It seems like some people were upset that a popular candy had its name changed from “Easter Eggs” to “Gesture Eggs”. This is the impression that one would get from this headline from Not The Bee:
Stores pull Cadbury “Gesture Eggs” promo after some genius removed the word “Easter” and caused public outcry
I think we can appreciate how ridiculous “Gesture Eggs” sounds, since that conjures up the image of a person innocently cracking open one of those Kinder Eggs or whatever, and finding a plastic hand giving the middle finger.
Let’s see what Not The Bee has to say about it in their opening paragraph:
Back in 2022, chocolate giant Cadbury was embroiled in a scandal involving reports of shocking child labor abuses in their supply chain.
The last time a well has been so thoroughly poisoned, a village died.
If one were to go just on the tone of Not The Bee’s article, one would think that a candy company is making a deliberate attempt to distance itself from Christianity by removing references to a pagan holiday that’s been thinly coated with Biblical-sounding names and concepts. And people are peeved, because they like that holiday that was the reason they got candy as kids.
The reality of the matter is far more mundane.
The signage was limited to just a few locations in a chain, which was independent of the will of corporate headquarters, which quickly reversed the decision. It’s true that Not The Bee stated as much in their article, but by placing such important modifying information late in their article, they’re more likely to farm rage-clicks from angry Christians who are more upset about signage used to refer to some candy than a bunch of African Christians who are being killed by a bunch of Muslims who hate that any religion besides their own exists.
Here’s the marketing, as shared by The Daily Mail, tell me whether you notice anything about it:
No, not that the candy has become ridiculously expensive. To help you out, here’s a pic of another product from the same line:
Still don’t see it? Neither do I. That’s because the product isn’t called an “Easter Egg”, that’s a Cadbury Creme Egg. The word “Easter” doesn’t even appear on the packaging. The closest that the candy comes to having anything to do with Easter is that Easter is used to market it. Which pretty much any candy can be.
Saying that Cadbury Creme Eggs have anything to do with Easter because Easter is used to market it is like saying that PlayStation has something to do with Christmas because Christmas is used to market PlayStation.
People threw a hissy fit because “Easter” didn’t appear in marketing for a product that doesn’t even acknowledge the observance by name, like the hypothetical box of Matzah that doesn’t mention Passover.
Did you know that in the religious world, there are problems that actually matter? For example, that Muslims are clashing with Christians. Or that sexual abuse is still a scandal in religious denominations. Or that Muslims are clashing with Jews. Or that Scientology is a predatory cult. Or that Muslims are clashing with Hindus. Or that the current Pope is compromising Catholicism with his left-wing stances. Or that Muslims… let’s just say that they don’t play well with others.
But throwing a hissy-fit over signage displayed with candy? Is this how one inspires confidence in their religion?
I’ve been following along with Geno Samuel’s Chris Chan: A Comprehensive History. If you’ve never heard of it, then you’ve probably also never heard of Chris Chan.
If you were to get into it, it’s a doozy of a rabbit hole. In summary, Chris Chan is one of those people who is infamous on the internet, and is easily the most well-known among internet infamous people. To the point that there are documentary series’ and there have been entire wikis that cover his antics and various facts about him.
About two-and-a-half years ago, it came to light that Chris Chan has been committing incest with his own mother. This set off a firestorm that resulted in Chris Chan trending on Twitter, culminating in Chris Chan’s arrest, and subsequently legacy media outlets have reported on it, exposing aging boomers to the Chris Chan phenomenon.
For those who have been following along, we knew that the time would come that Geno would come to these events in the timeline of his docu-series.
Well, here we are:
Chris Chan’s crime was disgusting. But as bad as he looks, this chapter made Bella look worse.
When I heard about Bella’s mythically horrible exploits, at first I thought that they were embellished. If even half of what I’ve heard about her was true, she was a magnificently bad person.
As bad as she looked in the documentary, it didn’t touch on everything. After all, the documentary was about Chris Chan. But people like Bella are the reason why prisons exist.
Of course, she got off because her parents worked for a three-letter agency.
