Was I Bullied, or Am I Victimizing Myself? Here is My Story.

[Deleted member]

Spoiler: Introduction

Greetings everyone. You may or may not know me. I have had many social interactions in the past, and I am looking for advice and a proper place to vent in here. I have been in SmashBoards in the past, and a lot transpired. There has been a lot of toxic and rough drama for years, and I want to share it all in this large essay. One thing to note is that this is all in my point of view. I have listed my grievances of my interactions, and how other people communicated with me. Here is all of the information of myself and my experiences that I can gether, and here are my stories of socializing in the internet. Do I have a life? No. Should I be ashamed? Yes. Socializing is not something I can do well, and it is important to be careful when interacting with people. An important thing to read here is I will keep all the Discord servers and people's names anonymous. The nicknames I have given to the Discord servers and to other people are not their real usernames or just names, they are fake. If I make an error, please let me know so I can fix it. I apologize for any errors I post. No harassing others, please! Be respectful! Now you can continue and read my experiences.

Spoiler: Part I: My First Experience in SmashBoards

In 2017, I joined SmashBoards for the first time.

I started posting more in 2018 at NintenZone. I started to get a lot of likes, post, and thus transform into a prominent member. People began to become more attracted to me, as I started posting more. However, things weren’t that simple. I used to be more awkward and I would post stupid stuff, and this started to frustrate people. There would be pages of people calling me out. Of course I did some wrong actions, but the callouts became harsher and longer. It even led to half of the thread blocking me at one point. I would make mistakes, but rather than the staff punishing me for them, it led to chaos from the users. It got ridiculous, and everyone was frustrated with me overall. I felt like I made a worse than better impact in NintenZone.I am not saying I am a complete victim, I am just saying I deserved to be treated better.

Around late 2018 or early 2019, NintenZone was slowly being replaced by the Social Thread. This Social Thread was before the one we are in now. It was a mixture of the old NintenZone users, and some new users. It was a fresh experience, and there were many new users. However, of course, drama ensured, and it became worse. Some new users really loved attention or just yelling at people, so they would be quite harsh towards me, and gain a ton of likes. Sometimes, it felt as if complaining about Shiny was used for likes rather than my betterment, but that could be me being a bit salty. Anyways, as more users joined, they all presented harsher attacks. I was even physically threatened by the users. I had to improve, of course, but the hate was too much for me to bear, so as a result, I continued to do stupid things, and everyone continued to be more cruel. Users even started to make fun of me, such as the way I try to communicate with others. They called me a “robot” because of my formal typing. Now I don’t really care, but at the time, I found it offensive. I was also compared to previous problematic users by everyone, and everyone loved to use me as what a person should not be. It hurt me quite a lot.

Then, things started to go REALLY downhill. There was a very problematic user. I will keep them anonymous, so I will just call them Brett. Brett was an interesting user at first. Quite a bit horny. I thought they were a troll at first, and I called them out for it, but they made a wacky “roast”, and of course it gets flooded with likes. Brett was on the rise. Brett would have strange moments, but no one largely called them out for it, because everyone liked them as a friend. If only I was liked as a good friend there… Anyways, Brett started to tell everyone they had tuberculosis and some other disease that I forgot. Many people including I shared our sympathies. It was a tragic moment, and everyone banded together to offer support for Brett.

Then, it happened. It was announced Brett had died of their diseases. Everyone in the thread mourned, and someone even drew a picture to accommodate Brett. This was a tragic moment of SmashBoards, and everyone was hoping they would rest in peace, especially me. We could not believe a user that we all loved perished… It seemed like everyone would respect and remember them forever…

This is where everything goes to ****ing hell. It turns out, Brett faked the ENTIRE thing. Yes, the disease, the death… All just an act for attention. Brett revealed it themselves in a DM. Everyone was infuriated. We were lied to and manipulated… How awful! Everyone was in shock, and it hurt many of us. People were discarding their well wishes, and now everyone was ****ing pissed for a damn great reason. The thread was chaos. People were pissed off at Brett, and they started attacking other things, like the staff. This would be an issue later. We had been lied and betrayed to, and it hurt.

It only gets worse from here. I sighed as I typed this. It turns out, a very nice friend who I will keep anonymous and I was in a DM with Brett. I will give my very nice friend the name Dyrotia. Dyrotia is a friendly and sweet girl. Anyways, Brett made us go through sexual roleplay, and it felt very awkward and painful. Dyrotia and I were both victims of pedophilic acts. I couldn’t handle it, so Dyrotia and I revealed it on Discord and in SmashBoards. Everyone showed their sympathies to both of us. It was a very tragic moment. This caused many users to be uncomfortable with the social thread. There were even suggestions that we call the pigs, but Dyrotia and I disagreed. I myself hate pigs. ACAB. Anyways, everyone was exhausted. This Brett drama was too much for us, and we really hoped this would never happen again. Moments like these destroy trust among others, and it was quite tragic. The Brett situation happened around the spring of 2019.

However, more drama ensured. Now it was the summer of 2019. It took way too long for a ****ty transphobe and islamophobe to be banned, and a well-loved administrator was kicked out for a poor reason. More information about staff corruption leaked. Many users including me were furious at the staff, and a lot of anti-staff posts ensured. There were even jokes about us pretending to be Vladimir Lenin against the evil staff. This drama with the staff ushered in a new era of the SmashBoards socialization. Many users in the social thread, especially the old NintenZone users, left the Social Thread to join a Discord server I will mention later. The Brett disaster and the staff drama became too much for them, including me. On 4 July 2019, I was outraged by all of this. I started getting political, I started bashing on America and pissing off many. As a result I was banned. To be fair, it was reasonable. Anyways, I deleted my SmashBoards account, and I left SmashBoards. I would not return for more than a year. I highly doubt I was missed, considering all of the **** I have caused. Right?

