same. On imageboards and forums the world over, there is a "Keep the normies out" sentiment. Protecting your subculture from the masses is a good thing, but you also need a steady trickle of new blood to keep from becoming stale. Gatekeeping then is not only the art of keeping people out, but also the art of allowing the right people in. I think that no place on the internet I've seen exemplifies this better than Minecraft's 2B2T.

2B2T is the oldest anarchy server on Minecraft. The premise is that there are no rules, and by that I mean NO RULES. People use hacked clients, post racial slurs in chat, grief, use exploits to track players, and have even hacked into the server itself to gain access to admin commands and NO ONE has been banned. Despite all the chaos, the community represents a macrocosm of human civilization. With the rise and fall of civilizations, political struggles, wars, and great works the history of this server is shockingly captivating for a block game. But that's a story best left told by the people who were there. I'm here to talk about how they treat outsiders, and how it not only protects them from normies, but how it filters in those who are best fit for the server. For that, we need look no further than the first thing a new player would see, spawn.

View attachment 11149

Spawn on 2B2T is to put it bluntly, a wasteland. There are lava casts everywhere. There is no dirt, let alone trees. The chances of finding food are practically zero. Nether portals lead to traps where geared players wait to kill without mercy. A new player has to perform difficult platforming just to navigate. There are trenches leading to bedrock, and lava walls reaching to build limit. Just finding a way to move without falling to your death is half the struggle. If that wasn't enough, veteran players patrol the area looking for easy kills. This naturally sets up the greatest gatekeeping system I've ever seen.

In order for a new player to escape spawn, they first have to navigate near impassible terrain with zero blocks, or tools. After that they must get past a trench leading to bedrock, a lava wall, and an obsidian wall. Keep in mind that these obstacles are a hike and a half away and the player probably hasn't found any food. The player must then find a highway and walk for thousands of blocks with little chance of finding any food. All this time, someone can spot them, and kill them and it's back to square one (Or block one). If they manage to make the journey without getting killed, or starving to death, then they can branch off and make a base and hope it doesn't get found and griefed. They can now start grinding for gear. Once high level gear is obtained, they can then start trying to make friends and hope they don't kill them. Then, they can probably become part of the wider community, and they would deserve it at that point. Anyone who goes through all that, is a good fit for the server and would probably do well and be liked by the other players. So how does an obscure subculture, or website filter in the right people who can make the community fun and engaging without such extreme and unique circumstances? Well it's simple; obscurity.

Obscurity is by far, the easiest way to filter people. If people flood in from some article, >redditcostanzayeahrightsmirk post, or YouTube video; most won't be a proper fit for the community. Through no fault of their own, they will erode what made it special in the first place. If people seek out obscurity for whatever reason, they will usually be a better fit; being naturally of the same breed of person who seeked out the community in the first place. These people are who you really want to come in. They will breathe new life into the culture by adding their new perspectives and talents. This is important because talent and perspective are rare. This is what makes it special. We join forums like Agora Roads to get away from the decay and monotony of the rest of the internet. People from the rest of the internet coming here would change it more resemble the rest of the internet. Luckily, we have very natural ways of keeping the masses out besides obscurity.

The very design of a forum stands in stark contrast to contemporary websites. Modern websites are designed to provide as much dopamine as possible in the least amount of time possible. A forum on the other hand, requires the user to work for their pleasure. In order to get anything out of this site, you must learn the community, go out of your way to make friends, spend long hours reading threads, and have interesting things to post yourself. This is more demanding of the end user, but the benefit is a much greater sense of satisfaction for those who put in the effort. Most people, even if they flood in from >redditcostanzayeahrightsmirk, will not be able to put in the effort and get bored. And that's the key to all of this: Effort.