As much as I’d like to quip with some insightful takeaways, what can be said that wouldn’t be obvious to just about all of us?
Don’t commit incest with your own mother,
Don’t associate with shitty people like Isabella Loretta Janke,
If you’ve committed a crime, don’t be so smug that you drop hints to people who might turn you in,
And, for that matter, don’t make a long, unprompted, and highly-descriptive confession to the same crime (oldie but goodie),
If you have an EPO against you, don’t violate it,
If you’re down and out, don’t prioritize buying a bunch of shitty toys,
And again, to emphasize: Don’t commit incest with your own mother. Ugh.
See what I mean? Who really needs to be told these things?
But whether or not there are lessons to be learned from the debacle that is Chris Chan’s life, it is still nonetheless fascinating, in much the same sense as watching a train crash in slow motion, with every last failure being meticulously documented, and every person who was impacted being carefully studied.
But with Chris Chan now being free, apparently having avoided the consequences of his actions, it now falls on the connected network of those monitoring Chris Chan to keep a careful eye on him, to mitigate the likelihood that he would reoffend, as Chris Chan is once again a danger to the public.
When I first heard about the breadtuber Vaush, I assumed that he didn’t really believe what he was saying, and would have guessed from his vocabulary that he was talking way over the heads of the pro-socialism typicals who love the big words they don’t know the definitions of, and that Vaush was yet another grifter who was gaming the algorithm because he knew how. Thus, I didn’t much discuss him because I didn’t want him to have any more publicity.
But then, on a Feb 7 stream, he demonstrated a flagrant lack of basic datasec. He opened his own private stash on livestream.
Which, by the way, was on a folder on his desktop. And there among his stash was a folder labeled “Taxes”.
The use of the term “private stash” may have given you an idea of just the kind of stuff that his live viewers were treated to. But to be more specific, much of it was “horse stuff” and loli art, some of it seemed to have been AI-generated.
Since then, Vaush has gone on damage control, describing the characters with the loli aesthetic as being more “goblin” in body shape, as though he was into fantasy art, and explaining that he thought that the loli was just drawings of women with “short stack” builds. Basically the “she’s actually 3000 years old” defense.
While some of his viewers and critics may be wondering whether Vaush is going to jail, right now, it seems like the answer is “no”. While loli may be illegal in many places in the world, it is not illegal in the United States, where Vaush resides (the U.S. has the 1st Amendment, which protects free expression, and the apparent contents of his folder falls under protected speech). Of course, just because something is legal doesn’t mean that you’d tell your mom about it, or that it’s allowed in every setting.
Nonetheless, that Vaush has accidentally outed himself as possessing horse and loli “stuff” has some interesting optics when you consider that in the past, he’s insisted that Nazis are pedophilia adjacent because they favor relationships with power imbalances, and similar takes.
When someone virtue-signals often, pay attention to what they say, as such a person tends to project.
While Vaush has had some questionable takes, there was some plausible deniability for a while, though I know not everyone has been giving him the benefit of the doubt. One could have easily assumed that he was making obvious efforts to stoke controversy in an effort to game the algorithm, and watch all the ad revenue roll in from all the room-temp-IQ muh-free-stuff socialists that will come to his defense by virtue of being in the same tribe. But now, much of what he’s had to say about bestiality and other topics has taken on some interesting new optics.
While this whole drama has made just about everyone an expert on datasec, I think there’s something that can be said about being more careful about who your influencer heroes are, particularly the ones who behave like Vaush does on social media. After all, even ordinary heroes are disappointing every now and then. But if someone has a habit of deliberately posting horribly offensive shit publicly, then maybe it’s a better idea to keep your distance. And when SHTF, you can look on as some of his ilk continue to defend him, and know that those who do are the true believers in his cult, willing to come to his defense no matter what, which is probably just the kind of following he really wanted.
I don’t know what’s in the future for Vaush, but at this point, it’s easy to imagine that few outside of his small clique of cultists will take him seriously, and that even his fellow breadtubers will want to keep their distance. Basically similar to what happened with Jack Murphy as his cuckolding controversy played out.