Overall, SmashBoards in 2018-2019 was a mixed bag. We had great moments, and awful moments. The awful moments were quite tough on me. I will admit I was quite flawed. I posted a lot of horny content, and I gave stupid advice to adults that knew life better. I have also gotten myself into conversations I do not understand, and that pissed people off. I should have been a better user, and I apologize for my previous actions. Some people even complained that I was not myself, or some people claimed I was overreacting and I was just fine. I really should have tried better. I should have gone to evolving myself, like reading or studying a new language, or actually thinking before posting, rather than being my dumb self. I have failed. My “failure” of being what I wanted to be is another issue that makes me depressed.

Spoiler: Part II: The Old Hangout

Now that I left SmashBoards, rather than fix myself heavily, I settled on a Discord server. I will keep this Discord server’s name anonymous and call it The Old Hangout. Better to give it a nice nickname rather than “Discord Server A”, right? Anyways, the Old Hangout consisted of the mostly old SmashBoards members that left after the whole Brett and staff fiasco. They were trying to avoid the drama that was rampant in the social thread of SmashBoards, and I respect that. It was a fun, nice server with ****posts, Smash discussion, and just a chill atmosphere. It was quite relaxing and enjoyable! I could even ****ing swear! I joined this server way before I left SmashBoards, but I fully dedicated myself to it after the staff meltdown. I was one of the first members. Things seemed like they would go great afterwards, but… It didn’t…

As I dived into the Old Hangout, I found myself experiencing drama once again. I got into heated debates over video game characters, which was awkward, and I often overreacted to jokes and posts. However, as usual, the responses were harsh. Now that the old SmashBoards users had more control over me, they would give me a lot of mutes and warnings, even if some of them seemed unfair. Everytime I made a stupid random post, or got angry at someone’s opinion, it was straight up a warning. I get that I deserve to be punished at times, but I felt like it was easier for me to get in trouble than the other users. I feel like because I was ShinyLegendary who has caused drama in SmashBoards, the old users would finally be able to release their rage onto me by giving me harsh punishments. I felt like there was a large distance between The Old Hangout users and I, and I got frustrated, as I felt like there was bias against me in the Old Hangout. People also got my pronouns wrong and called me a male, which really hurt me. I vented my frustrations, and I continued to rack in punishments. When I spoke out against being bullied by some of the members in the Old Hangout, some people thought I was lying, and that really frustrated me. I was bullied, and if you disagree, either point out valid facts that I can debate, or leave me alone.

Eventually, this led to me getting banned from the server. All of this drama resulted in my ban from the Old Hangout. It was a very nice server, but the bullying was too much. I was bullied by harsh punishments compared to other users, harsh words against my views and tastes, and making fun of me because of how I type or how I function. I am not a normal human being, and I was made fun of because of this. The ban made me quite bitter. It felt like a humiliation. It feels like I would be less respected on the internet overall. The Old Hangout felt like a tick or a curse that stuck onto me, to remind me that I am a horrible person, and settling into communities will eventually cause drama or get me banned. It also made me feel like a failure, and it is one of the reasons why my self-esteem is so low, and why I wish for death. I admit I deserved to be punished on some fronts, but my main complaint is my punishments were quite unfair.

Before you complain that I am victimizing myself, I did things wrong. I did horny post at times, but not as much thankfully, I spammed unnecessary random stuff, and I did not think before posting enough. I overreacted to dark humor, and that frustrated some people. I should have improved and learned from SmashBoards rather than jumping into another community like that. The Old Hangout has positively affected me in certain stances, like helping me to increase my pool of knowledge in entertainment, and it made me seek therapy, which was very kind of them. Even if some of them got my pronouns wrong, they still accepted me overall in terms of my self-identification, which was great! However, the bullying was too much of an enormous burden for me to handle. Overall, my experience with the Old Hangout felt quite bitter, and I felt like the negative memories of me getting banned and yelled at overrode the positive memories. This tragic moment happened in November of 2019. After that, I quit Smash speculation all together, and I felt demoralized and mentally exhausted and in pain.

Spoiler: Part III: The Colorful Umbrella

Now that I was banned from the Old Hangout, I had to migrate to another community. I was already on multiple servers, but the one I decided to settle into was different from SmashBoards. It had a few members already present in here, but it was quite different from SmashBoards and the Old Hangout. I want to keep Discord server names anonymous, so I will nickname this one The Colorful Umbrella. I was already in the Colorful Umbrella before, but I increased my presence. The Colorful Umbrella was a server that was not based as hard on SmashBoards, which was a new experience for me. New topics for me to talk about? New people? The Colorful Umbrella had some new friendly people that I can communicate with, and they seemed quite nice! Basically all of them were a part of the LGBTQ+ community, and it made me feel home. What could possibly go wrong? Everything went wrong…

