SPAT July 2018

4^th of July

Shortly after midnight on the east coast, Independence Day began. Beginning last year, it’s tradition to give WoC, being arguably the most patriotic member of our cohort, his very own channel for the day. The name of the channel changes throughout the day and is typically over-the-top, but I created it at 12:24 AM with the relatively modest name #freedom-day.

WoC typically mandates that all people speak in caps in his channel, otherwise he “can’t hear” us. As a rule, pictures of bald eagles or other stereotypically American things like hamburgers are spammed in excess. Further, anti-communist memes are the rule of the day. The ban role itself is itself named “COMMIE” in red, and people who “don’t speak loudly enough” or who post in favor of economic frameworks other than capitalism--whether it’s ironic or genuine--are “deported” from the channel¹.

I went to bed while the name was still #freedom-day and awoke to the channel being renamed to the emojis for burger, eagle, clapping, and water gun, in that order. WoC pinned a couple of actually patriotic and responsible rules early in the night, and the discussion, with some rare exceptions, has been amicable since. Such niceties do not extend to “THOSE COMMIE BASTARDS”, of course.

Despite the ongoing joke, all of this prompted a rather interesting discussion in mspa-lit. WoC posted in capslock the entire time, but was otherwise coherent and serious in his delegation of what being patriotic means, especially since there’s currently such an enormous disconnect between how citizens of the US may feel about their country versus their government.

His assertions came in the form of a Mark Twain quote: “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.”, which most people present were easily able to agree upon. Following this was a discussion about how, despite the government itself being unworthy of praise, America as a cultural landscape has plenty to be proud of in terms of what it makes and how most of its people behave (“AMERICANS ARE UNIRONICALLY THE FRIENDLIEST NATIONALITY IVE EVER MET; ALTHOUGH IVE NEVER BEEN IN ASIA AUSTRALIA OR AFRICA SO I CANT SPEAK FIR [sic] THOSE CONTINENTS”).

Another staple of Independence Day here is people changing their names to various historical leaders. The most common, of course, are American leaders--especially presidents and those present at the signing of the Declaration of Independence (WoC is currently Thomas Jefferson, I’m Benjamin Franklin, Sea Hitler is John F. Kennedy, etc) but there are also some foreign leaders in the mix.

There are even some resistance members, at the forefront of which appears to be Tera. It has taken Che Guevera’s name, and remained staunchly anti-American in all of the things it says today, which is perfectly fine. The conversation which rose around this--even involving WoC-- was perfectly polite and even somewhat productive, which was very pleasant to see. I imagine Tera will be somewhat scarce for the rest of the day to avoid the no-doubt aggravating America-posting, but as long as we get through the day without something dramatic then I’ll be happy enough.

The only other thing worthy of note was this absolutely ridiculous discourse about consciousness. At the point I’m writing from I can no longer remember the exact details of the conversation other than who was primarily involved (tmtm and Revlar on opposite sides mostly), and I honestly have no desire to revisit it. It was protracted so heavily that I left the channel for almost two hours and it was still in full swing by the time I came back. This can only be described as excessive.

Despite that hiccup, I felt like Independence Day went very smoothly this year. I think I speak for a number of people when I say I’m pleased with the proceedings, and I can only hope that next year is even better.

Nothing more for today.

5^th of July

There’s a convention being held in Los Angeles called Anime Expo, which true to its name is an exposition for popular anime that people are looking forward to. As would be expected, Viz is also present at this event and had their own panel today. As a result, many of us decided to look into the panel, which was livestreamed earlier today.

There wasn’t a lot of excitement surrounding the event, I think most of us are too cynical for that at this point. However, there was a faint hope that they’ll have some news for us. At the very least, we were looking forward to a mention of Homestuck in some regard. This was eventually delivered to us, although we had to sit through the rest of the panel for it first.

It was actually quite an experience; I’m usually absent for these sorts of conferences or happenings, so the fact that I was able to participate this time was nice. It began with news completely unrelated to us (“we're so desperate for info we're watching a fucking sailor moon panel”, commented Makin), and although there was a mention of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures that we were all earnestly excited for, it was still something of a chore.

Usually these events get turned into impromptu roasts, where anyone who has the misfortune of being on screen is made fun of exhaustively. This was made all the more easy by the person who was guiding the panel, a man with a flamboyant orange mohawk who spoke in the most excited tones (to put it in a kind way).

As soon as he began talking, everyone present began to rip on him without mercy. It was grating listening to this fellow at first, but by the end of the panel he had grown on most of us, Makin included (which surprised me somewhat). I have to admit that he did inject a lot of energy into the panel, even if it was cringe-inducing at certain points.

Our time to shine came about 45 minutes through the presentation, where they mentioned the new Homestuck books and asked questions about it in what was decidedly a lackadaisical manner. I guess we couldn’t expect too much, but the very minute the panel ended people either threw up their hands in defeat or were incensed.

Above all, though, I think WAVE’s contribution was most apropos. Today’s event was yet another nail in what might eventually prove to be the fandom’s coffin, but WAVE isn’t one to pass by an opportunity for levity. A meme to the very end, after the panel was finished he simply recalled Suicide Squad: “So that's it, huh? What are we, some kinda disappointed fanbase?”

Nothing more for today.

6^th of July

Today was turbulent over disproportionately simple matters. Usually I would be more upset, but I feel like I’m losing my steam to actually take offense when dumb nonsense happens here. Makin hid mspa-lit no less than three times, and on the last occasion he completely removed the place such that no one can access it until tomorrow.

The exact reasons it turned out this way are due to altgen’s involvement. There’s been a user in the channel named Alset who has been hanging around and was banned from #general some time ago by Ifnar, for “speaking nonsense” even after being told to stop. This nebulous occurrence aside, no one in altgen appeared to like this fellow very much because they seemed fond of babbling loosely about all manner of topics and passing it off as philosophical ponderings. Altgen was probably the worst possible place to entertain such delusions.

As a result, they were systematically pushing Alset out by “suggesting” that they go to other channels, especially mspa-lit. After being told to do this enough times, Alset finally appeared there. Not content with this, a number of altgenners actually followed them. This is where things began to get out of hand.

It was cordial enough at first, the sudden appearance of new people taking some off guard but not exactly unwelcome. In all I recall about 6 people including Alset themselves from altgen at any one time. Half were on topic and the other half were, naturally, shitposting heavily. Makin saw this and panicked, shutting the channel down for a few minutes to make the shitposting stop.

Of course, he should have known better. He let the channel back up and no time was wasted before more shitposting resumed. He froze the channel longer that time, and it seemed that things had successfully settled down when we came back. Almost insidiously, though, the shitposting came back and some channel regulars even were participating, including myself at points. This was when Makin got fed up² and shut the channel down for the evening.

I was exceedingly pissed at the heavy-handed response to what was basically lighthearted nonsense, but I’ve been through this song and dance enough times to know that nothing good would come out of protesting the matter. We all resolved to go to #hangout as is standard procedure when these things happen, and pass the time there.

People like Tensei openly mocked those trying to organize any sort of actual response to the channel being hidden (“yall are gonna be back in mspalt / once its back”). Tensions began to run high between native hangout users and us visitors; we all felt confused and cramped. Altgen was not fit to simply pass the time idly, though, and there were a number of them who were openly decrying their poor reputation and treatment. Most of us in hangout were more or less fine with the proceedings because it was at least partially deserved, and in a general sense not that unexpected from Makin.

