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On Current Events and Cancel Culture

Hello All.

Apologies in advance for the length of this post. The subject got away with me a bit. Yeah, yeah here we go again. Another controversial news post by Kizz. This one is important.

With all communities making a statement of sorts over the last few months, I’ve wondered if I should post one for quite some time. I eventually decided to make this statement, prompted by seeing so many people I know (from Markiplier, to Ben and Jerry’s, to MatPat, to Jonochrome, to JackSepticEye etc.) all making similar statements on the state of the world and our communities. I feel, we should too. But not for reasons that some may expect.

The world is being turned upside-down right now, torn between a viral outbreak and mass protesting/riots. These issues seem to be spreading to each corner of every community, be it the largest subreddits to the smallest knitting circles. Seeing everyone go over everything, I feel we should make a statement in return on FNaFLore.com, and our position concerning such events. There was also a specific video released that I am using this opportunity to directly respond to, while in turn emphasising the dangers of cancel culture with a story relating to that video.

I shall start with a FNaFLore moderation joint statement. This statement has been approved by all moderators of FNaFlore’s Discord community. The rest of the article is written solely by myself.

FNaFLore Discord Moderator Joint Statement

As recent events have rocked the world, we at FNaFLore.com wish to make a statement. As with almost everyone, we condemn what appears to be the murder of George Floyd, and look to the legal system in hopes that justice will be served, and would most certainly call for more police reform, particularly in the field of de-escalation training and community outreach. Unfortunately, with his death, a trove of both censorship issues and lawlessness have become more prominent in the global conversation. As such, we wish to iterate our stance on conduct on our server. We at FNaFLore.com have always dedicated ourselves to free speech. Obviously bound by ToS of our respective platforms, we believe more speech is always better than less speech. People should be free to speak their mind, and do so without persecution. We also believe persecution of anyone due to their political opinions, party allegiances or inherent physical characteristics is utterly abhorrent, and that malicious personal attacks are not to be tolerated. We all have political opinions, but each one of us subscribe to the principle that we cannot allow our politics to guide our hand when it comes to moderation. Moderation is a necessary evil in order to ensure some level of standards and order can be upheld. Beyond Discord TOS, we only uphold the rules we have in place, and can each propose changes through a vote at any time. This ensures you are fully informed whenever punitive action is taken. Further, we’ve noticed a large conflation of critique and attack over the past few years. FNaFLore.com does not permit personal attacks, which can include name-calling, degradation of yourself or loved ones, doxxing or other actions that have measurable harm. However, we at FNaFLore.com shall not shut down critique. Critique is necessary for civilisation to progress. Without critique, we cannot possibly grow or change our opinions. FNaFLore.com is committed to being a politically neutral space. While we do not tolerate racism or similar personal attacks against specific characteristics of others, we are inclusive of all viewpoints, be they conservative, liberal, progressive or traditionalist. All are welcome to speak their mind in our server.

Personal Statements on Current Events and Censorship

For the sake of my Discord team, I want you to yet again know this is where the joint nature of our statements end. From here, this is all me, riffing on an article I feel I must make for both my own sake, and to try to help others. It is hard to know where to start for myself. I suppose I’ll start with the topic at hand.

Over and over again, I see people blanket supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. I question it. Even those in the Black Lives Matter movement lament that members of Antifa have used their movement’s legitimacy to spread chaos, and many have stepped down as a result. Such members do this on purpose. It is a tactic to dress as a more legitimate organisation.

Some people wonder how anyone could be against Black Lives Matter. What is not explored is what the movement is, and how it is far more nuanced than being for or against the movement as a whole. To understand this, one must understand there are three aspects of Black Lives Matter, and your support for one aspect does not mandate support for another.

The first aspect is the phrase itself. Of course black lives matter, as do white, jewish, gay, elderly, whatever other colours or words. For me, even words like communist, fascist and insect must be included, because at the end of the day, life itself is inherently precious. You can disagree with someone, and perhaps try to persuade them to your side. But just because you disagree with someone, or even hate someone’s worldview does not make their life matter less. Even with insects, I try to do no harm. I will move mountains to attempt to remove woodlouse, spiders and bees from within our house without killing them.

So yes, black lives do matter, fully agree. But we must recognise this is not mutually exclusive of any other “X lives matter” slogan. For me, I much prefer the slogan of “Each Life Matters”, which I feel is of a far more individualist ideology which also applies to each individual case of life.