The reason 2B2T's gatekeeping works so well is that it requires a lot of effort. Players have to take the time to become part of the community. They must put long hours in before they see a reward. But for those who dare, the reward is worth it. Everyone involved benefits from this too. The community gets cool and interesting people. The new players get a community that they can fit in. Those who get turned away are kept from wasting their time in a place where they don't belong. It's not a wall to keep people out, but a filter to allow the people who will be liked and respected in. To new friends I say cheers, to passers by I say adieu.
the sheer amount of time it would of took to write all of this gives you my respect as well as it being very interesting to read
 
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vaporwavemaster1

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仰るとおりです。何かを曖昧で不可解なものにすることは、それが主流に浸透するのを防ぎます。死んだインターネットスレッドのためにここに参加した人々のほとんどは、完全に非アクティブなアカウントを持っています。これは、私たちに言及した記事が私たちがヒップホップフォーラムであると言っていたためである可能性があり、誰もがそれを期待していました

死んだインターネットについてのスレッドがどうしてこんなに大きくなったのだろうか。このフォーラムは理論を発明しませんでした

インターネットが完全にランダムに何かを選んでバイラルにする例だと思います

主流の女の子.png
 
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14-27

Really? This is what you are going with?
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仰るとおりです。何かを曖昧で不可解なものにすることは、それが主流に浸透するのを防ぎます。死んだインターネットスレッドのためにここに参加した人々のほとんどは、完全に非アクティブなアカウントを持っています。これは、私たちに言及した記事が私たちがヒップホップフォーラムであると言っていたためである可能性があり、誰もがそれを期待していました

死んだインターネットについてのスレッドがどうしてこんなに大きくなったのだろうか。このフォーラムは理論を発明しませんでした

インターネットが完全にランダムに何かを選んでバイラルにする例だと思います

View attachment 11152

The coverage of Dead Internet Theory isn't any accident. Or any great mystery. This topic was signal boosted by somebody. And if it wasn't the top brass of the forum themselves using clever sideways marketing, then they definitely have not tried to stop it either. There are several Youtubers who went into it in some depth. One, even made videos directly telling users about the thread here, and explicitely naming the forum. The Dead Internet Theory - Youtube (All Time)

That account alone, has 170,000 subscribers. And, other channels referenced this video as well. Quantum of Conscience channel, did a video about it, that further exposed these videos to an audience, that is more inclined to seeking truth. No matter what you think of those people, they are known to follow leads. And, some ended up here. As you already noted, many left quickly because the picture in their mind of this forum, was very different to actuality. They were expecting further answers, but found none, so they left.

Other promotion, like a banner add on 4chan for example, means that more people, seeking a quality alternative to that shitstorm, will arrive occaisionally. Some of those people, will not be to YOUR exact specifications, or standards.

You see, the strangest thing I find about all this, is the seeming perception by prominent members, that the purpose of this forum is a dedicated space for their personal tastes. Illuminati Pirate themselves has stated they are proponents of free speech. And, the forum rules state clearly the expectations here. So it seems, a broad range of retro "comfort", general discussion, and aesthetics, was the actual goal. Accompanied by an easy going moderation policy.

Not to make a dedicated, elitest exclusive zone. The ACTUAL owner is promoting the site, to a much broader audience than you all seem to find acceptable. I would suggest that you, donate VERY large sums of money to the owner, and THEN ask them to "gatekeep" for you. After you have afforded them the elitist luxury to do so.

If that remains unnacceptable, how about you stop whining, and start your own damn forum? And us plebians, can cry ourselves to sleep, missing your exalted company...

:JahySmug:
 
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Deleted member 2362

No single exclusive club remains exclusive for long, and if it does, it dies of inanition. Gatekeeping doesn't work. Everything declines, every civilization, every organism, and every community. What I want to say with this is: you have to embrace the cycles of decay and move on.
 

Sweet n' Comfy

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No single exclusive club remains exclusive for long, and if it does, it dies of inanition. Gatekeeping doesn't work. Everything declines, every civilization, every organism, and every community. What I want to say with this is: you have to embrace the cycles of decay and move on.
Better for a forum to die patrician than to keep on living pleb.
 
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SomaSpice

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I think the keyword is as you mentioned, effort. But not only on terms of excluding limp wristed soybeans from degrading the community, but also directing the character and attitude of it. I think it even influences how much trascendental "value" we get from belonging to a group. Compare athletes versus sports fans or artist cricles versus fans groups/critics.
 
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IlluminatiPirate

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The coverage of Dead Internet Theory isn't any accident. Or any great mystery. This topic was signal boosted by somebody. And if it wasn't the top brass of the forum themselves using clever sideways marketing, then they definitely have not tried to stop it either. There are several Youtubers who went into it in some depth. One, even made videos directly telling users about the thread here, and explicitely naming the forum. The Dead Internet Theory - Youtube (All Time)

That account alone, has 170,000 subscribers. And, other channels referenced this video as well. Quantum of Conscience channel, did a video about it, that further exposed these videos to an audience, that is more inclined to seeking truth. No matter what you think of those people, they are known to follow leads. And, some ended up here. As you already noted, many left quickly because the picture in their mind of this forum, was very different to actuality. They were expecting further answers, but found none, so they left.