Still, the extent of the heavy response was unusual even for his typical brand of capriciousness. I was afraid that he was upset for something unrelated and taking it out on us, but his explanation in the morning was sensible enough. I’m kind of glad I didn’t waste much effort or energy being indignant about it all, but it’s still vaguely annoying that this happened at all.

Part of my agitation lies in the fact that it was assuredly a disproportionate response. I always hate when Makin overreacts because he’s personally upset by something, or because of a misinterpretation. Certainly, the final conversation was not worthy of shutting down the channel for the evening.

It was absolutely sophomoric, don’t get me wrong about that: for some reason, a NSFW server user named Redglare was mentioned, who is infamous for having that fart fetish I described a few entries ago. At this point, with the word “fart”, the conversation had already been lost. It was followed shortly thereafter by someone calling out another NSFW server user named Dylan, whom was described as “The Butt Fucker”. The way it was phrased made me laugh, but Makin was not amused: “the third time i opened it, now regulars were shitposting together with altgenners / i gave up and closed it for the night”. And so it was that we were cast out until the morning.

Some tried to frame it as Makin being completely intolerant of altgenners to the point of hysteria, and pass off Alset’s involvement as negligible. I did speak out against this, although by the time I got there the damage was already done. Thankfully, altgen’s got the collective memory of a goldfish so this didn’t amount to much. There was no real damage other than me being perpetually accosted by people demanding answers as to what happened.

Hopefully by morning this will no longer be a problem. Nothing more for today.

7^th of July

As predicted, the channel is back without much ado. There isn’t much of a reason to prolong discussion of this event because it was, in the end, completely unremarkable in every way. Thus, I will elect to move on and talk about something completely different. That something is a discussion about the term “normies”, which is actually an extremely important cultural topic that has cropped up more and more in the last few years.

“Normies” is a condescending term that has taken the place of “sheeple”, referring to individuals who don’t think for themselves and are commonly understood to mindlessly consume popular media without any real consideration. The more extreme, 4chan-specific form would be “normalfag”. Obviously, I don’t appreciate the use of these terms in unironic contexts because they’re shamelessly arrogant and incorrect labels about 90% of the time. This doesn’t stop a lot of us from using the term “normies” on a nigh daily basis, because in the end I don’t think anyone can be assed to really care. Not to mention, it’s a funny word to say.

An example that can be provided would perhaps be Bowman. He’s decidedly not a normie artist to us because he is not popular (forgive me for saying so)--by all metrics he’s a rather obscure artist. Someone who has dug deep enough to discover his works probably has a lot of experience listening to music and will have more interesting opinions for the sort of snobs who genuinely distinguish between people who are and aren’t normies.

Moving on from this, today we had a situation with $trider where he’s been acting out increasingly badly in #altgen, and elevating himself onto a pedestal of sorts. This kicked off a discussion in the modchat about how we should be handling our users when they become problematic like this. I stupidly made a comment about how $trider is a regular with established history, so rather than jumping the gun and banning him we should take time to talk with him.

WoC rightfully parsed this as a form of favoritism, and was fiercely adamant that all users should be treated equally regardless. I attempted to clarify that I don’t think anyone should be treated preferentially either, but simply that banning people over more slight offenses is inappropriate and an oversight of our responsibility as figures of authority. He did acquiesce to this, but still advocated that $trider should be banned for being a dick regardless.

Among comments from others, Deus decided to craft a reminder post for altgen wherein she tells them to go to other channels and make friends there instead of using altgen as a homebase--we’ve done this in the past, but it’s useful to reiterate the “shitposting first, conversation second” rule to avoid the creation of cliches and hugboxes.

Hours after this conversation, Makin showed up suddenly and made a comment that the entire conversation above was “stupid”, and may or may not have been joking about initiating another reckoning already. It was--as usual--impossible to tell whether he was joking or not, so naturally some people leapt on him. Olki in particular was incensed over the mere possibility of punitive measures over what was clearly a conversation about how to improve the server. Thankfully, this argument did not last long, which suggests to me that it was indeed a joke.

Other than that, nothing of real importance occurred. There was some increased tension between most people and rS, which is not exactly surprising at this point. I’m afraid that at the rate he goes on about Makin, the end of his tenure here is going to end very poorly, and soon. We’ll just have to see how it plays out.

Nothing more for today.

9^th of July

Very early in the morning today, there was a sudden revival: around 3:30 AM EST, Ost and Minish came back almost simultaneously for a visit. There was a very engaging and importantly civil conversation that followed this, with some catching up between friends; everyone present was rather pleased to see them come by, although it was quickly clear that they would not exactly be staying.

I’m struggling to remember details at this point, but the conversation shifted to talk about why people still use this place if they disagree with what Makin does. An obvious but important maxim developed in my mind while this discussion proceeded: while it’s evident that most people dislike many of the things that he is infamous for, myself obviously not excluded, the simple fact of the matter is that we don’t mind it quite enough for us to leave.

There is a certain threshold that most people in mspa-lit are willing to withstand, and once it’s crossed they leave. This may be temporary or permanent, but such is the reality of the place. Those that remain must necessarily be tolerant of his behavior, even if they are not particularly fond of it. Anything other than these two possibilities is silly and unsustainable.

That’s pretty much it for today’s proceedings. With that, I’d like to point out that it has officially been one entire year since I started writing this document. On the 9^th of July in 2017 I began surreptitiously keeping records of what was happening in an attempt to more fully remind myself of what’s been going on and keep from forgetting important or amusing events. After a couple of months I decided to share it with other people, and while it’s hit considerable snags or opposition at times I think it’s safe to say that the document has been at least vaguely successful in this task.

With an entire year of this under my belt, I wanted to do some serious reflection on whether I want to keep doing this or not. Things have changed so much from just a year ago, to the point that the server is completely unrecognizable in certain respects. The userbase has changed a lot: we have almost doubled the number of people as when I first began writing, from just over 7,200 people to now almost 12,000. The mod team went through a tumultuous restructuring and scores of people who were once regulars here are now gone, for one reason or another. Personally, I feel like I’ve become far more jaded to the general proceedings of this place than I used to be. The difference in sheer optimism and idealism from back then to now is frankly astonishing when compared directly, even if all the steps along the way make sense.

Thinking about it all is kind of tiresome, but less in an agonizing way and more just that it’s daunting to keep it all in mind. This community is just as important to me as it was when I started writing, if not more so. While I sincerely regret the loss of people that I consider my friends, there are many people still here who I consider just as great of friends. It’s been a very interesting year, and I know that I would never forgive myself if I forgot everything about it one day.

So, I guess it’s time to ramp up my efforts again. I’ve been stagnating a little--I wanted to start recording multiple aspects of the fandom and made a little progress with that, but it’s time to more consciously pursue details about the fanventure community, and other related places. I’m excited for what possibilities lay in the future, although it’s worth mentioning that I’m afraid for some of those possibilities as well.

Regardless of what actually happens, I’ve firmly decided that I’ll be here to keep record of it. With luck, knowledge of this place will not fade away through neglect and apathy. I’m happy to have the opportunity to keep the memory of this server alive, even if it is extraordinarily silly in the grand scheme of things. It will eventually come to pass someday that the server will end and we will all move on with our lives--if I remain as I am now then I’ll be around to personally witness it. But, it doesn’t do to dwell on that reality until it actually happens.

Those who have left are sorely missed³, by myself and others--I sincerely feel that losing each and every one of them strikes a deep blow to our community. Yet, the people still here are also good friends, and I am indisputably happier for having met them. Each day that I get to come here and just talk with people about nothing and everything in particular is another day that I get to enjoy. With how rare it can be to make a genuine, positive connection with other people, is that ever an opportunity one should squander? ⁴

I certainly don’t think so. Nothing more for today, but let’s see what tomorrow brings.

