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Twitter was the worst thing to ever happen to the Smash community.

Rango the Mercenary

The Mercenary
Joined
May 22, 2007
Messages
1,536
Location
Georgia
3DS FC
2320-6400-7280
Coming from GameFAQs and All is Brawl, the latter was an ideal social media platform. It was a place where Smash players could be Smash players. Once it died and social media became a thing, we got:

  • Non-Smash players watching us and making unwanted comments and inviting themselves in for clout (see: clout culture)
  • Unmoderated harassment, bullying, and insults
The unmoderated part meant it was a vain attempt by top players and heads to chill the harassment, transphobia, and bigotry in the scene while non-players continued gatekeeping and ridiculing other players. On AiB, it was easier to moderate players since they were part of the Smash scene and could thus be identified. As such, this card could also be used to suspend and ban players, from tournaments or the site alike, who would cause a ruckus online or in their local scene.

In a contained site, we also didn't have to deal with other communities bickering such as FGC and Smash at each-other's throats. We were all Smash and we all loved the game. It wasn't a clout-fest where people cashed-in by ridiculing other people for the game they enjoyed.

6 months off Twitter and I can safely say I'm much happier staying away from that site. Kinda wish we had AiB/Nintendodojo back but I suppose I'll settle for Smashboards for now. It's a hell of a lot better than Twitter and something I wouldn't recommend to any future players either. I would rather see where Smash goes should players turn to a centralized network for Smash players.
 

RetrogamerMax

Smash Legend
Joined
Sep 3, 2018
Messages
12,221
Location
Houston, Texas
NNID
RetrogamerMax2
Coming from GameFAQs and All is Brawl, the latter was an ideal social media platform. It was a place where Smash players could be Smash players. Once it died and social media became a thing, we got:

  • Non-Smash players watching us and making unwanted comments and inviting themselves in for clout (see: clout culture)
  • Unmoderated harassment, bullying, and insults
The unmoderated part meant it was a vain attempt by top players and heads to chill the harassment, transphobia, and bigotry in the scene while non-players continued gatekeeping and ridiculing other players. On AiB, it was easier to moderate players since they were part of the Smash scene and could thus be identified. As such, this card could also be used to suspend and ban players, from tournaments or the site alike, who would cause a ruckus online or in their local scene.

In a contained site, we also didn't have to deal with other communities bickering such as FGC and Smash at each-other's throats. We were all Smash and we all loved the game. It wasn't a clout-fest where people cashed-in by ridiculing other people for the game they enjoyed.

6 months off Twitter and I can safely say I'm much happier staying away from that site. Kinda wish we had AiB/Nintendodojo back but I suppose I'll settle for Smashboards for now. It's a hell of a lot better than Twitter and something I wouldn't recommend to any future players either. I would rather see where Smash goes should players turn to a centralized network for Smash players.
It's a shame All Is Brawl shut down sometime after Twitter came into existence because I would probably set up camp there too if it still existed. It sucks that happened. Sometimes I miss the more simpler times of my childhood in the 2000s.
 

Rango the Mercenary

The Mercenary
Joined
May 22, 2007
Messages
1,536
Location
Georgia
3DS FC
2320-6400-7280
I think I might stick to Discord and Smashboards as my base of operations. In the case of the former, we may as well go back to square one. At least it's moderated by people within the community.
 

Yashichi

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Nov 19, 2013
Messages
441
Twitter is good. I like to go viral and make tweets. When the content scrolls down my phone, I smile and drop a "like" or even a "retweet" if I really enjoy it. You can't quite get that experience with Discord or Smashboards.
 

