Sarais vs. The World

Ok I've read this entire thread cover to cover. I've clicked all the links except for download links to wads, and I didn't watch any videos of maps or comedic effects because they're not really relevant to the dispute. This thread contains a multi-page syntax loop where members are competing to say the most hurtful thing, and there isn't really much to make out of that either. So if anyone here feels any impulse to continue that, I'd have to ask you to kindly shut the fuck up.

Some background on me, I've never paid any mind to /v/ or /vr/ or /doom/ or any 4chan doom related thing. I've also never participated in any one discord channel for more than a few hours. I'm being completely honest about that so I can say with certainty that I feel I'm being pretty neutral and impartial in my judgment about any events that take place in those locations, and only making calls based on the evidence presented here in this thread. I have been a part of doomworld for many years and I'm aware there's a bit of overlap between members, so there are a few names here I recognize and its possible my judgment could be colored in what I know about doomworld. So there's that.

Terminus, I agree with a pretty significant part of what you said. It's worth saying that I think your motivations are fair, your intentions are just, and there's no reason for me to think that you don't mean what you say. I could probably say more positive things but I'm not sure anyone else here needs to read it to be convinced you know what you're talking about. Your credibility shows in your demeanor and it's easy to respect. With that said, there are a couple details related to this entire dispute that I want to go over.

Most importantly, the thing that caught my attention immediately is the line in this link where Sarais says in his own profile "I'm not good at socializing." There's a lot of talk here in this thread about Sarais not being self-aware enough to realize what he's doing, but he knows enough about himself to say that when he's not being put on trial for it. I think we should be looking at this thread from the outside and see that Sarais is clearly being expected to expose his own vulnerabilities right now, when it's pretty clear here that he feels he's already being attacked from all angles at once. In my experience, it is pretty common for people on the internet to not have a lot of social contact outside the internet, so for that reason I think it's worth everyone's time to dial things back and not accuse Sarais of more character flaws than any one person can keep track of because he's not operating along a long history of established social rules that we've been playing with for our whole lives. In short, he has some catching up to do. So give him a break.

First Interaction w Sarais

I don't know anything about the context of what's being discussed in this IRC log. There's mention of a holocaust joke which is not screencapped here for me to review. Common decency has shown that this is not a favorable thing to talk about unless the joke is really really good, but if all speakers in the channel are given equal credibility, Sarais did say he qualified the joke with saying that "I'm not good at jokes." The surrounding speakers are speaking to him in a tone that seems to me to be loaded. Loaded with observations of his past behavior that colored the way they chose to speak to him. I think context is pretty important and I don't think Sarais is wrong to assume that there was no context in this particular channel to start from. That said I think this kinda works against both of you. I don't think you conducted yourself in a very kind manner, so I don't think I can effectively claim you are completely blameless for any of what you're going through.

#vr lately
Hot LEAKS

This doesn't mean anything to me. This may be a very honest account of what the tone of conversation is on the channels that Sarais is referring to, but without being there, I can't express with any certainty that those handpicked screencaps confirm that conversations about Sarais are not happening in a place where he or I can't see it. If I were in your shoes I would have hesitated to qualify it in my post as any sort of evidence for anything.

Sarais, I realize you're under a lot of pressure right now. You just want to make cool doom maps and develop your career as video game designer so you can make the world's best games. That's a very cool goal and it's very useful to have someone in this community with that kind of ambition in mind when talking about Doom. For those reasons I think you're a very cool Doomer. Based on what I'm reading, it sounds to me that you're operating under a presupposition that your personality and emotions are influenced by external factors. This is mostly true, sometimes people hurt each other, even when they don't mean to, or think what they are doing is hurtful. As far as being a respected person, people really admire it when you exercise some responsibility in controlling your feelings and how you act on them. If you attempt to reciprocate every bit of damage that is done towards you, especially when it's unintentional, it's not easy for them to forgive you for that. I know from my experience on the internet that there have both been times where I was hurt and I just bit the bullet and didn't say anything even though I knew I was wronged, and there were times where I lashed out in a manner far more intense for them than what was done to me. And the latter always made my reputation worse.