The second aspect is the original group of people, the organisation. The people whom want police reform. This is also something I support, the people behind the slogan whom want police reform and accountability. 100%, support them all the way. It is a hard fight, but it is a worthy one.

One such issue that has to be brought up, is I feel their focus is somewhat misguided if the effort is to preserve black lives. Historically, black-on-black death has been very, very high, and the police do not factor into this. What actually needs to be addressed, in my opinion, is fatherlessness. You look to most young offenders of either race – even school shooters – and the pattern is always the same. Fatherlessness or divorce. I feel strongly that has to be where the main focus is, because that will help so much with the majority of black deaths. But that is a topic not for this article.

The third aspect is one that crosses the line. The aspect that has infected much of our spaces, and has rooted itself in the Black Lives Matter movement, as if wearing it like a skin-suit. The political ideology of Intersectionality. This isn’t just my view, many in the actual Black Lives Matter organisation feel that too and have dropped out because this aspect is what many find unpalatable. This is the aspect that seeks to rip down statues, erase our past and burn books, because it somehow makes us unequal. For anyone whom believes in freedom – not just of speech, but genuine liberty – this is where the line is drawn.

It is the agenda that calls for police not to be reformed, but disbanded. That demands perfectly equal hiring not based on skill and merit, but based on race, sexuality and so on. It is an inherently racist and divisive worldview that sees people not as individuals, but as uniform blocks that must be arranged in a perfect order and played against each other for the good of progress. These calls will lead to a total breakdown of law and order. Say the police get defunded, the richer classes will just hire private security, and then what? We have the lower classes defenceless, and nothing changes for the established order. Want to take out private security too? Who do you expect will enforce that law? The police?

This is without mentioning the amount of black death and torment that this ideology has enabled since coming into play. A black man whom died protecting his friend’s pawn shop. A black man whose entire business got destroyed before he could even open it. Two black teens, shot for joyriding around the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone – one died. An 8 year old girl, shot dead outside of a Wendys.

David Dorn (77) KB Balla Horace Lorenzo Anderson (19) Secoriea Turner (8) Killed while defending his friend’s shop Lost his entire business to looters Shot dead while driving around the CHAZ Shot dead while her parents tried to park at a Wendys Fundly Link GoFundMe Link GoFundMe Link GoFundMe Link

These are all actions taken by those whom declare themselves “Black Lives Matter”, and this is but a fraction. There are so many more stories. It is disgusting, and so blatant that these people have hijacked the movement. Everyone agreed from day 1, the police need to change, George Floyd should not have died. But how many black deaths will it take to overturn the anger George’s death incited? When do these innocent people get their outrage? How many more children does the intersectional ideology need to send to the morgue until people realise these people don’t care for the cause they are parroting?

This ideology is one that has to be opposed. It is wearing the BLM movement as a mask. It does not care for black lives, it cares only for power and the destruction of modern civilisation, to be replaced by whatever the hell CHAZ was meant to be. I support both the phrase and original group of activists, but this new ideology is something that cannot be allowed to fester. Which brings us to:

On Censorship

With global events escalating, we’re seeing mass censorship on unimaginable scales. People nowadays have to be so careful, treading eggshells wherever they go, which is something I oppose greatly.

Our server has had battles for the integrity of our ruleset before. When discussions of Transgenderism and MOGAI (Marginalized Orientations Genders And Intersex) genders arose, there was a big amount of pressure to curb such conversation. We resisted based on our own principles, only relenting on a misgendering rule. Conversation is vital for society to grow and evolve. It is getting to the point where one cannot critique some classes and groups in any capacity.

Take as an example, the LGBT community. on the Freddit discord, they were discussing Pride Month. I am gay, and wanted to contribute in a slightly different tone. My opinion of the Pride Parades are that of embarrassment, and in some cases, disgust. I’m very much a gay whom wants a husband, some kids, the kinda domestic bliss scenario. A rare breed, or so I am led to believe. I despise how sexualised Pride events have become. In a recent Irish LGBT march, they literally had someone called “Mr Leather” marching down the street, with 5 men in dog-head “pup” BDSM gear crawling in front of him, on a pack-leash he was holding. This, right in front of some children behind him. What could those kids possibly be learning here? The depravity of some – not all – elements of pride parades fills me with great frustration. During Pride Month, I wished to share my frustration.