Vlade

Social Outcast
Joined
May 30, 2008
Messages
4,043
Location
Perth, Western Australia
As much as I love Discord, I feel like it also played a role in killing that old forum culture we miss

Twitter is just awful, you can't post anything slightly controversial without sjws coming for your neck. At least on the boards there's enough characters to have somewhat of a (usually) civil discussion
 

Bowser D.X

Brawl Player
Joined
Jul 22, 2010
Messages
470
The huge boom in popularity Smash had around 5-6 years ago, between that Melee documentary, the invitational, Sm4sh hype and Melee at Evo caused Smash to sort of became the "cool game" within the wider Nintendo fandom causing a huge flood into the community. That mixed with YouTuber's bringing even more attention to it and the man-childesc culture of Reddit primarily becoming the new hub for Smash stuff, the community became a bloated mess of creeps, manchildren and obnoxious internet hall monitor types, instead of the tight-knit community that had been slowly growing and evolving over the previous decade.

TL;DR the Smash community went to **** after the Redditors who play with items on any stage were convinced "Fox only" was cool after all.


All that said I hope that eventually competitive Smash will stop being "trendy" and the community will sort of mellow itself out and return to something resembling it's old state. Get "in touch with it's roots" if you will.
 
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Al-kīmiyā'

Smash the State
Joined
Apr 22, 2010
Messages
2,574
If your mental health is affected by twitter, you were probably part of the problem.
 

Yashichi

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Nov 19, 2013
Messages
441
Twitter is good. The viral content hits the spot more than ever these days #Viral #TheSpot
 

Eremurus

Smash Apprentice
Joined
Jun 28, 2020
Messages
177
Location
bring back pluto
I don't think it's necessarily Twitter; but social media platforms as a whole, and the kind of animosity and toxicity it started to breed.
 

EileenWelch

Smash Rookie
Joined
Nov 5, 2023
Messages
1
I understand that your perspective on Twitter and its impact on the Smash community was shared a couple of years ago. It's interesting to see how online communities evolve over time, and your insights from that period are valid.
As you mentioned, the downsides of social media can include unwanted comments, harassment, and a focus on clout culture. It's essential for any online space to have proper moderation to maintain a healthy community.
If you ever decide to return to social media, you could try to buy small amounts of twitter followers. Remember that fostering a respectful and inclusive community is key to enjoying any online platform.
 
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Doppler

Smash Rookie
Joined
Nov 28, 2020
Messages
2
Location
Dayton, Ohio
Slippi.gg
Dopp#326
I'll just plug my website, it's a mastodon server dedicated to platform fighter players. I've got maybe 20 active users, but you can access the whole network.

But for the most part you'll only interact with the people you want to interact with.

 

Janx_uwu

Smash Champion
Writing Team
Joined
May 17, 2020
Messages
2,957
Location
Faraway Avalon
I think, if anything, Twitter's character limit has been more harmful than Twitter itself. If people could make a post longer than a second-grade book report, we'd see a lot more of productive discussion and less of reducing complicated issues to catchy slogans. That goes for Smash and just the general world.
 

Arcadenik

Smash Legend
Joined
Jun 26, 2009
Messages
14,152
NNID
Arcadenik
Oh, I don’t know. I like to think that my tweets asking Sakurai to add Duck Hunt Dog in Smash in 2011 or 2012 when Sakurai was just starting to work on Smash 4 actually worked. :4duckhunt:
 
D

Deleted member

Guest
I only use Twitter to post my screenshots anyway, like this.

 
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Gorgonzales

Smash Ace
Joined
Jan 23, 2021
Messages
785
Location
Forgotten Isle
I feel like Twitter has made Smash speculation and discussion a lot less enjoyable due to how often everyone dunks on each other for potential picks. FP2 speculation was the worst and I just wanted it to be over, everyone on that site is at one another's throats even if you just slightly disagree with them.

I'm not even a fan of Geno but when I stood up for Geno fans when they were being made fun of for the Mii costume, my tweet was taken out of context in a quote tweet saying something like "LMAOOO LOOK AT WHAT GENO SUPPORTERS HAVE STOOPED TO" despite me not even actively rooting for the character. Twitter is a poison.
 
D

Deleted member

Guest
Oh and I only follow official companies, not individual people. The latter is far toxic.
 

Jotadé

Smash Journeyman
Joined
Dec 22, 2023
Messages
410
I left Twitter the literal minute I got word about the NFT hexagon pfps.

At that point I knew that social media was a lost cause.
 
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