I’ll say that the legal stuff that Vaush has on his computer is his business. But what’s really creepy about him is that there’s some less legal stuff that he’s been low-key attempting to make acceptable. That doesn’t put him in great light.
It’s finally happened: infamous TikToker Daniel Larson has finally been jailed.
If you’ve been following his misadventures, you might be thinking, “What could he be in for?” After all, there are many things he has done that could have landed him in the slammer. Pulling a fire alarm? No. Remember, this is the United States, where representatives can pull fire alarms, and it can be caught on tape for all the world to see, and the law would still look the other way.
So then, did he commit another act of violence? As prone as he is to those, not this time. Trespassing on a college? Nope. Threatening an act of mass violence? Not this time. Threatening public officials? Still no.
What he’s in for is a misdemeanor evasion of justice. Because you know, he’s a celebrity, and he’s just so busy with celebrity things, such as posting videos, crushing on celebrities, and attempting to attend a college he never applied to. Showing up for his own trials is just such an undue hardship on a music star such as himself.
Bond has been set to $20,000, so I get the idea that, even though it’s a misdemeanor, they don’t want the guy out, but they’re still willing to free the guy if they’re getting enough money. What a world we live in.
Let’s get real here: Daniel Larson is a dangerous individual. He’s prone to violence, goes on unhinged rants, trespasses frequently, has threatened gun violence (even though he doesn’t have a gun, as far as I know), and on top of all that, he’s a pedophile. But while most pedophiles understand that such attractions would make them social pariahs, Daniel Larson is more of the attitude of extending an olive branch, like it’s possible to make peace with society in spite of his affection.
And more scary still, Daniel Larson doesn’t seem to comprehend that he’s doing anything wrong. As he tries to crash in businesses as a vagrant, he’ll insist that he belongs and has a right to belong there, even as he’s asked to leave. As he trespasses, he’ll argue belligerently with anyone who confronts him about it, and even claim himself as the victim. He doesn’t seem to comprehend when he’s in the wrong, even when it’s explained to him in a way that any normal person would be able to follow.
Just what is society supposed to do with someone like that?
I know that when it comes to this kind of thing, people might say not to worry about people like Daniel Larson. But the thing is, when people blatantly disregard the law and keep getting away with it, the criminal justice system inspires less confidence. While most of us avoid breaking the law, at least because we don’t want to get caught, or even because there’s some overlap between what’s legal and what’s moral, there are people out there who just don’t care. And Daniel Larson is the kind of person who should be in an institution, for the safety of himself and society as a whole.
So all the Chris Chans and Daniel Larsons of the world actually are something to be concerned about. Because there’s no telling when, in the event that you go out to pick up some goods, while you’re out, you meet someone who’s internet famous for the wrong reasons, and you either upset them in some way, or get the kind of internet attention that normal people just shouldn’t want. They’re the kind of people that you should want to avoid, and there are institutions that exist for their safety, and everyone else’s.
As I see it, it’s hard to imagine the Daniel Larson story ending in anything but tragedy. He’s a danger to himself and the people around him. While the people who troll him and egg him on do hold some of the blame, it’s still a fact that Daniel Larson is a dangerous and unhinged individual.
But the way things are looking now, the streets have just become a little safer.
Earlier this month, Palworld dropped on Steam, and since then, it’s raised some eyebrows with its resemblance to Pokémon.
I haven’t yet played Palworld, and maybe I’ll give it a try later on. It does look intriguing. This article is little more than my own opinion about the drama surrounding it, not my impression on the game.
In the Pokémon community, this game has stirred up some strong feelings, with many taking a side between supporting the game or not.
As I see it, Pokémon could use a bit of competition to stir them to improve. There have been issues surrounding Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, largely concerning performance issues, with some complaints being petty, and some being well-founded.
One of the matters concerning Palworld that has caught player’s attentions is that some of the pal characters bear a strong resemblance to Pokémon. As I see it, games like Digimon and Monster Rancher have done a lot more to ape Pokemon’s style, yet those games aren’t something that The Pokémon Company has had any issue with.