Other promotion, like a banner add on 4chan for example, means that more people, seeking a quality alternative to that shitstorm, will arrive occaisionally. Some of those people, will not be to YOUR exact specifications, or standards.

You see, the strangest thing I find about all this, is the seeming perception by prominent members, that the purpose of this forum is a dedicated space for their personal tastes. Illuminati Pirate themselves has stated they are proponents of free speech. And, the forum rules state clearly the expectations here. So it seems, a broad range of retro "comfort", general discussion, and aesthetics, was the actual goal. Accompanied by an easy going moderation policy.

Not to make a dedicated, elitest exclusive zone. The ACTUAL owner is promoting the site, to a much broader audience than you all seem to find acceptable. I would suggest that you, donate VERY large sums of money to the owner, and THEN ask them to "gatekeep" for you. After you have afforded them the elitist luxury to do so.

If that remains unnacceptable, how about you stop whining, and start your own damn forum? And us plebians, can cry ourselves to sleep, missing your exalted company...

:JahySmug:
See the problem with that is the community userbase changes as every few months, yet the culture stays the same. Everyone that got here, found it through some part of my promotion efforts and if I didn't promote, the forum would of died a long time ago and none of you guys would be here. Even Mwwts who hates >redditcostanzayeahrightsmirk found it on the /r/Vaporwave Community when he used to promote there before he was banned by them. But I think the current format of the forum with the conspiracy talk and the creativity of music is what keeps the forum so great and what keeps normies out. As a side note: there was a long time member here named "naa" but she requested that her account to be deactivated because one troll here who still lurks and sends me messages on alts stalked her and sent creepy shit. So I purposely not promote the site in any /pol/ tier places because i don't want that to happen again.
 
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AvocadoJelly

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This post gets at a phenomenon in our culture at large. There used to be more cultural niches before the internet than after. This runs somewhat counter to our intuition.

In 2005 there was a book written called The Long Tail (the name refers to the tails of a Gaussian distribution) by Chris Anderson. The book posits the idea that popular culture will fragment into niches with the internet and that hits are a scarcity based phenomenon. Today, and for a decade and a half now, anyone with some talent, a computer, and an internet connection can produce music that can give mainstream artists a run for their money. The Long Tail idea had a lot of early supporters in the tech industry, but it turned out to be empirically wrong. Turns out the internet does the opposite of what The Long Tail posited it would do. By 2008 we have Eric Schmidt, then CEO of Google and former supporter of the Long Tail hypothesis, saying, "Although the tail is very interesting, and we enable it, the vast majority of the revenue remains in the head... In fact, it's probable that the Internet will lead to larger blockbusters, more concentration of brands." (Emphasis mine)

With the benefit of hindsight we can see that Eric Schmidt was correct. In every creative field we see this sort of concentration of popular focus. I claim that this sort of concentration happens because of Gatekeeping. It may be useful to look at an artform that became democratized (for lack of a better term) far earlier than the artforms that had to wait for the internet. Literature was effectively democratized when mass literacy became a thing. So a thing that was earlier gate-kept by literacy (which was in turn gate-kept by socio-economic status), had little gatekeeping. Today literature is gate-kept by the Academy and publishing houses (today there are effectively two (rather 2.5ish) distinct literary establishments, but I won't get into that now), but in the second half of the 20th century you could open your own small press and probably find your audience and get by. To do that now is impossible. I've seen several publications in corners of the internet try and fail to both find their audience and maintain the spirit of their publication (as distinct from the wider culture of literature). Even larger journals like the Glimmer Train (est 1990 btw) are shutting down. Now if you want something outside the mainstream you can go sift through all the self-similar garbage on Amazon and fan-fiction sites.

Another simple example: reddit. The structure of >redditcostanzayeahrightsmirk seems to encourage splitting off into niche subcommunities. But that's not what happens, of course. Big communities get obese while small niche communities flounder with no one to moderate and maintain the place, and the users slowly migrate to bigger subreddits. In the end the place becomes a hive mind where only the majority opinion can be shared, giving an impression of a botnet regardless of whether it actually is one. Yet >redditcostanzayeahrightsmirk is heavily gate-kept. It is the gatekeeping that stifles >redditcostanzayeahrightsmirk's potential to be unique.