10^th of July

We had a visit from a historied member of the server tonight. I’ve mentioned him before: ViceroyofMonteCristo (simply referred to as Viceroy, or even just Vice) frequently disappears for large stretches of time from our fold. Every so often he’ll pop his head in, such as today. Our conversation offered me some insight into what he’s like, and what he’s interested in.

Vice first joined “the day before Altgenstuck started”, so probably the 12th of September 2016. I’m not privy to the details, but Vice established himself as an altgen regular fairly quickly (Sky commented: “> frost, dickle, viceroy, ceru / ahh the old gang” when the topic came up), being shown in Altgenstuck itself (however briefly) only three months later in December. This was in the fabled “old #altgen”, which had a significantly different environment as compared to the channel now.

Despite the gap in culture there are still some commonalities between the two timepoints, especially in the crass nature of the humor. Vice was not impervious to this, displaying an appropriately sophomoric palette. This attitude does not seem to have gone away completely, yet feels more mature now somehow--perhaps that he is more experienced. In true altgen fashion, while visiting we had a rather protracted conversation about Youtube Poop Music Videos (YTP music videos, or just YTPMV). Be warned: a very extensive treatment of this tangent follows.

I’ve already described YTPs at length in a previous entry, with such titles as Fesh Pince or Hank of the Hill being exemplary of the concept. A further subgenre involving music emerged a little over a decade ago as well, although is arguably less well known than more typical YTPs. I’ve been getting into them only as recently as a couple months ago, but the history of YTPMVs is surprisingly rich, considering how weird the exact brand of entertainment is.

Anyone unfamiliar who might be interested in looking at some would do well to listen to TheFrenchCake’s yearly compilations, beginning in 2012. Simple in concept, YTPMVs involve replacing the sounds in a song with material that comes from a different source (an excellent example of this would be Mowtendoo’s Super Spice Bros 2 or especially Rainbow Trololol, arguably some of the most well known YTP music videos). There are some less organized compilations from years before then as well. It should be noted that what is commonly regarded as the first YTPMV is an original song instead of an arrangement of an existing one--a less common occurrence--and popped up in 2007. After watching all of these a few times, I’ve noticed various patterns in the kinds of memes that are used most often each year.

Generally speaking, these trends track well with general usage of the same memes outside of the music scene; when something first explodes in popularity, it will also have music videos made about it on the side for a brief time. However, there are a few unique sources that are more prominent primarily or only in YTPMVs. Certain sources like Jack Black’s performance on Sesame Street and Snoop Dogg’s Drop It Like It’s Hot have been around longest, but have correspondingly endured the most, remaining as common in modern day YTPMVs as they were five or six years ago; Gachimuchi also fits in this category, among a plethora of others.

Other source materials, such as Team Fortress 2, have gradually become less popular content for remixing over the years. Others still are more difficult to understand: anime of all sorts have cropped up repeatedly over the years but is somewhat inconsistent in presence and style, and--possibly the most bizarre source I’m aware of--Delay Lama only ever became massively popular in countries like Japan (anime was naturally a more popular remixing material there as well). Mixing of two or more memes together into larger or more ambitious projects is also very common.

A few of these videos are collaborative efforts between as many as a dozen people, but most of them are rendered by one artist each. As one would expect, there are a few names that have become prominent through their extensive additions to the genre: the previously-mentioned Mowtendoo is one such name, among others like syrkl (formerly known as BlueKhezu) or Rlcemaster3.

These three individuals and more besides have been around for years; while the scene has generally slowed down it’s revealed a core of the more dedicated vidsmiths, alongside a smattering of new blood each year. Naturally as time goes by their skill increases and the average quality of each YTPMV has increased dramatically, but the quantity of them has decreased just as much due to fewer people actually generating content. The reason for this isn’t immediately clear, but I fear that in a matter of a few years YTPMV will probably be engaged in by so few people that no real interest will remain.

I’m sure anyone reading this must wonder why on earth we would care at all about this (indeed, Tmtmtl30 at the time commented: “i don't understand how you are so passionate about something so specific and inherently ridiculous”). All I can say is, the very fact that it’s so specific and ridiculous is part of the excitement. My interest in YTPMVs is similar to my interest in writing this entire document, because the phenomena I’m describing are so intensely esoteric.

The HSD’s community and the YTPMV community are similar in various ways: the exact spirit and cadence of what’s going on can’t be faithfully replicated in artificial circumstances, and they’ll both rely on the passion of those who were involved to keep the memory alive. That having been said, it’s mercifully easier to keep a series of videos intact and floating around for anyone to see. I have hope that, even when interest wanes, all of the YTPMV content itself will be readily available for anyone who wants to take a peek years down the road.

With that overly indulgent explanation now past, I just want to express that this is the nature of the discussion that Vice and I had. We talked about TheFrenchCake’s compilations, exchanged some interesting entries (some of which I hadn’t seen yet), and just had a generally informative and fascinating discussion. Even if the subject material itself is bewilderingly pointless or stupid, it was refreshing to encounter someone else passionate about the bizarre and obscure.

After shooting the shit for a while, Vice then receded into mists from whence he came, never to be seen again until he randomly shows up a few months from now. Far less do I understand the thoughts of people who only sporadically show up here--it feels like a very weird thing to only entertain coming here randomly once in a while. Yet, he seems to be the sort of person whose whims take him where they will. I can hardly be upset about it; whenever he shows up it’s a good enough time had by any present.

Nothing more for today. ⁵

12^th of July

After the recent incident where Makin shut down mspa-lit three times in one day, there have been a number of discussions among the mods of how to keep it from happening again. If it were a more amusing circumstance then we wouldn’t be going to such lengths to prevent it from reoccurring, but overall it’s just very agitating to experience.

The suggested methods for handling this have all been boiled down to one common idea, which is “reduce shitposting in mspa-lit”. This is simple in concept and a few people are going to appreciate it, but we’re also going to piss off a lot of others. Revlar in particular has been very vocal about reducing the allowed amount of shitposting in mspa-lit, calling it out as “toxic waste choking the channel” (which is probably the most charitable description he’s offered thus far). Sometimes I must agree; as much as it pains me to admit, if it weren’t for Makin’s personal ire I don’t think this would even be discussed.

I’ve touched on this subject before, but the fact is that people continue to use the channel in spite of Makin’s inconsistent enforcement or even routine abuse of his own instated rules. This gives him the impression that he’s invulnerable--he’s stated explicitly, multiple times: “if people come back to the channel after all’s said and done, then i must not be doing anything wrong”. It’s clear that this was meant as a joke on the surface, but after knowing him for some time I’m afraid that he must also earnestly believe it on some level.

I used to be more idealistic about it--even leading conversations about how to make sure he properly understands that people don’t like what he’s doing--but it’s come to nothing so many times now that I’ve just developed a generally cynical attitude on the matter. Why should I bother trying to lead a party against his malpractice if no one else wants to commit? It’d be just short of hanging myself⁶.

No, the reality of the matter is that he’s perfectly content to do whatever he wants regardless of how other people perceive his actions. The only recourse we have as individuals is to appeal to his better nature; the problem with that is he’s really good at logically justifying whatever his behavior happens to be, even if it’s very clearly wrong behavior (or flawed logic) to everyone else. I’m not sure how much of this is simple, childlike impishness that reduces it to a game for him, and how much of it is something that could be construed as genuinely sinister⁷.