As I started to settle in the Colorful Umbrella, people started to become more connected to me. However, as people started to learn about me, they slowly saw my glaring flaws and became frustrated with me. Slowly I started to realize that this was going to be a repeat of SmashBoards and the Old Hangout. I vented a lot in the support channel, and I was met with harsh criticism on my ventings. They wanted to see me dramatically improve right now, and any criticisms I offered of other past experiences, they were beaten down and I was told to improve right now or else. The advice they granted was great, but I felt like it was harsh. When I continued to question others, I was accused of being “combative in the supportive channel. I felt like I was not being combative, and I was very open to peoples’ ideals. However, I did cause a lot of drama in the support channel, and rather than me becoming closer with the community, I felt like I was the villain. It felt like me versus the entire community, as usual. It felt like everyone hated me and they felt that I was this horrible villain spreading drama and evil in a peaceful area. I hated this villinization, and no one ever saw my point of view. Anyways, there wasn’t just drama in the support channel. Some jokes I made that were not breaking the rules were met with harsh criticism, because the staff didn’t like my way of humor. When we talked about politics, I vented about politics, and people told me to be complicit with their views. They wanted me to be a Democrat rather than being a die-hard leftist, like a Leninist or anarchist. I started a lot of political debates, and some people attacked me because of my views and my fiery speeches. It made me a bit upset, and eventually I stopped getting into political debates there. I would often make an error, and then rather than calm criticism of how I can approve, it was attack upon attack, and these attacks were breaking my happiness. My self-esteem was never increased. Things were not going well…

Basically, you know what happens next. I was banned. I continued to vent about the Old Hangout, as I was bullied, but then someone from the Old Hangout came in to stop me right there. I will keep their name anonymous and call them Yakuza. I respected Yakuza, and I was even afraid of them, but this did not help. I could tell Yakuza held a large grudge against me after the drama I caused in SmashBoards and the Old Hangout, and they found their perfect opportunity. I was venting about the Old Hangout once again, and then they rushed into the scene. They used a claim that I was in trouble for arguing about a video game character. Yes, it was a part of it, but they did not understand there was a huge staff bias problem in the Old Hangout. They also accused me of stalking a user via an alternate account on Twitter. I did have an alternate account, but I did not use this for spying! This was my personal venting account. I admit I interacted the wrong way with the user on Twitter, but I thought they would be friends with me, because they were friends with me in the Old Hangout. I did not spy on their every move, I just followed them on Twitter, because I thought they would be okay with that. They claimed that their account was “18+”, but they never had an indication on their account, and never told me until just now. I was not stalking them, I just wanted to follow them. Trust me, I am seventeen as of this post being created, and I never go into NSFW splaces. Yakzua claimed there was no evidence of me being bullied in the Old Hangout, but I could not get the evidence, and they never fully saw my story. They never knew about the times I was physically threatened in SmashBoards because of some silly drama I caused. They thought I was the evil villain, and I did some things wrong, but I hated this. This was a repeat of SmashBoards and the Old Hangout, and it was obnoxious. When I presented facts defending me, the members in the Colorful Umbrella did not buy it. I was immediately attacked by many of the users. I was ganged up upon, yelled at, and eventually, I was banned. I was accused of lying to everyone when I wasn’t, I was accused of being combative in the support channels when I was open as hell, and they claimed I needed a break from social media, and which hey, I did. Did it really warrant a permanent ban though? I just want to say that I immensely respect Yakuza, but I am a bit sad they did not see my point of view on the situation. Yakuza, if you are reading this, please do not get upset. You can disagree with me, but no attacks please. I know I did the same song and dance over and over, but I wish people in SmashBoards, the Old Hangout, and in the Colorful Umbrella were respectful and more calm. It was a sad conclusion, and it was just like SmashBoards, and the Old Hangout.

Was I in the wrong at times? Of course. I did cause way too much drama in the support thread, and I felt like I was quite annoying to people. I can say I did not improve as much as I wanted to, and I can see why people were frustrated with me. I also caused some users in there to block me, which is reasonable. It is tragic that I was banned from a seemingly nice server, but I had to move on to another server. I will just say that I was not the complete victim nor villain, but I wish the response from others was more soothing and respectful.

Spoiler: Part IV: Twitter

This part happened from my time in the Old Hangout to my time after my ban from the Colorful Umbrella, but now it is time for my experience on Twitter. I started to turn to Twitter after wanting to experiment more. It was quite unique from SmashBoards and the Discord servers, and there were a lot more people I could communicate to and follow. It was quite nice! I retweeted a lot of leftist and LGBTQ+ points. It helped me from my ideologies today. I talked with a lot of LGBTQ+ people, and a lot of different leftists, mainly left communists and anarchists. I started to share their ideals and opinions. I started to gain a lot of followers! It seemed things were going to go great, right? No… As usual, it did not.

Twitter had many issues. You had awful people posting there every day of their lives, and you had nasty people that would react to your posts on a daily basis. There was an enormous amount of infighting in the LGBTQ+ and leftist communities, and I got pulled into that, and it ****ing exhausted me. I also tried to dunk on right-wing assholes, and I caused a lot of drama as a result. The leftist and LGBTQ+ infighting really made me dread Twitter in the later stages. I was even blocked by over five hundred people on Twitter. I felt like I was quite hated on Twitter. I made a personal venting account to vent out my frustrations, but I felt like it was not working. Twitter was becoming stale, and I heard about these many cases of malicious acts. There was a ton of drama on Twitter, and it was not for me. For example, on the left people were threatening each other whenever they would vote for Joe Biden or not, because I remember being on Twitter when Bernie Sanders lost the nomination. The LGBTQ+ infighting was very painful, and it made me realize that it was a lot more divided than I thought. This division and drama was too much for me, and eventually, I deleted my account right after I was banned in the Colorful Umbrella. After being blocked by many of my former friends and people I heavily admired, and being **** on by leftists and right-wing idiots, I had enough of Twitter. I can confidently say I will never return to Twitter ever again.