But there’s evidently something about Palworld that got their attention, as indicated by the following statement:
While one may interpret this as meaning that Pokémon is going to go after Palworld, what it comes down to is that it’s caught their attention, and they’re looking into it. Their statement that they didn’t grant the use of Pokémon assets is not a definitive statement that that Pokémon assets were used. It’s something that they intend to look into, and as the last sentence indicates, they intend to defend their copyright, if necessary.
And it might not come to that, because even though comparisons can be made between certain Pokémon and Palworld’s pals, they may be sufficiently different that no action would be needed to protect GameFreak’s copyright.
Remember that if a company doesn’t defend its copyright, they risk losing that copyright, hence Nintendo’s interest in defending Pokémon, which is the highest grossing intellectual property in human history.
Based on what I’ve seen, Palworld doesn’t infringe on GameFreak’s copyright, it merely imitates it, which wasn’t an issue when it came to similar games like Yokai Watch.
There have been comparisons made between the Pokémon characters and Pal World pals, and you may have seen some. Some of those comparisons may have been misleading, as one source of some more popular comparisons has admitted to scaling some Pal World models to make them more closely resemble Pokémon.
Having said that, I’m aware that there is something about Palworld that stirs up strong feelings among Pokémon fans, one way or another, particularly among those employed at Nintendo. There’s something about arming little critters with guns and sometimes eating them that goes against the established tone of the Pokémon franchise, and most games that plainly took inspiration from Pokémon. But that difference in tone can possibly be used to make the case that Palworld is sufficiently transformative to avoid legal trouble.
Another point of contention that has come up is that the developer of Palworld, Pocket Pair, has developed assets using AI. As I see it, this isn’t a big deal, as this is the direction that game development has been going in. In fact, as I see it, people in the future will be able to make their own games at home for personal use, by simple use of prompts. Imagine arriving home from work after a hard day, and asking your computer, “I’d like a dungeon-crawler JRPG.” Or, instead: “I liked yesterday’s game. I’d like to pick up where I left off.”
AI is already changing the way games are made, and the way things are looking, there’s more change to come. At some point, game design will become so trivial that you could just do it yourself.
While there has been many amusing takes on Palworld, you haven’t read the worst one unless you’ve seen PETA’s take:
However the situation develops, it’s already clear who the biggest losers are.
Muta, known mainly as SomeOrdinaryGamers, has expressed his disappointment with his one-time friend, MamaMax on X. Seeing what’s coming, MamaMax has attempted an apology video, but it was too little, too late.
Muta has called his video possibly the most serious one that he ever had to make. Considering that this is the same person who exposed a dubious charity operation trusted by the game community, that’s saying something.
Here is his video, if you’re interested. It’s just over an hour long:
Obviously, someone as big as Muta doesn’t need a signal-boost from me. But I do remember MamaMax’s video from when it caught my attention, late last year, which I commented upon. I would have guessed that there was drama behind it, but I was not aware how deep it went.
Apparently, Max has dropped the GODCULT branding. Seems that didn’t work out for him.
While it was already abundantly clear that MamaMax was interpersonally manipulative, I was not aware at the extent he went to to attempt to manipulate other content creators into furthering his cause, as he attempted to do with his audience.
In his video, as you may remember, MamaMax came off as a fanatic, and proceeded to split the world in two, and tried to lay the guilt down on those who aren’t joining him in combatting CSA.
But his cause was not as noble as he made it appear to be. All that he really had to go on was the testimony of a witness, and that was good enough for him to dox what could have easily been just a Vampire: the Masquerade LARPer.
I did some research into the person who MamaMax named, and it pretty much came back nothing. But before you fault me and my internet-sleuthing skills, please know that MamaMax, the very person bringing the accusation, apparently has about as much on him.
So basically, MamaMax is trying to recruit Anonymous as his own personal army, with nothing to go on besides an accusation. And it’s not just any accusation, the mere accusation he is going on is of one of the most serious crimes that can be committed.
If you don’t see the problem with that, close your browser, cancel your internet subscription, and delete System 32.
To make matters worse for MamaMax, because it wasn’t enough to bring about 750,000 subscribers an allegation that has the potential to not be true, he brought it forth in a matter that is self-serving, egotistical, and inappropriately theatrical, rather than with the seriousness that such an accusation merits.
And through it all, against the guidance of his friends who fought desperately to get him to see reason, he resisted their insistence that the matter instead be brought to law enforcement, which is how such a matter should have been handled. And he should have known better, considering that MamaMax himself has been accused in the past!
As I often say, pay attention to those who virtue signal the hardest, as they’re often acting with a guilty conscience, usually because they have skeletons in their closets.
While I could say more about this (such as how MamaMax interpreted Penguin0’s silence as a slight against him and brought that up to his audience), I’ll get to the point: I doubt that this whole matter will go down well. Max Striker has not been conducting himself with the highest level of stability. His distrust in his friends, as well as his refusal to see reason, along with his willingness to use psychological manipulation on his friends and his audience, indicates poor judgment that has a strong potential to lead to tragedy.
Or at least a strong, public, open-and-shut defamation case. If it turns out that Max’s target is innocent, I’d be all for it. Because I’m far beyond sick of this shit. And if he’s not, Max has still proven that he’s not someone to turn to when it comes to this kind of matter.
I suspect that Max is going to do something stupid. Either something tragic, or with the potential to make him more infamous than he already is. Just hearing him speak among his friends, he doesn’t sound like he understands what he did wrong. And if his judgment is that poor, his attempts at damage control might just make things worse for himself.
From his video late last year, I had a strong suspicion that Max would appear on the news, someday. We’ll see whether it comes to that.
Apparently, Chris Chan is planning a collab with Keffals. This was according to Chris, as he posted the following on X:
You may know who Chris Chan is, as he is considered the most well-known of all lolcows. A couple years ago, he committed a sexual offense involving his own mother, becoming a case study in true crime, and ascending to horrorcow status.
Keffals is a bit more obscure, but perhaps far more enraging. He became known for making HRT drugs at home to sell to minors without their parent’s knowledge or consent, and ran an infamous “catboy ranch”.
The packaging for his bathtub-made HRT contains the phrase, “Keep out of reach of parents.”
Both persons are males who pretend to be women, and both hate Kiwi Farms with a passion, so it wasn’t terribly unlikely that the two would have eventually found each other.
If you’re unfamiliar with Kiwi Farms, it’s an online message board that initially focused on discussing Chris Chan, but has since pivoted to discussing the ridiculous things that social media personalities do. It’s often made out to be a hive for online bullies, and while it’s true that many of its members are unsavory individuals, I think the board as it is now can be justified. In fact, I’ll go ahead and do that now.
Suppose that arson was legal. As in, you could do it, and the law wouldn’t lay a finger on you. Would you do it?
If you’re like most people, your answer would be, “No!”. This is because most people would see arson as immoral, regardless of what the law allowed.
But suppose that, not only was arson legal, it was actually incentivized. Five dollars for each house destroyed. Odds are, most people would still refuse to do it, and would be outraged at such an incentive, if it were to exist.
However, some people would jump at the offer. “Five dollars, per? Hells yeah!” they’d scream, before getting to work. We would call such people “sociopaths”, because what little they’d have to gain is something which, in their minds, outweighs the suffering that they’d cause.
But suppose that homes were being destroyed, but rather than by acts of arson, instead through influence. Suppose that a level of abstraction separates the act that destroys the home from the home being destroyed, in such a way that allowed for plausible deniability on the part of the influencer.
The influencer might influence people to drink base liquids, eat laundry detergent, dive from moving speedboats, take prescription drugs without a prescription, idolize dangerous terrorists, make self-destructive lifestyle choices, and many, many more acts which, if people were to try them, the likely outcome is that families could be torn apart, property could be damaged, and even lives could be lost. And while all this is going on, influencers are financially rewarded just for the attention that they get.
If this were to happen, and if it were financially incentivized, would you see that as a problem?
Let’s drop the hypotheticals. After all, you probably knew what I was getting at when I brought up the influencers. The fact is, influencers do encourage destructive behaviors. These behaviors have caused damage that these influencers didn’t have to face consequences for. And yes, these influencers are being financially incentivized to accrete attention to themselves, even if the attention is through the promotion of destructive and socially corrosive ideologies and activities.