The point of this tangent is basically that the mod team is stuck enforcing his whims, lest we get removed for insubordination. Not to mention that, with one or two exceptions, none of us are particularly fond of having mspa-lit taken down at any time (I would say that some are ambivalent to it, except that mspa-lit going down often results in chaos whenever we flood into different places). There’s nothing for it but to keep him off our backs and enforce these things arbitrarily.

All of this goes over very poorly with the other users, and assuredly will continue to be a problem in future confrontations. As an example of the discussions that crop up in the face of this paradoxical behavior, part of “shitposting” includes a taboo on most sexually-natured discussion that might happen in mspa-lit. Casual furry-related discussion is a good example of the sort of thing that Makin despises witnessing, and arguably the biggest perpetrator of such topics is Gnawms.

After our mod discussions I felt like it would be appropriate to give Gnawms a heads up that he shouldn’t do that anymore, because we’d be cracking down more on the behavior. I like having him around⁸, so it wouldn’t do for him to get banned for something that was ostensibly acceptable behavior before. Perhaps I brought it up too brashly or unexpectedly, or something, but regardless of why, the discussion did not proceed well.

Obviously people like Revlar were delighted to hear that we would be trying to actually stop this in the future (if somewhat skeptical of the carrythrough). Gnawms himself wasn’t certain why we had decided to bring this up with him, thinking that the heads up was more in the way of a warning or something similar. Tmt was genuinely distressed or confused by the change in rules, and alongside him people like WAVE, Carlarc, and one other I can’t remember were banned after they started shitposting (fiercely I might add) in protest.

What followed was a very exhausting exchange where Gnawms touched on the heart of the issue: as I said previously, Makin’s rulings are inconsistent and kind of nonsensical, almost to the point of being unenforceable without being incredibly unfair. Gnawms advocated for relaxing the rules whenever Makin isn’t around and sucking it up when he is around, but half measures like that get the channel hidden anyway when he comes back and freaks out over the proceedings while he was away.

After a while I stopped trying to speak against this; I’ve reached a breaking point where I’ve become too tired of cornering myself and explaining Makin’s position for him (something I’ve lamented extensively in the past). I don’t know why I feel the need to try and shield him from this criticism or defend his position when I don’t even agree with it. If I had to say, I’d guess it’s in the interest of good faith. Regardless, I think I’m done overextending myself on that --if he wants something to change he can face the heat from his decisions himself.

Of course, I’ve said this multiple times in the past already and not a lot has come from it. I really have to reconsider the carry-through on my deliberations. Nothing more for today.

13^th of July

In addition to the general upset of these rule changes, today was another instance of behavior from Makin that was particularly upsetting to encounter. He’s been engaging in a practice called “gatekeeping”: for the uninformed, this is the process of systematically discouraging or denying so-termed “outsiders” from joining a group for arbitrary and often stupid reasons⁹ (if it wasn’t obvious from my description, this is categorically a bad thing to do). This is different from simply “being selective”, which is done for beneficial or sensible reasons.

Often the line between gatekeeping and selectivity is difficult to clearly establish: personal biases may turn what is an otherwise dependable selection process into gatekeeping, but there are also clear cut examples where the gatekeeping is unnecessary and malevolent. It would be very inappropriate of me to suggest that what Makin’s doing is the latter--while I think he’s misguided in how he’s doing it, the ultimate goal he’s striving for is actually worthwhile.

Mspa lit treads the same delicate balance that all online communities do. I’ve described this before, where a given group needs to maintain a steady influx of new members in order to 1) counteract the steady loss of old members and 2) maintain an adequate amount of energy in conversations. The first point is an obvious one, but even if a group never loses any members it’s extremely prone to stagnation once all obvious topics have been thoroughly explored.

The HSD and especially mspa-lit are a little less susceptible to this because of the story that initially brought us all here. The tone and complexity of the subject matter itself, the typical behavior of the people who enjoy it, or perhaps a combination of both, have made us vaguely resistant to the type of malaise that commonly infects a community once the initial rush is over. However, the point stands that you want to try and encourage newer people to join in and prevent things from decaying over time.

Makin does in fact have a point in what he does, however. While I’m concerned with deterioration through inactivity, he’s primarily concerned with deterioration in quality. The shitposting discussion from yesterday is clear evidence of this (more cynically, it’s him simply trying to have his cake and eat it too, but the principle here applies): shitposting is, by nature, not a useful or particularly interesting addition to the conversation at hand.

Sometimes shitposting can be really inventive and amusing, and realistically if people can accomplish that then it isn’t really caustic to group discussion (it’s still disruptive, but as Gnawms pointed out even natural topic changes are necessarily disruptive). In effect, the new rules are less important towards the notion of “shitposting”, which can in fact be of some quality, as opposed to “low-effort posting”, which is categorically bad.

At the end of the day, Makin reasonably does not want the channel to be overrun by people who are fine with low-effort posting. After considering it for a while, I find it hard to imagine why anyone would disagree with that principle. You can argue against the notion that “all shitposting is bad” easily, but low-effort posting is an absolute blight that can’t be defended under scrutiny.

With this explanation, which I’ve tried my hardest to make fair, I can now explain why Makin’s behavior rankles with me. Making a “no low-effort posting” mandate would fall under “being selective” and would be completely reasonable, but a blanket ban on shitposting--especially when Makin does it himself--is not fair or reasonable, and thus falls under “gatekeeping”.

To further this, Makin’s process for “allowing” new people into our fold is something of a farce. Under the guise of spurring meaningful conversation, it’s fairly common for him to deny entry to people who haven’t read a “sufficient shill”, typically one of the longer ones like Ever17, HPMOR, WTC, or Worm. $trider is the most recent person to be denied based on this perceived inadequacy, who has read multiple shills but none of the “important ones”, apparently.

My fear, which has more or less already been realized, is that Makin is using this excuse to exclude specific people that he simply doesn’t like. Aforementioned $trider is one such example, where he’s made an earnest attempt to engage appropriately whenever he pops by in mspa-lit and has read a hefty amount of shills already (but, as one might predict, not one of the “sufficient” shills I mentioned). Makin thus discourages him from using mspa-lit and has explicitly said he doesn’t want him using the channel.

To reiterate: discouraging low-effort posting is completely reasonable and a good idea overall, but this has gone beyond that and reached into the territory of discrimination¹⁰. I’ll avoid going into details yet again about why I’m bothered by Makin’s behavior; at this point it should be completely obvious. Our only hope collectively is that he could decide to stop being so mercurial, but I’m definitely not going to hold my breath. Instead, I should take the time to explain another way this all might have been avoided.

In a previous entry I’ve described the culture and mechanics of 4chan at some length, especially their pronounced hostility to outsiders real or perceived (this parallel between the website and Makin is actually really obvious now that I think about it). People who ask for information are immediately torn apart; the common criticism provided in such situations--usually administered implicitly, but sometimes explicitly if the participants happen to feel generous--is to wait and watch conversations on 4chan for a while before actually engaging in them. This can be summed up by the historically famous phrase “lurk moar”.

What I’m suggesting for mspa-lit is something similar. Many people see the place and want to participate because it rightly seems like a place filled with people on good terms discussing anything that fits their fancy. Yet, there are little intricacies to interacting with people there that are difficult to express verbally. Experience is the only way to become familiar with those conversational rules, and unfortunately most people gain that experience the hard way: running the gauntlet, and butting heads with people when our social mores are inevitably violated.

The better way, probably done already by those who are more patient or observant, is to wait and watch for a while. Mistakes, obviously, will still be made even when people try to do this, but it would overall be far less agitating for everyone involved.