I waded in and made my view known, but was shunned for it. I asked the moderators, are you even allowed to discuss the negative aspects of LGBT culture, or are you only allowed to speak positively? They said the latter. That the community is not mature enough to discuss such topics in a negative light. Yet, it is mature enough to discuss it positively. The mind boggles at this. How can such critique ever be had, if we are only to talk positively about such topics?

My larger point is, speech itself has to be protected. No-one will get killed because of a dissenting opinion. Look throughout history at those whom would silence others and burn books. Not one of those tyrants were the “good guys”. To silence an opinion shows you are afraid of that opinion, and do not hold the moral character to fight against it. It troubles me greatly that this is the stage that global politics and discourse has reached. Good ideas don’t need their opposition to be silenced, they are simply better. Anyone trying to silence speech is doing so because their side is weaker.

In our Discord, people can critique whatever they wish. So long as they are not personally insulting other people, we have no issues with dialogue. This applies to any group or ideology being discussed. Critique is good, it is what helps to solidify our respective culture’s values around a topic.

But the current levels of censorship has given way to the penultimate and inevitable reality of:

On Cancel Culture

This is frankly the main thrust for this article I am writing. Cancel culture is prevalent in today’s day and age, and it is doing measurable harm. I myself have tried to be the change I want to see, stopping it wherever I can. I do so because I am a community figure and authority, as much as many may scoff at that notion. I run a place wherein several people rely on our leadership to maintain order of an online public square. So, whenever I hear of a troubling event, I dig deep into that event. Sadly, being this kind of moderator, I have since been a subject to cancel culture itself from those who relay such false allegations.

Cancel Culture is essentially the means by which people are removed from a community or job permanently, without chance to return, or with heavy scorn and prejudice. Often, these people are hounded from place to place, ensuring no ability to ever rejoin the community/workplace. This is why we at FNaFLore have cultivated our rules so that no matter what, you will be permitted to return. Because to permanently mark someone as irredeemable is immoral.

In the wider world, this culture is far more used on the left, to an alarming degree. It started with Gamergate. If you believed the issue revolved around ethics in journalism like the sadly departed TotalBiscuit, you were deemed to be sexist, or assisting sexism. Over time, it turned to attacking those whom defended traditional depictions in comic books. At present, we are at a point where the most beloved modern UK Writer, JK Rowling, is being cancelled by her fans over personal opinions on female spaces. Cancelled, even by Harry Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe, despite all she did to launch his career.

Cancel culture is moronic, and if you are any part in perpetuating it, you are point-blank stupid. There is no end to the madness, it always seems to trigger a “purity spiral”, in which there is a competition to see whom is the most progressive. Out go all those with the weakest convictions. But then, as the spiralling intensifies like a tornado, it starts to spit out those with pretty reasonable doubts, or a couple of disagreements. Then go those whom question it at all, until the people maintaining the outrage cannot maintain the intensity of the purity spiral and they are forced to stop.

We are at a point where people (like myself) whom are fully supportive of free/government-run healthcare, gay marriage, transgender people, police reform and freedom of speech, are being slandered as far right because they don’t fit a specific set of ideological views. This because despite sharing 99% of ideology, there are one or two aspects of their belief structure that do not fit with the overall movement’s ideology. This is a call to cancel anyone without a specific exacting ideology, it is pure insanity, particularly as the angry mob tend to demand lifetime retribution for what is typically an issue of personal opinion. It is insane to demand everyone shares your precise views on all topics.

It has also become genuinely detrimental to some people in the community. We are at a point where transgender people are being denied allies because some self-righteous fanatics claim those whom do not support infinite gender identities are transphobic, a wholly unrelated topic to the critique. Yet here we are, and that argument has been used against me specifically from within this community, as well as many others. Transgender people are some of the bravest people I know, and quite sadly, are the ones most at risk of suicide. To attach onto that the cause of almost gender identity is to leech legitimacy from scientifically proven realities, in order to force your own woo-woo through without any sort of pushback. Like using the transgender community as large riot shields trying to sprint across the finish line. Still, I shall return to the main point before we stray too much further from the path.

Cancel culture takes many forms in the FNaF community. I have seen people spread vile lies about users in the hope to make them outcasts, I have seen users trying to force moderators to ban a specific person for personal/political reasons, or those moderators doing so of their own free will. More often than not, it is because the person targetted has had a falling out with a malicious actor, hold political views that are deemed immoral by said actor, or they have been accused of something that is deemed inexcusable, and everyone is too afraid or uninterested to try to dig into the issue.

I recall a prominent moment in which the community came together to cancel a newly-minted Freddit mod whom talked about their attraction to Springtrap, and shipped Scott/Dawko. I won’t deny, I did make some funny comments on the Springtrap attraction. I mean, why not Spring Bonnie? Why do you need a corpse in there?! But let us be clear, either one of those positions they took are acceptable as a personal opinion, and does not interfere with their own conduct, even if I can’t understand why they hold them. I know the second accusation RE Dawko/Scott is a bit out there. To be shipped by someone is rather strange, especially if age is a factor of the ship. But hey, many in the community ship community leaders together, the infamous one being Septiplier. I for one have personally shipped Kane/Phil in the past as an old married couple. Shame that ship was sunk. But I digress. Some people do shipping, big shocker. It has happened since the dawn of fanfiction.

Some would point to me and say “But what about Basetown?”. With Basetown, there was measurable bad moderation behaviour pulled from a variety of reasoning, including being completely absent during the MemeMachine attacks and notable inactivity. Freddit mods literally wished for him to step down, and all polls said users wanted the same thing too. When he did? No-one chased him further out. It was purely about Freddit’s functionality. Some were displeased – myself included – that he was still there, but it was acceptable, and not pressed further. He was not cancelled, he just stepped down to become a normal mod. That was good enough.

To take a small detour and shortly round back to the Cancel Culture topic, what primarily pushed me to make this article was what I viewed to be an excessively hypocritical video from someone whom I deemed to once be a good associate, Jonochrome.

I will preface this by stating I do not wish for readers to take any actions on my behalf. But this situation makes for a good example, and one of the most recent attempts to cancel me which has floundered in all aspects, bar this one.

For full disclosure, I have had several largely favourable talks with Jonochrome over the years, ranging from general life to discussions on certain similarities we share. Furthermore, in order to bring you the ONaF section, I have exchanged $100 total for his illustration services – $20 per image. This was the highest of his price range, and I chose it because I respect him greatly and appreciated his work. This was for the BBB/Kevin Jr, Redman, Grunkfuss, Champ/Chump and Beaver illustrations respectively. It was a cost I was willing to make, similarly made with the other artists whom completed the work, and it is an expense still do not regret. It was both for the good of the community to get specifically the missing Champ/Chump/Mummy Beaver images, but also, I was happy to support a fantastic fandom and a creator I honestly admired.

The final work was astonishingly good, and I am still very happy to have supported him by having these images made. Regardless, this is just to illustrate that we knew each other and were at least friendly, with a small understanding of each other’s general mindset. We had talked on the level of casual emojis, and talking of our own personal shared experiences.

He released the video above, and I made this comment on the video:

Happy Birthday Jono. I for one 100% agree with the sentiments. I encourage people to discuss issues of racism and transgender rights, and fully support those whom wish to transition from male to female, or in the reverse. I too feel, you should always seek someone’s viewpoint. It is why, whenever I hear of something wrong with someone, I investigate it. I don’t take someone’s word blindly, I hunt down the evidence of wrongdoing, talk to them directly to understand their position and give them a chance to speak for/defend themselves, try to find any missing context and see if any allegations make sense, given their personality and disposition. People are so quick nowadays to block everyone out on the flimsiest of evidence, or based on a single person’s word. We no longer see each other as people, but as factions, which is simply amplifying the divide by blocking out the “other side”. Things are never so black and white, and today’s society misses that entirely, instead demanding you fit on one side or another of each issue, often based on a plethora of opinions that aren’t mutually exclusive. We’ve lost sight of seeing people as individuals, and lost sight that the best weapon to combat racism, transphobia and so on is actual conversation. It is why people like Daryl Davis are truly inspirations to us all, crossing that divide to try to close it completely. No need to censor, just using words to understand and to be understood. It is because of stories like his that I always try to reach out to understand others on either side of the political divide, and try to help others understand both myself and their opponents. As Daryl says, “ignorance breeds fear. If you don’t keep that fear in check, that fear will breed hatred. If you don’t keep hatred in check, it will breed destruction”. Regardless, I sincerely hope you have a good birthday in whichever way you are able to do so during these crazy lockdown days.