Was I problematic on Twitter? Yes I was. I fell for the trap of the right-wing by arguing with them a lot rather than blocking. I did block thousands of people, but I still argued way too much. I also wish I did not dive in the LGBTQ+ and leftist infighting, and now I feel ashamed as to what I stand for. I admit I could have been a better person, and it is a shame I have failed to be peaceful, and it is a shame a lot of drama occurred.

Spoiler: Part V: The Present

After years of this ****ing life-draining and idiotic drama, I moved to somewhere else. I moved to a new Discord server. I will keep the name anonymous. I will name it the Beehive. The Beehive is a very huge server, and it had hundreds of thousands of members, unlike the previous server. This was when I got attached to a game that received a major update. However I slowly started to get familiar with the prominent members of the Discord server, and they started to understand me. What is great is unlike before, there is extremely little drama. I may get a few criticisms from here to there, but they are respectful and civil. They also tell strange jokes, and I related to that heavily. I even became friends with some of the staff. I even met a popular developer, and we had many fun interactions! It was going great!

Of course, there were flaws. There were some users that had ****ty opinions, and there were many right-wing ****heads and spammers, which is very annoying, but thankfully they will most likely be taken care of. The server I am in is a lot more young, and I am older than most of them. In SmashBoards, the Old Hangout, the Colorful Umbrella, and Twitter, I was quite young compared to my friends. Now I am a lot more responsible and older, and it was strange I was older than them. The flaws is that they tended to do some stupid things or make stupid posts, and it reminded me of myself in SmashBoards. Some people also claimed the Beehive was in decline due to the homogenization of the Beehive, considering the massive influx of users from an update. Despite these flaws, there was not as much painful drama. Will things go wrong in the future? Of course. Is the lack of drama relaxing? Absolutely!

I have also returned back to SmashBoards after a year of hopping around Discord and Twitter. I found myself missing the expression and peace of SmashBoards, thus I migrated back in. I was welcomed warmly, and I heavily appreciate that. I can only think of a few awkward instances, but everything is nice and peaceful. There are some old friends that are treating me quite warmly in SmashBoards, and I am happy as hell to be back. Thank you SmashBoards for making me feel welcome! I will always appreciate that! I hope excessive and brutal drama does not creep back in, and may peace continue in SmashBoards.

Spoiler: The Grand Conclusion of My Long Story Telling

This was my experience of years of social interaction. Have I committed many wrong actions in circumstances? Absolutely. I have caused many drama, some awkward moments that I still heavily regret to this day, and I deserved to be punished for them. I will say I am not the complete victim nor the complete villain. What I can learn is that improvement is something we should strive for more often. Unfortunately, I failed to improve. I made a ton of empty promises. This whole interaction of drama and my failure to improve as a human being has caused a heavy decrease in my self-esteem. I tend to say I hate myself frequently, and sometimes, I even wish for death to come upon me to end my existence. The year 2020 has been quite awful for me, and I am dreading the 2020 election, as both Trump and Biden are ****ing ****ty. COVID-19 has also been rough, as I know people who have been devastated by it. I hope everything goes better in the future. There have been many other interactions in social areas I have not mentioned, but those are very minor compared to these social interactions listed. Thinking before posting is more essential than we think, and we must be careful. I can say I am a failure, and do not be like me. It is impossible from me to move on from this drama. While I was bullied heavily, I will say that I have also done things wrong. Here is the final question. Was I a victim of bullying, or am I victimizing myself heavily? Please list your thoughts below! :3

 

[StoicPhantom]

I lack sufficient context to answer your question in the way its being posed, but bullying tends to really be a chicken or the egg type of thing. A bully can have tendencies towards bullying, but a victim can have qualities that provoke and egg it on. More often then not, both sides tend to feed into each other and escalate the situation. And there's a whole lot of room for genuine misunderstandings and negative reinforcement to create a toxic codependency. But I can still give a few words that you can compare with your experiences and come to your own conclusion.


Quite a lot of your story seems to center around online debate. It should go without saying that online debates are inherently toxic to a certain degree. Not necessarily in the sense of people being anonymous as that has largely gone out the window in modern times, but more so because the participants have no real connection with each other most of the time. Not to mention that the type of people who are willing to engage in online debate are usually the types that will passionately defend something, no matter how stupid.

So you're always going to need to have some degree of detachment if you chose to engage in debate. Regardless of who or what your opinions are; you are going to attract dissenting opinions and hate. That's just fundamental to voicing your opinions. You are going to get flak, you are going to be expected to defend yourself, and people are going to get angry and dislike you for them. There's a whole lot of celebrities and media people that found this out when they decided to bring their real identities into the internet.

But while you can't change the behavior of others you can examine your own and see where you may be exacerbating things. Taking a snippet of a post of yours from the election thread:

If a revolution were to happen, Pelosi would never side with us. You have to learn that Pelosi is a corrupt millionaire who only cares what her donors say. If we the people have to compromise with the rich assholes all day, then it isn't really a democracy, eh? A revolution can happen, if we try hard enough. Look at the Cuban revolution, where a few people managed to stop a brutal American-backed dictator. You have to learn that the American government is not democratic. The rich wealthy class own the Republicans and Democrats, and even the progressives at times. They own the entire government.

we can see that while the rest of your post wasn't too bad, this opening paragraph is a bit aggressive and demanding, and more than a little condescending. Its very lecturing and is going to immediately put the recipient on the defensive. If I were to rewrite your post to be more neutral it would probably look something like this:

Pelosi takes millions of dollars in donations from the wealthy and would be more incentivized to side with the wealthy over the poor in a revolution. A democracy that allows such bribery to sway the opinions of politicians and force the rest of the population into unfair compromises is not a democracy by definition. The Cuban revolution is an example of revolution working and leading to the overthrow of a dictator that was supported by America. But the American government is influenced by the wealthy to such a degree that change from within is impossible.