Then again, suggesting this advice here is probably pointless--anyone who might care about reading this document is probably already a regular user in mspa-lit and subsequently knows how to behave in the channel. In theory, anyway. For those of you who happen not to fit in that category, please be mindful.

Nothing more for today.

15^th of July

This actually started a few days ago, but Makin unveiled a new extension that he was working on for the Homestuck website. Entitled “Homestuck Companion”, he made it available for Google Chrome and Firefox. It adds some basic but sorely needed functionality to the main website, such as being able to control what page you’re on with the arrow keys (mspfa has had this ability for literal years, and it not being available on homestuck.com has always puzzled me somewhat).

More impressive, however, is that it also takes commentary from the books and adds them in a separate box beneath the actual content of the page. The utility of this is pretty straightforward but not to be understated: the commentary in the books adds a lot to the experience of reading, and offers some wonderful insight into Hussie’s writing (occasionally, anyway. More often it is a source for additional jokes, which are no less desirable).

Naturally, alongside the commentary for Homestuck he’s also included that of Problem Sleuth. As I understand it, Bambosh is physically transcribing the commentary from the book to spreadsheets online, where Makin and I have been organizing it to make sure that all comments are matched with the right pages. It’s been somewhat of a trial at points, but Problem Sleuth is nearing completion and then we’ll essentially be caught up on it until the next Homestuck book comes out.

Makin is opting not to release commentary for the newest book for a while yet, to encourage people to actually buy the physical books first. This seems fair, although vaguely flawed I suppose: the initial hype is indeed worthy of consideration, but regardless of when someone encounters the story, they’re going to want the commentary. Even once the excitement of a new book has passed, readers old and new will want that immediate gratification of additional comments to read and will inevitably turn to the extension. Restricting their access for a matter of months doesn’t strike me as particularly effective, but I guess I don’t care enough to nitpick this minor detail.

Regardless of the long term effects of this, in the short term it’s nice to have something to work on that seems imminently useful. The benefits of adding commentary for viewing online is very obviously helpful, and I’m glad for the opportunity to do something that people will more than likely enjoy. I’ll almost be sad to see it complete, but maybe this will open up the gates for more projects in the future.

In fact, Makin mentioned recently that it seems like content producers are coming back into prominence. This journal is being maintained again, he’s working on his commentary project, and then fanventure creators like Griever and Nights are doubling down on their stories or pursuing more ambitious storytelling goals. It’s an exciting time to be part of the fandom with this flurry of activity. I can only hope that it persists¹¹, or that something even more exciting occurs (dare I say, an official MSPA update of some kind?).

Nothing more for today.

16^th of July

Today was marked by the forced removal of yet another member of our fold. The way it unfolded was so outlandish and stupid that I’m actually having trouble wrapping my mind around it, even several hours later. There were so many ways it could have been stopped before it spiraled out of control, yet we utterly and completely failed in every way. It’s honestly mind boggling how complex the awfulness is.

Sometime in the early afternoon, Makin started posting screenshots from the old MSPA forums. Naturally this piqued the interest of some, and a smattering of people asked where he found the screenshots. Tetra especially was curious, and repeated the question ad nauseum. Makin either ignored or didn’t see these requests, and while most people took the hint and stopped bothering, Tetra started to grow irate.

I want to make something absolutely clear at this point in the explanation: Makin did not start this confrontation and is in no way responsible for how it began¹². I have my own problems with how he handled other parts of this debacle, but it would be extremely unfair to insinuate that he was at fault for beginning the charade. The takeaway from what I’m saying is: Tetra perceived Makin’s lack of response as some sort of targeted malice and used it to launch a tirade against him. While just the initial outburst could have been vaguely understandable, he proceeded to whine about things in a way that was confusing and extremely irritating for an extended period of time.

It honestly grew to the point that everyone involved in the discussion, myself included, was so frustrated with Tetra that we weren’t even bothering to actually interface with him. His arguments were confused at best and completely baseless at worst, and we made no bones about telling him so. At a certain point the conversation had stopped being about discussing the matter and had turned into messing with Tetra for having obviously shitty opinions.

The conversation was thus completely unremarkable at first, but eventually Olki and I realized it had gone too far. We tried to clean it up by freezing the channel and/or tempbanning people who were exacerbating the issue. I also suggested banning Tetra so he could cool down, but Makin removed my ability to stop the channel and promised to undo any bans that we issued, so that we were essentially powerless to stop the conversation (Makin explicitly stated that he wanted the conversation to continue because he found it amusing). In this way, the argument continued to escalate without any control.

Eventually, Tetra became so upset that he made an exceptionally inappropriate comment (“im gonna take 2000 mg of latuda and take the nap of a lifetime”). There was much discussion over the nature of this comment: whether or not it alluded to suicide, if it was genuine or not, etc. Tetra later stated through DMs that it was indeed a joke, although I don’t find that particularly convincing. However, it doesn’t really matter whether it was serious or not; the statement was absolutely inappropriate to make in such a conversation.

At this point Makin finally realized something was wrong and, appropriately, banned Tetra for the perceived threat. This spurred even more discussion about whether it deserved to be a permanent ban or not. I initially argued in favor of a non-permanent ban, but soon afterwards it was discovered that Tetra had no less than two or three alts that he had gone to great lengths to conceal from us; thanks to some anonymous tips, we promptly banned all of the accounts and at that point all good will anyone had for Tetra was effectively gone.

For those who are confused, the Cliff’s Notes version of the events involve a brief summary of who is at fault for what, exactly¹³.

Tetra is arguably the most to blame, and is responsible for: starting the argument in the first place, whining long past its expiration date, and then committing the gravest sin of the discussion with the disastrous comment at the end;

Everyone involved in the discussion, including myself, are at fault for: communicating poorly and even generally egging on Tetra throughout the duration of the conversation;

And Makin is at fault for: specifically removing the ability to halt the conversation and even encouraging it to continue when it should have been stopped, all because he found it “amusing”.

I despise the fact that I have to innumerate these points in such a laborious fashion, but after the conversation was over Makin exhaustively denied any wrongdoing on his part and--perhaps jokingly, perhaps not--suggested that I was simply “pushing an agenda” and using this occasion as fuel.

Following that particular accusation I was very upset, and most of all confused. I wasn’t sure whether I was going crazy with my perceptions, so I decided to speak about it with other witnesses to the event. After being reassured that my conclusions were in fact reasonable, I can’t help but feel I was being gaslighted.

To be clear, I don’t mean to suggest that Makin was doing anything like that, at least not on purpose, but rather I feel he’s literally incapable of taking the blame for things at others’ behest. Unless he has already convinced himself of something, there is practically no way to change his mind on any given matter. It’s a horribly frustrating feature of his person, and one that everyone under him is naturally a victim of; whether this is a true fault of his personality or an extension of his neverending pranks is up to speculation.

Nearly all problems concerning Makin can be reduced to either this insurmountable stubbornness, or his aversion to being held responsible--often enough it is a mix of both, where he does not want to accept consequences regarding his position and actions, and obstinately refuses all suggestions otherwise. The way things stand now, nothing can really be done about this; it is thus that anyone who wishes to remain here follows the principle I outlined in a previous entry: they must necessarily be tolerant enough of his actions to stay despite them, or leave.

Or, to return to the subject at hand, they are expelled¹⁴. A big problem I have with how today ended was how quickly and--most of all--how comprehensively Makin’s attitude changed when it became clear to him that something was actually wrong. Very shortly after Tetra made the suicide comment, he mentioned he was upset about this development because Tetra actually contributed to discussion, meaning it would be a loss of activity. Yet, the very next thing I recall from Makin was complete dismissal.