So we see that gatekeeping does not maintain uniqueness as our intuition might tell us, but rather it can only reinforce a hegemony. You might ask, then, why the internet is the way it is. It's because the 'algorithm' (as it's called) is a highly efficient gatekeeping mechanism. The internet itself is a gate-kept entity.

Back when I was on /lit/ there was a lot of hand-wringing about 'board-culture'. I see a similar anxiety on this forum. On /lit/ the people who originally embodied the spirit of the board slowly left as they were hit with a deluge of poorly read refugees from other parts of the internet. There was no gatekeeping to be done here. The community when outnumbered was too dissolute to actually fight back and gatekeep the board. For every thread on literature there were three off topic posts getting bumped twice or thrice as much. Eventually people just began to leave. (I don't know the state of /lit/ now; I haven't been there in years)

Gatekeeping is the privilege of the majority. If your forum is distinct from the mainstream culture then when people from the outside start to come in it is inevitable that you will end up outnumbered; there will always be more people relatively disinterested in your niche than people interested in your niche.

I've avoided throwing around philosophy in my post, but Zizek's work on Ideology is quite useful in understanding what's happening on the internet. If you can stomach fat philosophical tomes on Hegel, and are willing to spend some time contemplating how it relates to the issue in this thread, I'd say you could look into The Sublime Object of Ideology and Less Than Nothing both by Zizek.
 
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gathermore

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This post gets at a phenomenon in our culture at large. There used to be more cultural niches before the internet than after. This runs somewhat counter to our intuition.

In 2005 there was a book written called The Long Tail (the name refers to the tails of a Gaussian distribution) by Chris Anderson. The book posits the idea that popular culture will fragment into niches with the internet and that hits are a scarcity based phenomenon. Today, and for a decade and a half now, anyone with some talent, a computer, and an internet connection can produce music that can give mainstream artists a run for their money. The Long Tail idea had a lot of early supporters in the tech industry, but it turned out to be empirically wrong. Turns out the internet does the opposite of what The Long Tail posited it would do. By 2008 we have Eric Schmidt, then CEO of Google and former supporter of the Long Tail hypothesis, saying, "Although the tail is very interesting, and we enable it, the vast majority of the revenue remains in the head... In fact, it's probable that the Internet will lead to larger blockbusters, more concentration of brands." (Emphasis mine)

With the benefit of hindsight we can see that Eric Schmidt was correct. In every creative field we see this sort of concentration of popular focus. I claim that this sort of concentration happens because of Gatekeeping. It may be useful to look at an artform that became democratized (for lack of a better term) far earlier than the artforms that had to wait for the internet. Literature was effectively democratized when mass literacy became a thing. So a thing that was earlier gate-kept by literacy (which was in turn gate-kept by socio-economic status), had little gatekeeping. Today literature is gate-kept by the Academy and publishing houses (today there are effectively two (rather 2.5ish) distinct literary establishments, but I won't get into that now), but in the second half of the 20th century you could open your own small press and probably find your audience and get by. To do that now is impossible. I've seen several publications in corners of the internet try and fail to both find their audience and maintain the spirit of their publication (as distinct from the wider culture of literature). Even larger journals like the Glimmer Train (est 1990 btw) are shutting down. Now if you want something outside the mainstream you can go sift through all the self-similar garbage on Amazon and fan-fiction sites.

Another simple example: reddit. The structure of >redditcostanzayeahrightsmirk seems to encourage splitting off into niche subcommunities. But that's not what happens, of course. Big communities get obese while small niche communities flounder with no one to moderate and maintain the place, and the users slowly migrate to bigger subreddits. In the end the place becomes a hive mind where only the majority opinion can be shared, giving an impression of a botnet regardless of whether it actually is one. Yet >redditcostanzayeahrightsmirk is heavily gate-kept. It is the gatekeeping that stifles >redditcostanzayeahrightsmirk's potential to be unique.

So we see that gatekeeping does not maintain uniqueness as our intuition might tell us, but rather it can only reinforce a hegemony. You might ask, then, why the internet is the way it is. It's because the 'algorithm' (as it's called) is a highly efficient gatekeeping mechanism. The internet itself is a gate-kept entity.