It was, in some ways, a bit of a callout. I emphasised, and will emphasise further, the use of listening, researching and gaining other’s perspectives, words Jonochrome used in his own video. But I then found out I was banned from commenting on the video. I could see the comment, but no-one else could.

So to illustrate my issue with cancel culture, I shall tell you a story which will in turn amplify this comment’s reach. A FNaFLore Fable on why you should always take any attempt at cancel culture seriously, and why even the slightest piece of slander must be neutralised. If it is not, it could fracture your relationships with people you respect, be it family, friends or even professional acquaintances. It is a plea to those whom do not follow Jonochrome’s advice to listen, research and gather perspectives. Including Jonochrome himself.

Case Study: FNaFLore and Jonochrome

A long time ago, the FNaFLore.com Discord server had a NSFW room. It was one of the default rooms to make, is how I viewed it. You got general, fan content, memes, voice and NSFW, utilising the NSFW room functions. Over time, some of our team didn’t feel comfortable moderating this room, and so by a simple vote, we removed the NSFW room in favour of a separate NSFW server, which would be moderated by other mods. This worked well for some time.

Fast forward, and we find out a minor had got into the server. We had discussed Discord TOS before, and even got a reply from Discord itself about enforcing them. We were told it is on Discord to enforce TOS violations, which we also verified via Reddit. Ok, good to know, we thought. so the NSFW age gate will serve as its own precaution, just like 99.99% of all adult sites. When we found out the minor was in the chat, though we “knew” it was for Discord to handle it, we weren’t comfortable leaving them in the room.

Due to my particular history of being banned elsewhere, we always ban for reasons presently held in the rules. It is a personal philosophy. So, we didn’t get rid of them immediately, instead planning to do so the moment the new rule went into effect. So day 1, we voted on having such a rule, and it passed with no objection from the team. It took the course of the whole day due to timezones. It was more of a formality to the process, but it is vital. I am not above my team in moderation, I always try to be on level, with emergency powers if needed. Day 2, I drafted the rule, but dragged my heels a bit on the final wording. It was a rough workday, and I slept it off for most of that evening after work.

Day 3, the server, my account and the account of the minor were all deleted. Discord gave us a boilerplate reply that claimed “Your account was posting content that sexualized minors or was involved in servers which were dedicated to such unacceptable content”. This clearly did not occur, the server was a general NSFW server, and I never even contributed to it. I find sharing any NSFW content to be rather vulgar. My NSFW content lives and will die on my personal devices hidden by a secondary pin number and protected by data encryption, with a fakeout alternate pin for good measure. That aside, Discord did not permaban me because all I did was not kick a minor out of a NSFW server. If I had done anything close to what was later claimed by my detractors, I’d have been permabanned from Discord.

Still, this immediately led to a spate of people claiming I was a paedophile because of how Discord worded the violation email. Ask any FNaFLore NSFW moderator, you will know that we did not sexualise minors nor dedicate the server to that content.

To anyone whom knows me, that accusation is blatantly ridiculous. Beyond the moral objections we all share that it is inherently wrong, there is not a child in the world that could, for lack of better words, be the “tall, dark and handsome” sort of guy I crave. The notion is laughable. A child can never be domineering in the bedroom, it just does not work like that. However, this accusation, as stupid and small as it was, left some stray comments here and there. I try to crush them whenever I can, because I know what happens when you do not do so, which in the end did happen.

False allegations are a tool of cancel culture, and the accusation of paedophilia is one of the most damaging tools of them all. It is the Golden Gun of the arsenal. I have defended three people from such accusations, and to do so is very, very easy. As Jonochrome said in his video, you need to listen. You need to research. You need to consider that the person you could condemn has a better perspective than those condemning them, or yourself. In all the cases I researched, I found issues.

The first issue was with a disgruntled former coder whom accused a well known fangame creator. Those I swiftly dealt with as they were blatantly saying they would make up these accusations in prior chats. There was a brief standoff in which I levied my site’s then massive power over them by showing the despicable things they planned to do with the developer’s stolen website, and they ultimately backed down.

The second, a case of two 15 year olds. One shared an explicit image of themselves to the other, and 3 years later, got accused. They were banned from Freddit until I intervened and found out the facts of the case, something Freddit had missed because they blindly believed the accuser. They did not listen, research or gather perspectives.

The third was between a 23 year old user and his friend group. Recently shunned, he left that group. But they lured him back with the intent to initiate a sexual roleplay and ensnare him in accusations. When initiated, he reciprocated, until later that day learning of the age of the user involved. That led to them getting banned on Freddit’s Discord. It was rather stupid of them to do, of course. you should always be sure of the age of someone you’re doing that with. However, the moment that he knew their age, the roleplaying ended. As far as I’m concerned, he asked their age in a group chat. He wasn’t intending to hide anything, he made a mistake. The group took that conversation and cut it up. They presented the age confirmation first, then the roleplay second. This is something you could see in the timestamps within the images.

Of all crimes, paedophilia is the most damaging to reputation. Rightly so, when you are guilty of it. However, these users have not been guilty of it. They were accused by dumb kids who saw the accusation as a way to get revenge. I want to stress, these accusers are vile and stupid people whom wish to destroy someone out of personal grievance. These people are the very definition of evil, crying wolf just so they can watch people get outcast, which in turn lessens the accusation’s power for real paedophilia. Some may say it is strong to call them evil, I disagree. If you’re calling someone a paedophile, you know the stigma you are flinging at them, and if the accusation is not founded in reality, you were either lying, or stupidly uninformed enough to tar someone with that brush. Both scenarios I see as evil and inexcusable.

This occurred when my detractors used the issue of my NSFW server to accuse me of the same such crime. However, it was inherently laughable as previously noted, so most dismissed it out of hand.

Fast forward, and I waded into a discussion over transgenderism in the Flumpty chat. I forget how it happened, I don’t think I started it. I think it was during Pride month, so as per Freddit, I laid out similar concerns with the LGBT community, because if you can talk positively, why not negatively? This led to a email discussion with Jonochrome over email, wherein he ended his last email on the subject saying he was unsure what to think.

I viewed this as an invitation to summarise my views. So, I summarised my philosophy as eloquently as I could, and sent the email. I view it as an invitation to explain in a broader way. So I did. This led to Jonochrome demanding I take down all ONaF content from the site.

To make sense of what came next, I must hop back in time a bit. One of the prior accusatory tweets from the NSFW server incident did escape my view, and it landed right into Jonochrome’s lap after I sent out my email as it seems they tried to do some sort of background check. The tweet was made by a user of our chat whom was pushed to post the accusation by a well-known shit-stirring member of the community. After I requested the user take it down, they did without protest. We had a decent talk about my actions and the accusations afterwards, and they seemed terribly sorry.

I know for an absolute certainty this is what caused Jonochrome to try to cut all contact and block me globally. I have little birds EVERYWHERE. I have fingers in every pie. Freddit, Jonochrome, Popgoes, Phiscord, I have contacts in moderations across the community. I am practically the Varys of the FNaF community. I have built these bridges through trust, confidentiality and my own moral character. I reach out to people, and they realise I’m not the monster they were told about from the community, I’m just a guy trying to do good by the community.

I know for a fact Jonochrome banned me from his server and blocked me because of those tweets. I am sat here, looking at the evidence that he found Michael’s tweet. I even know he commented on its removal a few days later, but blanked the fact it was withdrawn in favour of continuing to believe the content post-deletion. It got removed because he found it, so I found it, I knew who made that accusation, and then talked to them. That user GLADLY removed the tweet because they didn’t honestly believe it. They were pushed to tweet it by one of my known detractors in the heat of the moment. This is all basic shit that Jonochrome could have clarified by talking to them personally. By researching.

Sadly, to share the proof of how I know this information would compromise those whom shared the information with me, so with great agitation, I am unable to provide receipts. But my acknowledgement of this knowledge should be all he needs to know. I’ve seen his messages on this, and if Jonochrome does ever read this, know that I know full well why you banned me and blocked me out, and why you then demanded I take down all Flumpty content from FNaFLore.com. It was to try to distance yourself from someone you decided was a paedophile on the basis of an old tweet. On the basis of the lies spread by my detractors.