Logically speaking this turn in opinion makes sense, but it betrays something about Makin’s underlying personality to me. That shift in opinion from “desirable individual” to “undesirable” was too quick and easy for comfort. It suggests a quality of his psyche that is deeply troubling to consider.

To be precise, I worry greatly that Makin purposely avoids developing any sort of meaningful attachments to the people that participate in this group. Whenever someone is banned or leaves, no matter who it is, he manages to rationalize it in some twisted way or find some sort of obtuse reasoning for why it’s inconsequential; sometimes he’ll even remark that it’s a good thing¹⁵. This topic has come up before, but today’s events serve as yet another reminder of a fundamental truth in dealing with Makin: no one here is actually close to him, and at the end of the day everyone here is expendable to him.

He’s said the latter himself, so I don’t know why I fool myself into thinking it might not be the case. I suppose I just find it disappointing in light of all of the time we spend here; I understand that the internet necessarily implies a lesser connection than with people you meet in real life, but it does not completely rob our encounters of all their quality. For me personally, after spending so much time working under him, talking with him, and engaging in such projects together as this writing and the new commentary extension, is it still inappropriate to expect some semblance of friendship to form¹⁶? Or at the very least, some kind of legitimate camaraderie besides none at all?

There is undoubtedly some overreaction on my part to muse on all of this to such lengths. Yet, when I’m forced to consider everything in tandem I’m forced to conclude that it’s simply not possible to trust him in the ways I’m describing. Maybe that’s the conclusion he would prefer everyone to arrive at, but if that’s true then interfacing with him outside of professional contexts is a waste of time and effort.

In the interest of fairness, Tensei brought up a very important point after everything was said and done that helps make more sense of Makin’s reaction. He mentioned that you don’t really want people in the server who are willing to make vague and desperate threats (even if joking), and especially not people who keep multiple alts around.

This is all completely true of course, but in this particular scenario it feels like some sort of hindsight bias. It’s sensible to treat the alt accounts as a separate matter, which Tetra would be banned for alone. However, the entire reason we found out about the alt accounts is because Tetra was banned for making that particular comment, which people are still debating as to whether it merited an actual ban. Further, it was an extremely out of character comment (the first time he’s mentioned anything like this in all the time he’s been here), requiring him to be under great duress.

There’s two things I’m trying to illustrate by laying this all out: first is that this behavior is really unconventional for Tetra, so throwing him under the bus so quickly feels scummy and inhumane; second is that, based on the first point, the way this was handled was exceptionally injust. I’m bothered by how this all turned out because it’s a pretty hefty dismissal of due process, although I guess I shouldn’t be surprised after the incident with rS.

I imagine at least a few of the people reading this are asking, “Who gives a shit about due process? It’s just an internet chatroom, it’s not a federal court case.” To that, all I can say is: I don’t know, I guess I care, even if no one else does. Going back to what I said about becoming friends with other people, this all just sort of underscores how quickly the people in this channel are willing to turn on each other when things are amiss. If we can’t trust the people we like and care about to be fair when things go badly, why should we bother investing time or effort into all of this nonsense?

Sure, Tetra deserved some kind of punishment, and the alts demonstrate that he shouldn’t really be allowed here. Is the way we got to that conclusion fair? After considering it for a while, all I can think is “No, absolutely not.” The discussion should have been halted somehow before it got to the point where an established regular--who even in previous outbursts had no real history of making such outrageous comments--got to the point where he felt he had to act out. It’s akin to blaming a schoolkid for imploding when the teachers start jeering alongside the actual bully.

It’s not like we haven’t banned Tetra temporarily in the past so he could calm down before proceeding with talking to him anyway, that was practically standard procedure. To me, the more disturbing part of all this is how casually Makin accepted this outcome. To use an admittedly ingracious analogy it’s like he considers us all his playthings, and when one of us doesn’t act exactly the way he wants he doesn’t think much more of it than throwing a broken toy in the garbage.

I’ve spent too much time hashing this out¹⁷. The overall point is that the way things were handled with Tetra is an utter disappointment, and now that it’s over it can never be undone. Through our collective carelessness we ousted someone who otherwise might have been just fine with some more care (discounting the alts, obviously). For most it seems this is all fine for now, when people generally dislike who got the short end of the stick. However, what if this happens again and the person on the chopping block isn’t so easy to rationalize as a simple shitter?

To be honest, I’m not sure why I’m trying so hard to explore this issue. Writing this entry is almost surely going to bring trouble my way (just thinking about people complaining over this entry has already given me an enormous headache). To make it worse, all of this writing has been for the sake of a person that most people were ambivalent about at best. I’m sure a large number of people reading this must be confused as to why I’m raking myself over the coals so thoroughly for such a seemingly minor occurrence. I’m almost starting to wonder that myself, but in the end I just can’t be okay with how things were handled.

The only comfort I can really take from today is that Minish has decided to come back. We lost a regular but regained an old (and, if you’ll pardon the confusing turnabout, better quality) one instead. If this was all some sort of cosmic joke then I guess, in the end, it was funny enough. I’m not about to complain about having Minish back, he was sorely missed by many and it’ll be nice to have his eager commentary once again.

Nothing more for today.

18^th of July

There was a discussion early this morning about the #science-math and #coding-tech channels. I can’t quite remember how it started, but we were drawing comparisons between all of the main channels in the server. #coding-tech and #science-math serve fairly similar purposes, although there is a pronounced bias concerning when a related topic actually gets moved to the designated channel.

Before when it was only #coding-tech, we were perfectly content to have math and science discussions in mspa-lit. This was more or less reasonable, although there was no real qualification for why such discussions went there apart from “most of us are into that kind of shit”. At some point, it became evident that the math-related discussions that Putnam, Nat, and a few others were having were overwhelming the channel at times. Thus, #science-math was created as a containment channel for their dense conversations.

I don’t typically stray into #coding-tech or #science-math, and whenever I do the channels appear completely dead. After doing a quick comparison I found that #science-math only has about 11,000 messages total while #coding-tech has nearly 200,000. When I brought this up, Tera and Nights were quick to check me, explaining that #coding-tech has been around many months longer than #science-math.

I was suggesting that mspa-lit subsume math and science conversation back into itself because of channel clutter. However, between the justification for keeping it around from Nights and Tera, and Makin’s own denial (phrased simply as “cry more Drew”), nothing was changed. This kicked off some brief conversation about other, similar channels that could be compared; the most obvious example was #western- and #eastern-media, which surprisingly have both seen almost 100,000 messages since being made. Last time they were split it was disastrous, but perhaps this particular branding is more conducive.

More interesting to me, personally, was the following conversation. The Discord search function is good enough for basic purposes, but it lacks resolution in a lot of ways. Hours later, after I had gone to sleep and completely forgotten about my request, Difarem and Cerulean both got involved in the discussion at some point and were conferring with each other about how to present this data to the rest of us. The statistics are more or less available, they just needed to find ways to give it to us.

Which, eventually, they did. Difarem provided two different graphs, with the activity for #science-math and #coding-tech and how they compare over time. It was really nice to see the more in-depth data for each channel--it would be possible to obtain the information manually, but tedious. Difarem and Ceru made it a far easier prospect with their work, which is exciting to me.

I asked if we could run statistics on server activity for each channel going back to the server’s creation, which would have been a far more demanding request. The details are starting to grow fuzzy in my mind; if I recall, Difarem stated it was definitely possible but outside of the realm of his capabilities right now. This is completely reasonable, but the fact that the option is available at all still great. I wonder what patterns in user activity exist over the two years this server has been around? I’m sure some are obvious, like an increase during the summer and decrease in winter, but there are probably many others that are less clear. I’m eager for the opportunity to learn more about this.

Maybe I do have a problem; who else on earth reasonably cares about any of this nonsense? It might be a good time to reevaluate my priorities, or something. As it is, nothing more for today.

19^th of July

Today during the afternoon, a new user named VerdeLuna came in and quickly made their way over to mspa-lit, asking about “literature” in general. This immediately set off alarms in peoples’ heads, especially Revlar and Nights. They conferred for a bit, and as time went by almost everyone present in the channel caught on. Tmtm was initially resistant and chose to err on the side of caution, but with some well-timed baiting it became evident beyond a shadow of a doubt that VerdeLuna was another Tetra alt.

I’m really afraid of the possibility that we now have another user that’ll habitually create alts to try and steal their way back onto the server. The NEO situation itself, while quiet for some time now, was a monstrous headache when it wasn’t just annoying. Obviously in a server of this size it’s hard to avoid the odd user who will become like this, but it’s categorically undesirable for plain reasons. I guess the realistic solution is not to worry that much about it, because there’s not a really effective way to stop it permanently.

I’m more personally embarrassed about this because of everything I wrote on the 16th of this month. I went to such great lengths to speak up for due process and in the end all I’ve got to show for it is someone who is clearly not suited for our community, abusing the system because things didn’t turn out the way they wanted¹⁸.

Like I said before, perhaps this is all a clear sign that I need to stop caring so much. All of my grumbling and posturing about “doing the right thing” seems more and more wasted with each passing incident like this. Or, more likely, perhaps I just need to reevaluate which incidents I fight over and which I don’t--choose my battles more wisely, I suppose. It may be hindsight bias, but in retrospect this was all doomed to be a waste of my time--that doesn’t really rob other, actually valid problems of their significance. Just gotta be smarter about it in the future.

Somehow, it wasn’t all bad tonight either. The VerdeLuna alt, once effectively outed, proved to be something of a source of entertainment for us. Revlar knew almost from the get go but was being decidedly unsubtle about the entire affair, which opened him up to a lot of fire from people like Tmtm. When he was vindicated, it turned into something of a circus--aside from the fact that we have a clearly inscrutable person perpetrating this farce, it was honestly a pretty jovial occasion.

I also took the time to reveal to the mod team (and to those reading this in the future) that I created an alt some months ago by the name of Amicus¹⁹ and used it to conduct a small experiment. I wanted to see if it was easy or difficult to avoid detection, although I told Tera about it at the time (I didn’t want to be a complete unknown; this would have tipped the scale from simple, cheeky shenanigans to something a tad more sinister).

In light of this business with Tetra, I decided it would be worthwhile to bust out the alternate account once more before getting rid of the account for good. I was amused when people naturally picked up on it, ascribing it to yet another Tetra alt. However, while this was occurring and especially while writing it down, I realize that this is all rather inappropriate. Tetra probably feeds off of this attention, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s influencing him to keep coming back.

No, I think that this will be the end of my discussing the matter. I already put out something of a moratorium on the subject in the HSD proper--people are to report to the mods immediately if they notice any strange activity, and not draw attention to it. Further, this is the last I will ever mention Tetra barring some sort of extraordinary circumstance. I don’t want to encourage him to obsess over us, trying to get noticed and validate his efforts. If he’s to come back it’ll be on our terms, but otherwise it’s time to move on with his life and forget about us.

I worry how difficult that must be. I certainly can’t imagine having to suddenly abandon this place at this time. Yet, it’s a reality that we must all face someday. Maybe it’ll be easier once the time actually comes, with no other recourse available to us, but it is still an exceedingly unpleasant thing to think about for now. Hopefully the time where it will come to bear is still far away.

Nothing more for today.

20^th of July

After the last week of on-and-off disappointments, today was a much needed respite. It is, in the American dating system, 7/20. This corresponds to arguably one of the most famous memes of our cohort, being Michael Bowman’s Credit Score video.

I’ve mentioned before that Bowman and Stutzman have a series of humorous videos on Bowman’s Youtube channel, but this one video practically dwarfs the others in terms of notoriety. In a parody of credit score checking services, Bowman repeatedly, laboriously says variations for ten minutes of the phrase “I’m thinking of a number between my buttocks. Do you know what it is? It’s my credit score, and it happens to be 720. The higher my credit score, the better chance I have at saving a lot of money.” The video itself has had an immeasurable influence on his popularity in our group.

Any song from CANMT that references Bowman will undoubtedly feature audio taken from this video, and there are a few emotes on the HSD that are kept in honor of it. This popularity is why Makin decided to host a community stream today (also serving as a decent break in the lull between the 12th of June and the 25th of October). All things considered, it was a well-timed event.

I state this more for record-keeping purposes than anything else, but we ended up watching Ready Player One and The Fifth Element. The former was decidedly lesser in quality, but was suited for a streaming environment where lots of excitement can be generated quickly (although some scenes were cliche enough that I could see some people being turned off from it). The latter was a better film in and of itself, but was not as easy for a large audience to engage in. This is, interestingly, in keeping with The Fifth Element’s history--upon release it was massively polarizing among both critics and general audiences, although the weirdness of it helped in this particular scenario.

After the movies were done came the real meat of the event in the form of a new CANMT album. Simply titled “Homestuck Vol 11”, it was an enormous success; the songs were all actually good music, very funny, or both. The progression of the stream itself contributed to the experience, even: one of the songs was clearly labeled “Unfinished… DO NOT PUBLISH”, which a number of streamgoers were quick to point out. Yet, upon closer inspection, the track art itself was also an unfinished variant! It was so fitting that they decided to go ahead and release it all anyway, and what was there of the song was quality.

I don’t think there was a single unenjoyable part to the entire album, really. I’ve described the old and gold meme The Baby is You in a previous entry, and one of the songs on Vol 11 is intended as a sequel. Much like the original, it is a monstrous, hilarious track that was the result of many combined talents and hard work: Griever wrote the script, Tipsy, Mines, Ost, and a couple others from CANMT voice acted, and the overall result is a stunning display of the creative talents that the community has to offer.

The reception from those who developed the album and those who attended the stream has been very positive: it may not quite be the best CANMT has ever had, but it was still phenomenal (Mines: “honestly best canmt album now that I've listened to it”; Ost:“i dont know if its the best”; Difarem: “yeah it honestly cant compare to gunshow singalong”). The Baby is 2 in particular is almost guaranteed to go down as an instant classic, to us even if no one else.

Vol 11 has kind of illustrated to me how far CANMT has come as an organization. While much younger than LOFAM, CANMT has already solidified itself as nothing short of a musical institution for us. They serve different purposes (the former being devoted to more serious music while the latter is far more lighthearted), and CANMT in particular is visibly active to the point that I’m astonished by their collective energy and creativity. These two groups can be easily counted among the best things to come out of the Homestuck fandom, both through their determination and their quality. I speak for more than just myself when I say we look forward to what the future brings for them.

It would be remiss of me not to comment on how Makin constantly and horrendously fucked up the project as it went²⁰, by annoying the living shit out of the contributors and generally harassing them. Except, that isn’t really true; Makin did in fact pester the contributors significantly, but on the whole it was a rather positive influence. Three people mentioned to me alone that they wouldn’t have finished their longer contributions without him constantly hounding them to get to work.