These influencers are the sociopaths who don’t give a damn what damage that they might cause for you or for anyone else, so long as they’re getting the attention that they want, and the money that they really care about.
These sociopaths are among the many influencers on social media.
They don’t have to believe what they’re saying. And they usually don’t. They don’t have to see the communities, families, or individuals whose lives they are destroying. And they couldn’t bring themselves to care. They might even convince you that they’re your friend, when in reality, your mere attention only slightly enables the transaction that is their sincere desire.
By now, you’re probably wondering what can be done about these influencers. The answer is to shine a light on them, and subject them to the ridicule and satire that is richly merited.
That’s where Kiwi Farms comes in.
If it weren’t for Kiwi Farms, deviants such as Chris Chan and Keffals would have a much easier time being the predators that they are.
And now that the two have found each other, it’s become much more important that an eye is kept on the two. Because if the two are the miscreants that they are independent of one another, just imagine what they can come up with working together.
According to Yahoo News Japan, nuisance streamer Johnny Somali has just been sentenced to a 200,000 yen fine by a Japanese court for obstruction of the operation of a business, which if you know Japanese culture, you know that that’s something that they take very seriously.
If the name Johnny Somali rings a bell, odds are, you’ve heard of the infamous Kick streamer whose routine is going to one of the most polite places in the entire world and acting like a jackass. Japan is basically what you’d get if LinkedIn was its own country.
Johnny Somali (Ismael Ramsey Khalid) was in Japan as a student, but gained infamy with his streams on Kick, which often depict him acting disruptive in public. Among his antics included trespassing on a construction site (for which he was charged, but the charge was dropped), playing loud music in public, getting into disputes with locals, loudly playing adult-rated anime on a train, taunting locals by saying “Hiroshima” and “Nagasaki”, among other antics.
Johnny Somali was largely considered a nuisance, and the Japanese seem to be happy that a court was willing to make an example out of him.
As of this posting, 200,000 yen amounts to approximately $1373.40. Which is probably a fraction of what he made with his Kick account.
I know I’m not the only one for whom a visit to Japan would be a boyhood dream. But I know what to expect while there. If you’re going to go to Japan, it’s expected of you to conform. If you don’t want to conform in an advanced and heavily-educated industrial society, then Japan isn’t the place for you.
Don’t believe me? Just last year, two people in Japan were arrested over a prank that involved double-dipping with used chopsticks into a communal container of pickled ginger.
There’s speculation on social media that Johnny Somali could be deported from Japan. But for the time being, it’s still only that: speculation. At this point, Johnny Somali has only been fined for his actions. I know that people want to see the Japanese throw the book at him. After all, his antics are infuriating. But at this point, that still hasn’t happened.
But considering the narcissism that we’ve seen out of Johnny Somali up until now, coupled with his tendency to act out on a whim, it’s likely just a matter of time.
I’ll say first of all that I’m not taking sides on this conflict, because even though I was once a fan of Maddox’s writing, I find it believable that either side has misbehaved in at least one way over the course of this drama.
Maddox has published a video on YouTube that is over two-and-a-half hours long, making the case that there has been a long effort on the part of Dick Masterson to harass Maddox, and bait Maddox into a response. In the video, Maddox calls Masterson “Fanboy”, in an obvious effort to reduce him while referring to him.
Embedded here is the video in question. Don’t worry, I’m not placing the onus on you of watching the whole thing. Just know that this video provides the context for the opinion that I offer on it.
Earlier in his online career, Maddox was frequently targeted by fans who have developed an unhealthy obsession with him. This is a hazard that comes with fame, including online fame, a game which Maddox was early to. When you have a website that’s been read by millions of people, you’re likely to get a few with ideas of reference that believe that your words were somehow intended specifically for them.
There are many, many flavors of crazy out there, and in today’s connected world, it’s simple for some of them to reach back to content creators. Don’t give me that look.
As Maddox explained, part of the motivation for making his video was to raise a big stink, explaining that that’s the kind of thing that you have to do to get social media companies to care. Apparently, his reputation being at stake was not enough of a motivation, though he did make a fair point when he pointed out that when someone backbites against you, you have a choice between saying nothing and taking a hit to your reputation, or saying something and giving the trolls what’s they’re looking for.
Still, it’s hard to imagine anyone besides Maddox is going to care about his reputation if he’s not willing to defend it, himself. It’s true that a person doesn’t have to speak in his defense in every case (the expression “don’t feed the trolls” exists for a reason), but when your livelihood and reputation are significantly impacted, to answer your accusers seems expedient.
Considering the damage that has been done to Maddox’s reputation over the course of years, it’s a valid question why such an answer was so long overdue, and why Maddox didn’t take a more proactive approach to defending his online reputation. After all, his online reputation is central to his online career. His brand is impacted, for better or worse, based on his online reputation. That he was as silent as he was for as long as he was expressed a highly misplaced belief in the benevolence of his his accusers to eventually realize their wrong in continually berating him to no apparent consequences, and decide on their own that it’s time to move on to something else.
I’m speaking as someone who has been slandered, on more than one occasion. It happens to everyone. Every playground has a piece-of-shit kid who invents rumors about other kids, because that’s the worst thing that he could do to them with the least potential for immediate backlash. Preferably, you don’t have to deal with such threats to your reputation, but life doesn’t guarantee ideal circumstances, and sometimes, the best course of action is not clear.
Now that Maddox has finally come forward with an answer to his accusers, one of the chief weapons in his arsenal is to wage an accusation right back. And not only that, it’s the grand F.U. of all accusations: to call someone a pedophile.
He does bring evidence. For one thing, the projection that asserts that every male has a secret desire to do things with 17-year-olds, which isn’t true, and merely an assumption about the desires of other people based on one’s own desires (that’s what makes it projection).
The other, more flimsy, inference is that “Fanboy” likes stylized cartoon drawings. And for some reason, Maddox continued to refer to the flimsier reasoning, rather than the use of projection that most thinking people would consider the stronger evidence.
By the way, Masterson could have exercised more discretion in sharing his preference for lolicon. Like masturbation, just because it’s legal doesn’t mean that you tell everyone about it. Among the reasons being that not everyone gives the benefit of the doubt. Think of all the people who assume that playing violent video games means you secretly want to commit violent crimes.
While it might sound like a slight to Maddox, it can be pointed out that since the falling out with him, Dick Masterson has gone on to enjoy more fame than even Maddox himself. This seems to have a lot to do with a willingness to ride the wave of the algorithm, which may have rewarded him for talking about Maddox. People are drawn to drama, and the algorithm boosts what gets engagement.
Maddox doesn’t seem as willing to do this, which may be a matter of principle, like when he refuses to place ads on his website, due to his sheer unwillingness to self-censor. While one can respect a willingness to be so principled, it’s a fact of the modern world that such principles have potential to be seen as a liability. And in Maddox’s case, it’s cost him a lot of money in the long term.
There’s a lot to be said for remaining principled, even to one’s detriment. But not everyone might see that as a virtue.
But returning to Masterson, there’s a lot to say. I know that he’s a comedian, which gives someone license for a bit of edge. But if what Maddox said about “rape lists” is true, and if Masterson was sincere in his defense of sexual abuse, then that would explain why Masterson’s performances aren’t recommended to me. And I would avoid listening to them to spare my hearing in the same way that not huffing turd fires would spare my nose.
The cancellation, doxxing, and apparent attempts to recruit his own audience to fight his battles for him does not put Dick Masterson in good light, to say the least. Particularly the doxxing.
Yet through it all, Maddox has come out looking like a punching bag, even though he handled matters in the recommended fashion for those who are being bullied online. But while it’s true that it’s usually best to not answer the people who are trolling you, it’s also true that there are certain fights that one is better off not avoiding. Sometimes, the best course of action is not clear, which can be deeply unsettling.
I suppose that Maddox’s overly-macho online persona makes it difficult to pity him.