I respectfully denied that request because I am fully within my rights to have the content on the site. If Scott’s megalawyers have actively told Scott that he can’t take down my site, a university graduate won’t be able to do anything either, especially something as complex and expensive as a transatlantic takedown that is doomed to be struck out over fair use.

What occurred was, without being a good listener, without doing an ounce of research and without trying to get my perspective, Jonochrome tried to distance himself from someone he deemed a paedophile. A blatant lie that falls apart not only because of my moral character, but also on the gender role I’d play in a relationship. It is inherently laughable.

There were other reasons they put forward for the ban. The aforementioned transgender debate, ok, sure. I know that was defended by other mods, but truth be told, I blanked the no-politics rule. My memory is rather goldfish-like, so I did not fully remember the rules to abide by. To be fair, they were talking about Pride Month. Why is acceptance not political, but critique is? But whatever. Fine.

There were also allegations I modded minors to the NSFW chat. This is regretfully true. I did not think ahead to verify ages. I was stupid and in hindsight would have set up verification. However, in my ban reasoning, there is a statement saying I have no chance for a “redemption arc”, which is insanity. Of course I regret that I stupidly didn’t verify ages, and I was happy to keep the political chat out of your server. You made that call based on lies you didn’t bother to look into.

I suppose, this is a callout post. Don’t dish out what you don’t do yourself. You did no deep digging on my allegations, nor had any conversation to me about anything to do with the incident. You didn’t listen, didn’t research and didn’t consider my perspective. You saw a whisper of an allegation, got terrified and slapped the ban button as fast as you could, demanding I cut all ties to you. The rest was just convenience to ban me, and I know this to be the mindset because the proof I have on my screen says as much.

What frustrates me the most is I’m not making this article to try to attack you – once again, I condemn all forms of attacks on my behalf. I’m doing this because even though in your actions you are maligning me in the worst possible way any human could malign another, I respect you enough to call this out in the abstract and tiny hope you will see your mistakes. But, knowing how we are, I am aware such a turnabout is very unlikely for people like us. I find those like us are not only more creative, but more stubborn when we are wrong but believe ourselves to be right. It has taken some time to try to unpick that aspect of myself, and even then, there are some aspects of that I cling onto to this day.

In any case this article exists because of that double standard. I suppose it is something you should be glad for in any case too. If people search your username coupled with paedophilia, they won’t see false allegations like you did. All they will see is that you will accept blind accusations from bad actors as fact. I’d make a joke accusation of pedophilia against some of your top brass, perhaps against Noodle whom slandered me with the pedo label publicly. But I don’t feel like being evil and slandering others. That is not what a proper community leader does. They listen, research and gain perspectives on the issues of the community, to keep their community strong, stable and safe.

And this is the lesson to the wider public I want to promote on the topic of Cancel Culture.

For one, I want you to genuinely follow the advice Jonochrome puts out. Not pretend to, as he does. Genuinely follow the advice.

On serious issues, I want you to listen to as many people involved as you can.

to as many people involved as you can. I want you to do your research . Dig to the bottom of that barrel and when you hit bedrock, scrape at that for good measure too.

. Dig to the bottom of that barrel and when you hit bedrock, scrape at that for good measure too. I want you to consider all perspectives, even that of the accused. They will know a lot about the situation, being at the eye of the storm. Combine this with prior steps of research, and you can judge if their perspective is genuine.

I regret to say, I too have not followed those steps at times. I didn’t during the Popgoes launch over the whole “death of the author” thing. Truthfully, the delay of my apology was because I was fearful of his character and fanbase control. Since then I’ve come to understand, we’re all just people. I am just a guy who bought a domain name and typed up stuff onto it. Kane was just a teenager with a following from his Freddit days. Jonochrome is just a university graduate. Dawko is just a guy with a YouTube channel. We are all just, people. not monoliths. Still, I regret having invoked that trope ever since. I acted based on other perspectives, when I should have talked to Kane directly over the lore. I failed those standards, and am man enough to admit and apologise for this.

But, I admitted my mistakes and publicly apologised, as well as tried to ease the situation with Phisnom, for what that was worth. If you ever stray from those principles, that’s all you can really do to try to make up for it. In the wizened words of Peter Capaldi’s Doctor, “Never be cruel, and never be cowardly. And if you ever are, always make amends”. I only ever cruelly condemned someone in this community without talking to them the one time, and I vowed never to do so again. While the road to curl up in a ball, block out the world and pretend I was right the whole time was appealing – pointing to the 50/50 poll in support of my decision – that was the cowardly way. I knew I couldn’t do that, it just wouldn’t sit right. So, facing what could have been a serious backlash from his rabid fanbase, I tried to make it better, and committed to never make that mistake again. I believe that was the best path I could have taken.

