putting my parasocial and rpf goggles on again im sorry but. do you ever just realize how insane the dynamics in smosh are and how most of it reads out like a sitcom or a fanfic someone made up in their mind.
imagine starting a youtube channel with your childhood best friend, being able to turn it it into a company, falling out along the way, not being in contact with each other for half a decade until one random december and being able to buy back back said company with said best friend and getting to do the thing you guys did at the start.
imagine auditioning for a youtube channel you really look up to and meeting a former disney star who tells you they’ll see you at work immediately after auditioning, being best friends with them along the way, falling in love and getting to announce (or joke about) your marriage with said former disney star in the same youtube channel.
imagine befriending your coworker for a kids sketch comedy show, being best friends, moving on from said show, auditioning for a youtube channel as an actor and later as an on-screen personality, being roommates with said best friend and getting them to audition in the same youtube channel you’re working at so you could work with each other again.
imagine auditioning for a youtube channel that you don’t really know about, meeting someone for the first time in the first video you appear in for said channel, them constantly telling you that you’re killing it and doing a good job, immediately having good comedic chemistry with them on your first video, and then finding out along the way that said person is basically you but just a couple of years older and is practically your soulmate. how do you explain this to someone who just watches reddit stories
Team building
"Saw traps for people with moral OCD" is a phrase that has embedded myself into my brain because, well, Saw traps for people with moral OCD are everywhere.
Stuff that basically amounts to...
"You have to listen to my opinions on [issue], or else you don't care about [issue]. (Constantly talks about how people like you are the absolute worst.)"
Anything that's functionally like, "you have to let me tear you down over things you can't control or you're a bad person."
Anything that's functionally like, "you have to let me vent to you whenever and however I want or else you're a bad person."
"If you enjoy X media/trope, you just hate Y people."
"Everyone knows that X thing is harmful/hateful; if you engaged in it, it's just because you were fine with perpetuating hate/harm."
"You should have just known better/should know this already!"
This thread over here talks about the inherent issues of putting this kind of stuff out there. The TL;DR is that it really only works on people who are mentally unwell and have poor boundaries, while just pissing off everyone else. It really doesn't matter if you're technically correct; you're still attacking people, and that means they're not wrong to block you.
I think that many of these Saw traps are created when people effectively write posts directed toward people who don't want to help, rather than the ones who do. Like, if you catch yourself writing an angry, shame-laden post, ask yourself: who are you writing it for and what are the odds you're going to change their minds? If your mental image is some smug fuck or angry reactionary, you're writing for the wrong person. Write for the person who's curious, who's willing to learn.
Also? Work on figuring out how to transmute negative feelings into positive, encouraging rhetoric. EG:
"Why is there no X positivity?" -> "Let's hear it for X!"
"No one cares about Y problem!" -> "Hey, we need more recognition of Y problem" or "I haven't seen many people talking about Y problem, so here's some info on what's up."
"If you don't reblog this, you don't care about [group]" -> "Please reblog this, it would mean a lot for us [group]."
And if you're really super duper frustrated and want to vent with a lot of nasty words and sentiments? Consider taking it to a private vent channel or a journal or somewhere that a stranger with moral OCD/scrupulosity isn't likely to run across it.
Remember, most people don't want to hurt anyone. More people are ignorant than malicious. People naturally want to do the right thing, so if you feel like you have to guilt them or shame them into it, there's probably a fundamental communication issue somewhere, or they simply lack the context to understand why what you're saying is so important.
Abuser’s entire play doesn’t make sense when you take it that they mean what they say. They’ll call you selfish, heartless, too sensitive, worthless, a burden, and then turn around and make sure that you cannot possibly leave their life. Just how is it possible that you are soo horrible and the worst person ever to have around, but they also make sure you have absolutely no way to get away from them? They’ll go and convince you that you’re lucky they tolerate you, that nobody else could possibly want you around or deal with your problems, but then they also do everything in their power to stop you from leaving or from even trying to find someone better to test that theory.
And if you go and call it out, if you say ‘if I’m so selfish and sensitive and awful then why don’t you find someone else to sell this shit to’, then suddenly their game changes, then they didn’t mean it, then their words suddenly have different, hidden meanings that you should have comprehended (even though in the moment they said it, it was 100% to make you feel like the worst human being possible), and you’re supposed to always assume they say horrid shit to you because they’re upset, or because they ‘care too much’.
Abusers give themselves the privilege to change the meaning of their behaviour daily, if it achieves a goal for them on one day, and then doesn’t on another, then it meant something else that will achieve the same goal (making you feel guilty and stupid and enable them to control you more easily). Whatever they said or promised or implied, in order to make you compliant and do what they say, is no longer valid as soon as you’ve done as they say.
You, however, need to be 100% clear with what you say and what it means, and you’ll be called out for saying something little to the left of the truth 3 years ago. You have to consider how your words make them feel, what situation it puts them in, how it affects their life. Their words, however, have absolutely nothing standing behind it, and if you call it out you’re stupid, if you assume they’re for real, you’re also stupid for assuming that. There’s no way to win. Their words are only there for the sake of manipulation, they don’t stand behind a single sentence the say.
(bad) Idea: Pronoun selections for multiple pronoun users where you have the ability to set relative rates of each pronoun. Like maybe like:
See you could set relative frequencies of each pronoun, and order them.
And yes I did mock this up using Visual Basic 6. That's just how my brain works.
Pictured: Gale rolling a nat 1 on his insight check
"Saw traps for people with moral OCD" is a phrase that has embedded myself into my brain because, well, Saw traps for people with moral OCD are everywhere.
Stuff that basically amounts to...
"You have to listen to my opinions on [issue], or else you don't care about [issue]. (Constantly talks about how people like you are the absolute worst.)"
Anything that's functionally like, "you have to let me tear you down over things you can't control or you're a bad person."
Anything that's functionally like, "you have to let me vent to you whenever and however I want or else you're a bad person."
"If you enjoy X media/trope, you just hate Y people."
"Everyone knows that X thing is harmful/hateful; if you engaged in it, it's just because you were fine with perpetuating hate/harm."
"You should have just known better/should know this already!"
This thread over here talks about the inherent issues of putting this kind of stuff out there. The TL;DR is that it really only works on people who are mentally unwell and have poor boundaries, while just pissing off everyone else. It really doesn't matter if you're technically correct; you're still attacking people, and that means they're not wrong to block you.
I think that many of these Saw traps are created when people effectively write posts directed toward people who don't want to help, rather than the ones who do. Like, if you catch yourself writing an angry, shame-laden post, ask yourself: who are you writing it for and what are the odds you're going to change their minds? If your mental image is some smug fuck or angry reactionary, you're writing for the wrong person. Write for the person who's curious, who's willing to learn.
Also? Work on figuring out how to transmute negative feelings into positive, encouraging rhetoric. EG:
"Why is there no X positivity?" -> "Let's hear it for X!"
"No one cares about Y problem!" -> "Hey, we need more recognition of Y problem" or "I haven't seen many people talking about Y problem, so here's some info on what's up."
"If you don't reblog this, you don't care about [group]" -> "Please reblog this, it would mean a lot for us [group]."
And if you're really super duper frustrated and want to vent with a lot of nasty words and sentiments? Consider taking it to a private vent channel or a journal or somewhere that a stranger with moral OCD/scrupulosity isn't likely to run across it.
Remember, most people don't want to hurt anyone. More people are ignorant than malicious. People naturally want to do the right thing, so if you feel like you have to guilt them or shame them into it, there's probably a fundamental communication issue somewhere, or they simply lack the context to understand why what you're saying is so important.
When you’re a chronic people pleaser forced to juggle the wants & needs of a bunch of weirdos with brain worms