But finally, the whole drama between Maddox and Masterson has turned from being entirely one-sided, with an answer from Maddox. And true to his style, Maddox’s answer was lengthy and sardonic.
I suppose it’s likely that soon we’ll be hearing a reply from Masterson. I think it’s obvious how he’ll likely answer, based on what I’ve been hearing about his opinion about Maddox, even though I don’t follow him or care for his routine, in much the same way that I don’t have to smoke cigarettes to know what they smell like. It happens too often that some yutz will light one up right by the door, unaware or not caring that that shit will just blow inside.
The Hindustan Times reported a story which alleged that a few K-pop idols are receiving backlash for enjoying a “dark anime” with “pedophilic content”. The anime in question is Made In Abyss, an adventure anime wherein a girl and a robotic boy explore a gigantic chasm, navigating its dangerous ecosystems in a quest to reach its bottom.
The Hindustan Times can be blamed for burying the lede, as the real story that led to the controversy would be the cancel culture of the K-pop community, and it turns out that much of its community is pretty toxic.
One might imagine that a collective appreciation for K-pop would bring the K-pop community together, but what we instead see is a toxicity among fans who divide themselves into factions based on their preferences for K-pop artists.
Personally, I’m glad that it’s the K-pop brand of tribalist bullshit that’s keeping these clowns occupied, because if they got into either sports or religion, they’d probably cause some riots.
The K-pop tribalism is so toxic that some fans will actually dig into the social media activity of the other tribe’s K-pop artist of choice to find anything that can be held against them. Pretty much cancel culture per se.
It so happens that this time, the K-pop artists under scrutiny are Soobin, Woozi, and Taeyong for liking Made In Abyss, an exquisite anime with developed characters, excellent worldbuilding, a heavily-favored soundtrack, and a tone that indicates that it takes its viewers seriously. The problem is, the anime is sometimes accused of promoting pedophilia by people who aren’t mature enough for the anime.
It’s disturbing enough that the toxicity of the K-pop community has reached the point that fans are willing to drag K-pop idols enjoyed by another K-pop faction down by making them out to be pariahs, it’s even worse when they are willing to drag down anime communities that weren’t even involved to begin with, and don’t deserve the negative attention that they might end up getting.
Being one who enjoys Pokémon, I can point out that, while there has been some amount of toxicity in the community, much of it came from bad actors who were quickly recognized, and the Pokémon community has mostly resisted dividing up into factions. If you can avoid certain bad influencers, you’ll generally have no problem avoiding drama in the Pokémon community.
That being my point of reference, from my perspective, the state of the K-pop community is surprising and horrifying. I didn’t have much interest in K-pop to begin with, but with the pervasiveness of toxicity and cancel culture within its community, I have no problem keeping my distance.
I suppose some might expect that I’d defend Made In Abyss from accusations that it somehow promotes pedophilia. The fact is, I really don’t have to. For one thing, I’ll refer to this flowchart that I like sharing:
One of the things I like about the Made In Abyss community is that when someone attempts to describe it to someone who hasn’t seen it, they might bring up some of its more extreme elements in an effort to warn someone that they’re there. But in doing so, they might make it sound like some hyper-edgelord anime that it’s actually not. While it’s true that there are some disturbing scenes, they don’t make up the majority of the anime’s runtime, but instead serves to make the point that there is a connotation of danger for the protagonists.
While it’s true that there are brief instances of nudity, no sex acts were committed, and the scenes played out naturally. Anyone who holds these brief scenes against the whole of the anime are failing to evaluate it from a position of honest criticism. One may even get the idea that they haven’t actually watched it.
But in any case, Made In Abyss was made for grownups, and it’s obvious that much of the K-pop community is way too young to watch anime like Made In Abyss.
And what’s more, when someone can be rightly described as smug and closed-minded, I don’t really mind that they don’t enjoy the same things that I do. As I’d have it, I’d prefer that such people were not in my own community.
Finally, it can be pointed out that we live in a world where trafficking of actual, living human children is a real problem. When someone throws themselves into a tizzy because a fictional character, a literal piece of merchandise, may be doing something sexual, they are expressing some misplaced priorities.
Magnetricity 