We can see that not only does it have more of a neutral statement vibe, but it takes the recipient completely out of the spotlight and frames the American government as the subject, not the recipient's potential lack of knowledge of the matter.

Now I'm not trying to lay blame on you or say that the way you posted is objectively incorrect. More saying that certain ways of writing will elicit certain responses from those reading it and if your goal is to get less hate, then you should spend more time constructing your posts in a manner that wouldn't incite hate towards you.

However, that doesn't mean that being a model neutral poster would have solved all your problems and your posts would be a little boring. A lot of the places you mentioned are rather insular communities by nature. There's a certain flow to these communities and going against that flow would create friction. Often times that flow isn't very obvious and the internet wisdom is to lurk these communities for a while before posting. Larger communities are easier to blend in, but smaller ones can be pretty finicky about that.


But while you can mitigate some of the toxicity towards you by doing what I've laid out above; there will always be friction towards any opposing sides of a debate and the more personal the topic is, the more emotions will come into play. If we're going to be brutally honest here: online debates very rarely have any sort of productivity or meaning to them. It really doesn't matter much at the end of the day whether you "win" or "lose" and it's not often that you will gain anything of value from participating in them. Frequent online debaters are often either people who like to debate for the sake of it or people who have some sort of dysfunctional quality to them that compels them to engage in toxicity all the time.

As such, you should probably be asking yourself whether it is worth it or not to engage in debate or online discourse in general. Western society pushes people into hyper competition and being opinionated, but the reality is that there are few people that have the qualities and personality that would allow them to be under that kind of pressure frequently and without spiritual repercussions. It's not a coincidence that internet celebrities have such a high rate of depression. The low investment costs of being somebody online has led to a lot of people being put under pressures that they aren't naturally suited to handle.


But it seems like you've reached a conclusion anyways and know what you did wrong and what you need to improve on, and have potentially found a community that suits you. Again, I lack the context to really answer your question, but it feels like you just went on a typical journey of learning how to communicate that everyone eventually does. So I'm not really sure there is a right/wrong dichotomy in the first place.

My advice would be to keep at it and not let ultimately pointless things weigh you down. Most of what can be classified as drama on the internet is meaningless bull****, as are "likes" and other forms of social validation on the internet. If interaction on the internet starts becoming a drag then disengage for a while. It's not possible to detach yourself completely from debates or whatever, but you can start putting less stock in what people on the internet think of you. I'm not saying to get in the habit of looking down on people, but if someone is clearly a moron and morons are bombarding his moronic post with likes, then is it really worth agonizing over what those people think of you? And is the internet and its "drama" really worth fearing and worrying about?


I personally enjoy getting into stupid arguments and don't really care what online people think of me, but you have to figure out what it is you truly desire out of the internet and the people on it.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Shiny, I'm barely involved with most of this stuff but...

Doesn't making a big public call out post cause more drama? And if you needed advice on who's to blame for what, wouldn't PMing a user you trust make more sense?

 

[Deleted member]

Shiny, I'm barely involved with most of this stuff but...

Doesn't making a big public call out post cause more drama? And if you needed advice on who's to blame for what, wouldn't PMing a user you trust make more sense?

I had to vent about it somewhere.

Don't worry. I am not saying I am one hundred percent the victim in this scenario. I list my flaws, and how I can improve.

Who would care enough to listen to my grievances anyways?

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Who would care enough to listen to my grievances anyways?

Mods.

Family.

Friends.

A pastor, therapist or community leader. There are lots of options.

 

[Deleted member]

Mods.

Family.

Friends.

A pastor, therapist or community leader. There are lots of options.

What if they don't understand, or just ignore it all together?

And I have no IRL friends that I can share this to.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

What if they don't understand, or just ignore it all together?

And I have no IRL friends that I can share this to.

Does your school have a counselor?

 

[DaybreakHorizon]

Look. Shiny. I sympathize with you to a fault. I honestly do. Which is why I'm going to tell it like I see it. No bullying. No bull****. Just my honest thoughts.

A large amount of the "drama" you talk about is the result of your inability to learn from your mistakes. The more you repeated the cycle of making a mistake, apologizing and saying you'd do better, and then almost immediately making a similar or the same mistake, the more frustrated people became with you. It's only natural for people to lose their patience when you repeat the same song and dance dozens of times, and most of the "bullying" you discuss in this essay is the result of exactly this. Had you actually made an active effort to improve parts 1-4 of this essay likely wouldn't have happened.

It makes complete sense why you ended up getting run out of multiple communities, because you never learned anything between leaving one community and joining another. You refused to take accountability for any of your actions, and refused to let go of past, ultimately meaningless drama. As the old saying goes, "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"

You seem to understand as such, but I have to question whether or not you actually mean it because I've seen you say as much countless times. I honestly want to believe that you're beginning to address the underlying root of your issues, but I'm also skeptical about that, especially because you say that "It is impossible for me to move on from this drama." If you continue to internalize such negative emotions you'll only continue to spiral downwards.