We are all fallible, and I hope to expect from my community that not only will they hold these values, but that they will hold me to these values. They will call me out if I falter. Such an act I would see as an immensely respectful thing to do. Critique is not usually spite. It is respect. It is why I critique Scott so much. It is why I critique Freddit. It is why I am critiquing Jonochrome. These are people and institutions that I hold sincere respect for, and I want them to improve as people and institutions. I would hope to expect the same in return from them or from any reader if I ever fucked up. To be held to the bar I set for others.

Thank you for reading. Coming next, I will respect all over Illumix’s FNaF game, because god fucking damn it, what the ever-loving hell have they done with Special Delivery? With $8 million to make the engine AND Disney support??? It is beyond belief, and for respect of the community and of their vision for the game, I have to speak up on my experiences and do a full overview of my experience. One many are familiar with.

I don’t feel that this post should be up on the front page for any prolonged period of time. But a short time, for certain. So, I shall try to get that article up sooner than later.

Keep safe, keep well. Listen. Research. Gain Perspectives.

Kizzycocoa – Owner and designer of FNaFLore.com

Afterword

For the first time, I feel I have to amend something to one of these articles. I was about to hit send, when the whole Mandopony thing happened. Naturally, the rabid fanbase set about tearing him apart. But as I mentioned above, I did urge calm and rationality. That people investigate this fully.

Being a respectable community leader and leading by example, I have been, and still am, looking into this situation. So far, only the accusers have responded with followup emails. It seems so far, there is a decent chance these accusations are real. The evidence was historically dated too, which is harder to fake consistently. Further, several details match up that paint Mandopony in a very bad light in regard to usernames, photos etc.

I don’t particularly mind about the 17 year old – being British, our Age of Consent is 16. However, in both his and the accuser’s states, it was lawfully wrong, and one must follow the law of the land. but I find it hard to be morally outraged about what is considered legal for us in the UK. I also don’t care about the praising of fanart and the acts of infidelity, those are none of my business. That being said, the other proof concerning a 15 year old is far more concerning, and I am trying to fully explore that issue.

I am not yet finished with my investigation. There is still no confirmation I have seen that he KNEW the girls he was talking to were underage. Much like my slip-up with NSFW mods, there is every chance he was just braindead-stupid. But, without Mandopony’s perspective – which I am still seeking out – the best-case scenario is that he cheated on his wife with girls online whose ages he stupidly didn’t verify. Worst case, he actively groomed several young girls.

As with Jonochrome, I ask people to not seek out and attack Mandopony, and especially not people around Mandopony. From what I hear, an official police investigation is underway. Let the police handle this, it is not for you to hound this guy down. But follow my example in this. Listen to what is going on, research the evidence and gain perspectives on all sides. I have done all three, and though it pains me to state that my investigation is not yet complete, I have to release this post. It is already 2 weeks too late. So that is where I am at right now. What I do emphasise is that you should disregard the drama around him praising fan artists, and about any infidelity. These are sideshows and are not concerns for us to deal with.

The issue at hand is the legality of alleged contact between him and some underage fans. His wife does not deserve you prying into her marital life, and the fan artists pushing their ships are having harmless fun. Septiplier is a thing, don’t forget. If people like that sorta shipping, to each their own. Live and let live. If you are to research this situation for yourself – as I encourage you do so with great care – narrow the search scope to the ages of those messaged, and try to find the root of the issue. The point where he is aware this is illegal. Don’t just see some hysteria and blindly follow it. Listen. Research. Gain Perspectives.

Mandopony could still be innocent, I’ve yet to get his side, but I am actively seeking it as any good community leader would in order to make sure their community is as informed as possible. Further, by their request, I am working to inform Freddit of the status of my investigation too. There could still be some sort of explanation, but tick tock, tick tock, hour by hour that I read into this and see more evidence, that hope dwindles.

I shall keep you all informed. Keep safe, all of you.

Listen. Research. Gain Perspectives.

16th July 2020