Back when I was on /lit/ there was a lot of hand-wringing about 'board-culture'. I see a similar anxiety on this forum. On /lit/ the people who originally embodied the spirit of the board slowly left as they were hit with a deluge of poorly read refugees from other parts of the internet. There was no gatekeeping to be done here. The community when outnumbered was too dissolute to actually fight back and gatekeep the board. For every thread on literature there were three off topic posts getting bumped twice or thrice as much. Eventually people just began to leave. (I don't know the state of /lit/ now; I haven't been there in years)

Gatekeeping is the privilege of the majority. If your forum is distinct from the mainstream culture then when people from the outside start to come in it is inevitable that you will end up outnumbered; there will always be more people relatively disinterested in your niche than people interested in your niche.

I've avoided throwing around philosophy in my post, but Zizek's work on Ideology is quite useful in understanding what's happening on the internet. If you can stomach fat philosophical tomes on Hegel, and are willing to spend some time contemplating how it relates to the issue in this thread, I'd say you could look into The Sublime Object of Ideology and Less Than Nothing both by Zizek.
yeah but im not trying to be on this damn website until im 80..... i wanna gatekeep it so its how and I like. when it ceases to pleasure me to come here I will leave.

nothing lives forever so why do we spend all this time coming up with the "best" solution

but thank you dearly for taking the time to write this post, I had only heard of Zizek through youtube thumbnails and never knew whether to take him seriously.
 
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AvocadoJelly

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yeah but im not trying to be on this damn website until im 80..... i wanna gatekeep it so its how and I like. when it ceases to pleasure me to come here I will leave.

nothing lives forever so why do we spend all this time coming up with the "best" solution

but thank you dearly for taking the time to write this post, I had only heard of Zizek through youtube thumbnails and never knew whether to take him seriously.
Yeah Zizek is legit. People think he's a meme because of his celebrity-ish status but he is an actual serious scholar of Hegel and Lacan.
 
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Kolph

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See the problem with that is the community userbase changes as every few months, yet the culture stays the same. Everyone that got here, found it through some part of my promotion efforts and if I didn't promote, the forum would of died a long time ago and none of you guys would be here. Even Mwwts who hates >redditcostanzayeahrightsmirk found it on the /r/Vaporwave Community when he used to promote there before he was banned by them. But I think the current format of the forum with the conspiracy talk and the creativity of music is what keeps the forum so great and what keeps normies out. As a side note: there was a long time member here named "naa" but she requested that her account to be deactivated because one troll here who still lurks and sends me messages on alts stalked her and sent creepy shit. So I purposely not promote the site in any /pol/ tier places because i don't want that to happen again.
Oh shit, interesting to hear all this
 
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14-27

Really? This is what you are going with?
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See the problem with that is the community userbase changes as every few months, yet the culture stays the same. Everyone that got here, found it through some part of my promotion efforts and if I didn't promote, the forum would of died a long time ago and none of you guys would be here. Even Mwwts who hates >redditcostanzayeahrightsmirk found it on the /r/Vaporwave Community when he used to promote there before he was banned by them. But I think the current format of the forum with the conspiracy talk and the creativity of music is what keeps the forum so great and what keeps normies out. As a side note: there was a long time member here named "naa" but she requested that her account to be deactivated because one troll here who still lurks and sends me messages on alts stalked her and sent creepy shit. So I purposely not promote the site in any /pol/ tier places because i don't want that to happen again.

I obviously like the diversity here, and love (mostly), all the different types of people (BOTS!). It's why I hang around. It introduces me to new stuff as well. I never would have found weeby anime soundtrack remixes, and retro synthwave for example (which I love now). I am even tempted to actually try watching a full anime series.

There are some funny people here, and even if I don't agree with much of anything some others say, I can usually find something in common with them eventually. One or two around are even genuinely knowledgeable, (I do get rather bitchy about any percieved elitism though). So please, my vote is just keep doing what you are doing, and just get rid of any that really make arses of themselves.

Also, I may not have expressed it well, but my previous question to you about invitations to the forum, were more about your views on quality control. Some of the advertising seemed very subtle, and I tend to engage the serious weirdos, so I tend to remain circumspect, as an intelligence test of sorts.
:Cokebaka:

(The bit about "he who hates >redditcostanzayeahrightsmirk", was priceless! Banned? For real? Hahahah!)
 
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