The thing about past trauma is that you have to actively work to move past it. I've had bad **** happen in my past too, so I get it. I really do. But when I say I'm going to improve I mean it, and I put in the effort required to do so. Can you say you do the same?

That's the question you should be asking yourself instead whether you were bullied or are just playing the victim.

 

[Deleted member]

Does your school have a counselor?

Yes, it does.

Look. Shiny. I sympathize with you to a fault. I honestly do. Which is why I'm going to tell it like I see it. No bullying. No bull****. Just my honest thoughts.

A large amount of the "drama" you talk about is the result of your inability to learn from your mistakes. The more you repeated the cycle of making a mistake, apologizing and saying you'd do better, and then almost immediately making a similar or the same mistake, the more frustrated people became with you. It's only natural for people to lose their patience when you repeat the same song and dance dozens of times, and most of the "bullying" you discuss in this essay is the result of exactly this. Had you actually made an active effort to improve parts 1-4 of this essay likely wouldn't have happened.

It makes complete sense why you ended up getting run out of multiple communities, because you never learned anything between leaving one community and joining another. You refused to take accountability for any of your actions, and refused to let go of past, ultimately meaningless drama. As the old saying goes, "those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"

You seem to understand as such, but I have to question whether or not you actually mean it because I've seen you say as much countless times. I honestly want to believe that you're beginning to address the underlying root of your issues, but I'm also skeptical about that, especially because you say that "It is impossible for me to move on from this drama." If you continue to internalize such negative emotions you'll only continue to spiral downwards.

The thing about past trauma is that you have to actively work to move past it. I've had bad **** happen in my past too, so I get it. I really do. But when I say I'm going to improve I mean it, and I put in the effort required to do so. Can you say you do the same?

That's the question you should be asking yourself instead whether you were bullied or are just playing the victim.

I respect your thoughts, I appreciate the comments. Thank you.

Also I am seeing my flaws more. If this was a some months ago, this essay probably would have been more biased towards me. I have learned some things, right? I know I have done many things wrong, and I know I am not in a great mental state right now.

Learning and improving takes time. It is not like it will just happen magically. I haven't started any drama in the social thread when I returned, which is quite nice. Moving past it is quite hard to do, sadly. I feel like all of my failures stick onto me, and people will notice my flaws when they get closer to me and judge me for it. This will make creating close relationships difficult.

Edit: I will get to your post after someone posts, S StoicPhantom . I apologize.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Yes, it does.

Talk to them. They can help.

 

[Deleted member]

Talk to them. They can help.

I am in already in therapy, but COVID-19 complicates things.

My advice would be to keep at it and not let ultimately pointless things weigh you down. Most of what can be classified as drama on the internet is meaningless bull****, as are "likes" and other forms of social validation on the internet. If interaction on the internet starts becoming a drag then disengage for a while. It's not possible to detach yourself completely from debates or whatever, but you can start putting less stock in what people on the internet think of you. I'm not saying to get in the habit of looking down on people, but if someone is clearly a moron and morons are bombarding his moronic post with likes, then is it really worth agonizing over what those people think of you? And is the internet and its "drama" really worth fearing and worrying about?


I personally enjoy getting into stupid arguments and don't really care what online people think of me, but you have to figure out what it is you truly desire out of the internet and the people on it.

My experiences in the post I mentioned weren't pointless. They showed some large flaws of me, and it still pins on to me today. These experiences weren't just some argument and done, this was years of drama. I need to disengage, but it is difficult, because even if I do, it will just cycle back again. I tried disengaging over ten times, and no substantial change. The people I am arguing with aren't morons, some of them are even professional at their passions and hobbies. I do worry what people think of me, because actions on the internet can spread like wildfire, and that can lead to many more people viewing me as a demon, and it can even become problematic outside the internet.

 

[StoicPhantom]

My experiences in the post I mentioned weren't pointless. They showed some large flaws of me, and it still pins on to me today. These experiences weren't just sone argument and done, this was years of drama. I need to disengage, but it is difficult, because even if I do, it will just cycle back again. I tried disengaging over ten times, and no substantial change. The people I am arguing with aren't morons, some of them are even professional at their passions and hobbies.

I was meaning that you should be more selective about who and what you give emotional weight to, not necessarily saying everyone you talked to was a moron or everything you did was pointless. There will be a certain amount of posters or a certain "drama" that really doesn't deserve your fretting. Even those times you were clearly at fault don't need to be dwelt on if you've learned your lessons and have strove to improve since then.

I've been sniped at by random people before that left me confused until I figured out that I had pretty thoroughly refuted them over a year ago (from that time). I had completely forgotten about those posters and those debates, as I do most posters and debates, but they were still nursing grudges against me for months to even years.

That is just simply unhealthy. To hold on to grudges and regrets over what amounts to pointless internet stuff is not healthy to your mental health at all. I can't speak to the quality of the users or the content of your interactions, but the sheer amount of stuff you seem to have gone through makes me think that maybe a good chunk of it is less important than you think. Not all of course, but there's probably lots of stuff that doesn't deserve for you to still regret or hold a grudge over today.

I am unsure of what you mean by "it will just cycle back again", but depending on how notorious you are in these places, it will take a long time to gain a good reputation or even just neutral reputation. You may even have to create another account under a different user name. But the internet is a vast place and even if you can't go back to those places; you can still find new ones that you can use your past lessons to better integrate into.

I do worry what people think of me, because actions on the internet can spread like wildfire, and that can lead to many more people viewing me as a demon, and it can even become problematic outside the internet.