That said, I think what you're expressing (when you call people the "doomunati" or accusing strangers of conspiring against you) is an oversensitivity to something many of us here know is a problem with doomworld or by extension, the social climate of the internet in general. People get together with friends and by talking about what they like and dislike, they grow a strong bond based on these values. On occasion this goes a little too far and these friends will go great lengths to protect each other from people who express opinions they dislike. It's done out of love for one another, but if you're ever excluded from the group, it can feel very venomous to be on the receiving end. One of the reasons Doomer Boards was made was because many doomworld members developed bonds with each other. Through their deeply rooted relationships with their friends, they enable each other to believe some pretty strong opinions about things that are technically very nuanced. My suspicion is that if any one person feels threatened by having their beliefs tested, they will relay that information in confidence to their friends and they will command the place of discourse and control the tone of the conversation to scare the threat off. To me, it's more likely a strange phenomenon that the internet has facilitated, rather than a nefarious conspiracy that has a clear doomsday plan. Based on what's been presented here, it seems to me you said some things that rubbed some people the wrong way, and where you were expected to backpedal on your word to calm the situation down, you pushed forward which has tipped some people off and created a lot of severed potential friendships with people you didn't even know existed. I empathize with you for that, but I also think you have a lot of work to do on yourself if you want to open the gates to world of fun and pleasant conversations with people who like the same things you do. I think a lot of people will agree that it will probably involve a mantra along the lines of "Do more, talk less" until you think you can give people the benefit of the doubt that they're not all demons with sole purpose of making your life miserable.

+1

My observations has left me with the conclusion that, on a deeper subconscious level, you are self destructive and almost beg for this style of confrontation.

It's also somewhat apparent that you almost want this hell just to prove your point, like some real Oppression Olympics tactics.

I don't want to hate you, I don't want to hate anyone, but I feel as though you are going through an extreme amount of effort to make people hate you to fuel this weird "Doom community cabal wants to fuck your shit up" conspiracy theory. This is not healthy, you really are putting yourself at risk here (mentally).

I sincerely hope some of what you said here was in irony, a strange joke that I don't understand, how do you have a defeated downtrodden life look where you're empty and dead inside yet also put yourself on a pedestal above everyone else?

Go back to kiwifarms

Because as I had so stated, I purged the room. I don't tolerate betrayal, so I'm not in contact with anyone in that room anymore.

Interesting thread...I'll just wish all of you good luck!

May I ask new members to introduce themselves if they want to participate?

You've probably seen me on more than one occasion, stand up for something I believe in even in front of a large group of people who sweepingly disagree with it. In these types of situations, there are a few rare people who say something along the lines of "HEY FUCK THIS GUY, GO KILL YOURSELF. PEACE."

The majority, however say things more innocuous like "ehh i don't know how I feel about that" or just say nothing at all.

In my personal experience, being the only one or one of very few with a particular divisive opinion that seemingly frustrates a lot of people, it's the sheer number of innocuous-but-still-not-in-agreement posts that tend to hurt much more than the "YO GO FUCK YOURSELF" posts, especially when there's a lot of them. Even though the posts are not very fierce, there are very intense and hurtful people on the other side. So when people say "this isn't really something I feel comfortable commenting on" it almost feels like the people are more in alignment with really nasty "FUCK OFF BITCH" type of people than they are with you.

I'm not saying falsely accusing people of murder is justified. It's not. What I am saying is that sometimes you can have a strong opinion about something, and one person saying "BOO YOU FUCKING SUCK" has much less of an impact than 20 people who are in the middle saying "I don't really think you're right about this." So it almost feels natural to freak out because it doesn't make any sense that people could possibly prefer the side that contains people that say "YO FUCKKKKKK YOUUUU"

I like to think I've developed some pretty good self control and not let my emotions get the best of me when I'm talking about something I really believe in and there are a lot of people I'm not getting through to. If people are telling you to shut up, it feels almost instinctual to want to return fire in a way thats ten times as hard. That's what I think is happening here, except that SARais is just so flushed with all of this that he can't help but use wild hyperbole and giant red text to shock people into listening to him.

My apologies.I'm iceviper and I'm new here.If I am not welcome then you may say so.

It's not an issue of people not being welcome here. This particular topic invited a lot of people from I don't know where and it seems like they're continuing a disagreement with Sarais that started way before they arrived here without clueing us in on where any of this hostility came from in the first place.

I trust you guys probably have some good points to make but it doesn't look good to start from a place that's built up on many years of frustration. If I don't know any of you guys or where you're coming from then I'm inclined to believe Sarais when he says he's being harassed.

This thread was a mistake...

I don't know if I'm actually impressed that you managed to make something that is worse than some of the worst threads ever made in Doomworld EE.

Fuck that shit, man!

It's good to be able to vent! Otherwise you keep all that shit in your head. That's really twisted to think I'm an abuser for opening up this thing for discussion. You know you can control your actions and so can everyone else here. That responsibility is not on me. This has obviously been on everyone's minds for a while, and when there's no place to talk about it, it leaks out into other places.

This thread exists because were gonna get everyone's intentions out in the open so we know exactly where each other stands and we figure out how we're gonna be Doomers together from there. These fucking grudges build up and people don't let them go for YEARS. I'm done with that shit. Maybe we get mad, maybe we break some stuff, maybe we say things we don't mean. But we're gonna get all of this out of our systems and move on with our lives so we can get along.