Mines mentioned: “the funniest part was how pissed he was when it took cookie like a week and a half to finish the last 30 seconds of his 1 minute song / especially when cookie was like ‘I'll finish really soon dw’ the entire time”. This is in conjunction with his roles on LOFAM and CANMT, the commentary project, and even just me writing this document in general. I don’t condone him doing this if he’s not actually on the given project, but otherwise he’s not so bad at holding the whip.

This revelation also lends itself to an unfortunate truth of content production on the internet. For every successfully completed project there are undoubtedly a hundred thousand more that are begun, but never finished. There is no shortage of creative individuals who want to leave a piece of themselves out there for the world to see, but there are far fewer with the gumption to actually complete their work. In a scenario like that, someone with Makin’s personage is ideal.

To be clear, and to get in my quota of bad-mouthing Makin (I can already picture him typing “Cry more!” as he reads this), I do not think that the behavior I’m describing is well suited for dealing with people on a more casual basis. Makin is a callous individual who cares little for personal plights and excuses--if anything, such things will only make him mock you more for the trouble. However, in the attitude of a cruel drill sergeant or an especially annoying boss, there is nothing quite so good a motivator as a superior you love to hate and prove wrong. I have to give Makin credit for these things: he’s good at being a shithead, and he’s damn good at making people carry through with their ambitions.

Nothing more for today.

31^st of July

There was an extremely dense set of discourse over the term “trap” again. I described the term at length the last time this was an issue, so I’ll avoid the protracted explanation this time around. I can think of few other terms that have generated quite this much discussion, positive or negative. It was not easy getting to the meat of it either--there were a lot of people clamoring for the conversation to die before it could even begin (understandably, in retrospect), and then once we seemed to finally be getting there it was haltering and bad faith.

It amazes me to say it in hindsight, but that conversation lasted for nearly three hours. I played no small part in trying to promote the topic, under the guise of promoting better understanding between people. I’m worried that all it actually succeeded in doing was increasing tensions unnecessarily and not actually accomplishing anything of value. I might even have made negative progress in this regard. Suffice it to say that the proceedings were overall fairly disappointing.

If it were a simple matter of disagreement then I wouldn’t care about the lack of understanding--this is hardly an uncommon outcome to our discussions. However, when it comes to subject material that’s this contentious, it’s not just a matter of scholarly debate. Tera has repeatedly affirmed both in the past and concurrently that even seeing the term makes it upset. On a logical level I would imagine that discomfort is worth exploring, to try and help it become more at ease with just encountering the term, let alone discussing it. But on a more empathetic basis, is that the right thing to do?

Of course, part of the problem is that I get caught up in these deliberations so much that I end up failing to do much of anything (a habit that gets me called wishy-washy by Makin and others, among far less gracious terms). Yet, it’s more effective than the outright harmful practices that they might put in, so I can take comfort in that at least. Maybe one of these days I’ll find the motivation to actually define a solid set of moral rules instead of simply disagreeing with the shitty ones I see.

Outside of this debacle, it would be remiss of me not to cover the latest work of entertainment to take mspa-lit by storm. La-Mulana is a Japanese indie game in the style of classic puzzle-exploration-adventure games. Infamous for its extreme difficulty and complicated puzzles, the creators opened up a crowdfunding effort to create a sequel back in January 2014 and were successful. Four years and some change later, the Kickstarter has been consummated and the sequel released successfully.

Makin and Tensei are both enormous fans of the original due to the puzzle element. Perhaps as one might predict, they’ve been cavorting on 4chan’s video game board /v/, where daily threads on the new game show up. Most of the people in the 4chan threads have been loosely cooperating to try and finish the game as quickly as possible, which sounds like a truly fascinating experience.

Unfortunately, they’ve also been talking about La-Mulana 2 extensively on the HSD as well--some would say they’ve been doing this excessively. For something like three days now, they’ve posted about nothing except for La-Mulana 2 from the time they get on to the time they log off. I would complain more viciously about this except that most people present have gotten used to it by now and simply talk around them.

Others, though, have taken to the topic themselves. Difarem (now going by DeltaPsi), Toast, and Minish have all started playing the original themselves. Others like tmtml30 have expressed their interest, although I can’t say they intend to actually play it any time soon. I own the game but tried playing it some months ago while I was still streaming for friends on the HSD, and I didn’t enjoy the puzzle format²¹ nearly as much as would be required to get anywhere; suitably, people like myself are starting to get just a little tired of seeing it posted so much.

Aside from this, later in the day there was something of an altercation in mod chat between me and Toast. It stemmed from Toast posting a screenshot or complaining verbally about Olki keymashing gratuitously in #hangout, asking for us to implement a strict “no keymashing” rule. It’s actually vaguely interesting that he brought up the concept of keymashing, as we’ve seen its use gradually increase over the last few months.

Phrasing it like that feels a tad misleading, because at any given time there are only a select few people who legitimately keymash on a regular basis. Nights is one such culprit, as well as Sozzay and a handful of others. In these cases, keymashing practically becomes part of their vocabulary or verbiage. In the hands of most it is a completely generic and unhelpful contribution to the discussion, yet they tend to use it in such styled or specific manners that it has become a recognizable speaking pattern. The problem is when people engage in it excessively (a truth that could be said for most activities).

On a surface level, a ban on keymashing might make sense because it’s visibly and obviously unintelligible. Toast’s suggestion could be considered perfectly reasonable, but after thinking about it for some time I denied it. Altgen rules seem applicable here: rather than blanketbanning the activity, it would be more prudent to simply warn or punish people for doing it too much. Thankfully, most of the other mods present agreed with this outcome.

Unfortunately, this kicked off the more heated discussion between Toast and I. Toast was trying to assert that pseudo mods should have the ability to ban each other without limit. Pseudo mods, of course, have the power to ban each other within their own channels (the example that got passed around for the duration of the discussion was: “WoC can ban Toast in #gaming because that’s WoC’s channel, but can Toast ban Olki in #hangout even though it’s Olki’s channel?”). To my dismay, the dispute quickly grew.

Toast insisted that he should be able to ban pseudos in their own channels if they’re breaking the rules, which I vehemently disagreed with. After some back and forth for half an hour or so, Makin finally witnessed the discussion and gave his stereotypically unhelpful input: “woc decides”. I was flabbergasted at this as usual but he was completely immovable, only repeating that and “can’t block the woc” multiple times. He eventually went to bed and I abandoned the conversation to wait for WoC’s opinion, even though there was no reason for accepting his word in particular on the matter.

When WoC finally did arrive, he gave the answer I did but also provided solid reasoning as to why. There’s a hierarchy to modship on the server: pseudos have power in their respective channels but on a base level they’re equal to each other. They deal with threats principally in their own channels, or rarely in other channels if there’s an emergency like a raid or other situation that requires immediate attention (or if the native pseudo specifically requests help or is noticeably absent).

Banning a foreign pseudo in their own channel makes complete sense since their power would be greater there, and there’s less expectation for the foreign pseudo to behave properly (although that expectation is still more present than for non mods). However, if it gets to the point where a pseudo needs to be banned from their own channel, (Toast’s suggesting Olki keymashing in #hangout as such an occasion), then that’s indicative of a far more serious problem that the mods themselves need to address.

Toast seemed at least vaguely peeved by this assessment and quickly absconded from the conversation. I have to admit my frustration that he was pushing so hard on the topic, but I hope he’s not upset about it or anything. It feels like things have been a little more tense than usual here, and I’m not eager to exacerbate any tensions that might linger. Perhaps I need to be redouble my efforts to stay on top of things here.

Nothing more for today.

Several People Are Typing