This is what I'm warning against though. It's not good to heavily invest into your internet persona and you really shouldn't tie your real identity into it either. You are rather young, so you wouldn't remember the 1.0 era of the web. While it did have internet celebrity to a certain extent; there wasn't as much of a obsession with branding as there is now. 2.0 and the advent of social media has made it so that even people who are anonymous still attempt to build their name into a brand in some capacity.

That's not healthy and it seems to be making younger people such as yourself have difficulty distinguish between the real self and the online persona. While it's not impossible to have meaningful conversations and connections with other online denizens, you can't really know who the other person really is. The first rule of the internet should be to never take anything you see at face value. Sometimes that angry person isn't actually genuine but looking to get a rise out of you. That goes for yourself as well; you don't act the same way online as you do in real life 100%.

I'm "StoicPhantom" but not because I like that name or think its good. I just hastily chose it because it's a requirement to post on this site and I didn't want to spend too much time thinking about it. Most of my other profiles across various apps and games are under different names. I'm not looking to build a brand or online persona and I get bored of my names fairly quickly. That's how little I care about my online persona.


So I'm not trying to dismiss your feelings or downplay your experiences. I'm saying you put too much stock in your online persona. You don't need to be "ShinyLegendary" to post on the internet. If that name is giving you too much trouble then you can easily discard it for another one. And unlike real life, if you decide the internet is too much trouble then you can disconnect entirely from it and no one can do anything about it.

But regardless, if you are having suicidal thoughts and are feeling less secure and good about yourself from all this, then you are taking all of this way too personally and need to step back. The modern internet is like a highly addictive drug. Careful moderation from a calm and mature perspective can allow you to indulge in its pleasures, but it can very easily destroy a person if it is not respected. You need to be careful and ensure that you aren't tying your self-worth into your internet persona. Or the internet will ruthlessly mangle you.


I'll end on saying that the most important personal journey you will have is figuring out who exactly you are and then finding inner peace in accepting it. Getting weighed down by past regrets and grudges and worrying about creating a false image to appease others is ultimately distracting you from that journey and won't really make you happy in the long run.

 

[Deleted member]

I was meaning that you should be more selective about who and what you give emotional weight to, not necessarily saying everyone you talked to was a moron or everything you did was pointless. There will be a certain amount of posters or a certain "drama" that really doesn't deserve your fretting. Even those times you were clearly at fault don't need to be dwelt on if you've learned your lessons and have strove to improve since then.

I think I will explain the drama. The drama isn't me getting into a debate about if cereal is a soup or not, this drama is more intense. I would do something stupid, but rather than users calmly addressing the situation, everyone gangs up on me and makes attacks on me, and even threatens me. Imagine this drama I described, but it has been going on for years. This will eventually make me view myself lower, and I will get flashbacks of these traumatic moments. What frustrates me even more is that not many recognize I was bullied, and I want people to know the truth. The drama in the past was not pointless, it had an impact on me. It made me view myself lower overall. Do I have to learn from my mistakes? Yes. Is it easy for me to move on from heavily traumatic experiences? No.

That is just simply unhealthy. To hold on to grudges and regrets over what amounts to pointless internet stuff is not healthy to your mental health at all. I can't speak to the quality of the users or the content of your interactions, but the sheer amount of stuff you seem to have gone through makes me think that maybe a good chunk of it is less important than you think. Not all of course, but there's probably lots of stuff that doesn't deserve for you to still regret or hold a grudge over today.

Hmm, I disagree. How is it less important? These people were once my friends, and I was close to having a powerful social relationship that I actually never had in my entire life. Socialization is important, it can help the brain. Not only that, but these moments were tests of my character. Would I collapse as a failure, or would I move on from my mistakes and make everyone happy? The former happened, and now I feel like I am stuck descending into a bottomless pit. Life could have been nice if things went right, but they didn't. I know holding grudges can be wrong, but I will never forget about my past experiments as a human. I have a very difficult time connecting with people, and I do not think I can increase my self-esteem that much, or see succession. I have failed. It is game over for me. It feels wrong to just ignore my experiments and failure, I need to remember this and improve. Whenever I improve or not, it will still always pin onto me. I am traumatized by this.

I am unsure of what you mean by "it will just cycle back again", but depending on how notorious you are in these places, it will take a long time to gain a good reputation or even just neutral reputation. You may even have to create another account under a different user name. But the internet is a vast place and even if you can't go back to those places; you can still find new ones that you can use your past lessons to better integrate into.

My reputation is ****ed. And no, I will not create an alternate account, as that can be quite harmful. I have been going into new ones, and I still find the ghosts of early SmashBoards, The Old Hangout, the Colorful Umbrella, and Twitter latch onto me. I am in some calm communities right now, but drama can happen, and I am stuck in failure, so I have a right to be concerned about myself in social places.

So I'm not trying to dismiss your feelings or downplay your experiences. I'm saying you put too much stock in your online persona. You don't need to be "ShinyLegendary" to post on the internet. If that name is giving you too much trouble then you can easily discard it for another one. And unlike real life, if you decide the internet is too much trouble then you can disconnect entirely from it and no one can do anything about it.

I'm not putting stock into myself, I am trying to make more friends, and become involved in a happy community. I have taken a break from social areas in the past, but it always ends up as failure. Anyways, I just want people to think of me as a person who has overall made a positive impact in society, not a negative. Remember, my actions can spread like wildfire. A user from somewhere like the Old Hangout, the Colorful Umbrella, or Twitter can easily start drama by mentioning all my ****ups, and then the community will be hunting me down. I worry what people think about me, because my actions can easily cause a domino effect and make many more people despise me.

But regardless, if you are having suicidal thoughts and are feeling less secure and good about yourself from all this, then you are taking all of this way too personally and need to step back. The modern internet is like a highly addictive drug. Careful moderation from a calm and mature perspective can allow you to indulge in its pleasures, but it can very easily destroy a person if it is not respected. You need to be careful and ensure that you aren't tying your self-worth into your internet persona. Or the internet will ruthlessly mangle you.

It is difficult to not take these personally. I am traumatized by these past experiences. If I just detach from the internet, I am still going to get reminders of my past self in the internet, and how I caused many drama and pain. I have already been mangled by the internet, it is too late for me. I have failed, there is no light at the end of the tunnel. As I said before, if life were a video game, I have gotten a game over.

Edit: This is a short response to Tehponycorn's post, but I have been trying to improve, but it led to failure. I have been making a huge effort, but this is who I am. I am destined for failure.

 

[Ridley64]

In your first experience in smashboards, I think you are most in the right. Mostly. While you did experience an inability to improve, I have been in your position before. It is very hard to improve in that situation. And what Brett did was not ok.

 

[Deleted member]

In your first experience in smashboards, I think you are most in the right. Mostly. While you did experience an inability to improve, I have been in your position before. It is very hard to improve in that situation. And what Brett did was not ok.

You arrived in 5 July 2019, a day after I deleted my account. How do you know?

Also how was I mostly in the right?

 

[Ridley64]

You arrived in 5 July 2019, a day after I deleted my account. How do you know?

Also how was I most in the right?

I read the post. And what you said Brett did was not ok.
And people on the discord server could've been more diplomatic but you were not able to learn from your mistakes. I have been in the position where you are being scene as the bad guy/girl, it ended up with me hating myself. And the way out is hard to find but doing it is easy. And whyb does it say you jained on August 11, 2020

 

[StoicPhantom]

Hmm, I disagree. How is it less important? These people were once my friends, and I was close to having a powerful social relationship that I actually never had in my entire life.

I would do something stupid, but rather than users calmly addressing the situation, everyone gangs up on me and makes attacks on me, and even threatens me.

This will eventually make me view myself lower, and I will get flashbacks of these traumatic moments. What frustrates me even more is that not many recognize I was bullied, and I want people to know the truth.

I mean it should go without saying that people who gang up on and bully you don't really care about you at the end of the day. There's a fair amount of dissonance in your posts where you say these people are your friends but you seem to have a lot of emotional baggage about your interactions. That you want to move on to other communities, but you can't seem to help relitigating this drama.

It feels like you are getting caught in a sunk cost fallacy. The idea that because you royally botched your previous social interactions you must rectify those before you can move on to new ones. If the damage was as bad as you say then it really isn't worth trying to repair relationships from those places. Not that it isn't possible, but the amount of effort and time it would take wouldn't be worth it, especially if you are still harboring hard feelings.

You keep mentioning how you are afraid of these posters following you and talking **** about you, but has that actually happened and that wasn't prompted by you talking **** about them to your new community? Even if this did happen there is no reason why anyone in your new community would care unless they are mentally still the age of grade school children. If that's what's got you all worried then wait until that actually happens then either ignore or explain to your new community that you made mistakes in the past and are trying to change them. Don't attempt to argue or relitigate the past anymore.

It is difficult to not take these personally. I am traumatized by these past experiences. If I just detach from the internet, I am still going to get reminders of my past self in the internet, and how I caused many drama and pain. I have already been mangled by the internet, it is too late for me. I have failed, there is no light at the end of the tunnel. As I said before, if life were a video game, I have gotten a game over.

This is what I was talking about when I said you put too much stock in your online persona. Online isn't the real world. If I came over to where you live and shut off your internet access would you still be able to get in touch with any of these people? The simplest and easiest way to avoid any further issues with your reputation would be to make a new account/change your account name. That's how ultimately little your identity on the internet counts for. But for whatever reason you don't want to do that, so you are going to need to just stop engaging with people from your past and move on.


I too suffered from social issues and bullying when I was younger. Bad enough that it really killed my ability and desire to socialize for years. I eventually moved past that and have a close friend and people that generally like hanging out with me. You seem to be under the impression that the internet is an easy path to forming social relationships for people that have difficulty doing so. That is not true and I would say it is actually more difficult to do so. That's not a healthy view to have and you would be better of putting your effort in forming meaningful relations with people offline.

So I'm speaking from experience when I say that letting those failures weigh on you stunts your development. The quicker you let go the quicker you can start to improve and become happier as a result. I'm not saying any of this because I care whether or not you were bullied, who was right or wrong, or whether or not these were meaningful relationships. I'm saying all this so you can get over this quicker and not have to learn it all the hard way. That doesn't mean you can get over it right away, but actively looking for ways to continue relitigating this is only going to make you suffer in the end.


And with that said, I think this conversation has run its course. You are free to take my advice or leave it. I'm not really expecting you to do so nor should you feel obligated to do so. Just do some self-reflection and mull over it a bit and see what you come up with.

 

[Sucumbio]

Eh, to be fair online life and "real" life are so intertwined it seems unfair to expect people who gravitate to living on the net to treat it as not-real. I mean especially people who have spent the majority of their lives online vs out in public for instance. They are bound to take things seriously even in the virtual world. But I don't necessarily think that's healthy. It's just how I see it.