Wanna know something? Wanna know why Shiny is acting the way he is now? Because you guys do give him attention, everytime he does or say something weird, you all pile on him and then he apologizes, because he's just a 14-year old kid, he doesn't understand that you guys aren't being serious. I see complaints everytime how you can't recognize tone on the internet but you expect Shiny to do so. So it goes on a long forth-and-back of him apologizing because he's just a kid.
You can't complain about him wanting attention when you conditioned him to expect such, and as adults, you need to recognize this and take responsibility.
You don't treat him like you would with any other user, you belittle him like he's less than you because he's 14 years old and pick on him because you know he won't act out back. He doesn't know how to properly interact through the internet with people much older than him "on the same level", he didn't start the whole thing of seeing us as "better than him", it's you guys' fault for treating him "just like a child".
This is exactly why I, 4 years ago, used a fake birthday on this site(well, I wouldn't need to if I knew I could hide it), because it's the same everywhere on the internet, and I have no doubts I would have been treated that way if my actual age was public on this site: if you're young, then you'll have a bunch of adults bully you through their computers screen when all you need is to be treated equally.
If you want him to stop liking your posts, then stop calling attention to that. If you want him to stop apologizing, then stop calling attention to everything he does. If you want him to stop belittling himself, then stop doing that yourself.
This isn't to say Shiny doesn't have issues related to him alone, but let him resolve those, let him learn like anyone else would and did. And I'm gonna repeat myself again: he's just a ****ing kid, let him learn, he isn't supposed to know everything right from the start.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk