[ this project is being posted for a friend via an alternate account of mine. All opinions of theirs are not necessarily the opinions of others who may be posted for through this account ] Intro. Howdy hey! It is I, dee, and I thought I'd share my own take on this project, as scratch drama is a concept I'm particularly familiar with as someone who's been around the community for so long, and has had many experiences that are commonly talked about. 1. Pop designers & the like As someone who is [ was? ] a major pop designer, I'd like to shine a light on this topic as a feel like some of the points and opinions brought up don't speak for everyone and can be generally misleading when it comes to how people who are considered popular are. A major point that was brought up was, well, hoarders. Hoarding is generally considered a "Major evil" among the art community, when I don't think that's the case. Of course, in the case where designers care a lot for their designs, this can be a bad thing. However, I believe the perspective that is generally overlooked is, well, the pop designers. While I don't speak for everyone who is a pop designer, I believe we all are generally on the same page when it comes to our feelings on the adoptables we make. While many people may make adopts in order to just get rid of characters they may not use but still love, a lot of popular designers make designs for the sake of getting cool art. I'd consider myself on the extreme side of this spectrum; I generally do not care whatsoever what happens to my designs, as long as they aren't just... buying them to sell them for more.. yk who... Yet many people judge people for hoarding my designs, which is a major issue. When people look at hoarders, they don't consider the designers feelings, they only think about how they feel and often assume it's the average. On a different note, I'd also like to talk about how pop designers are generally regarded as, well, not people. Many pop designers are seen as emotionless idols. The opposite is true as well. Parasocial relationships are incredibly common too, where people act really close to them without the pop designer even knowing who they are, without making sure they're okay with those things. This is a /very/ important point to me and many others who are popular designers. Why? Because this often results in popular people being demonized. This can be for a variety of reasons! Maybe they chose another person to win a contest, or they didn't reply to your comment. This is often taken much more seriously when it comes to popular people when compared to the "average" scratcher. When people see a popular scratcher being "mean", they don't see it as a fumble, they see it as them being evil, because they don't see us as people. And that's a problem. A problem that is constantly overlooked. We are fallible, we are people, we aren't just here to be icons. We're here to have fun. 2. Contests and art. I have... issues. With this topic. I too, was once an "unpopular, unskilled artist", and with this perspective in mind I still had some issues with the following quote, "people are a lot more likely to give anyone anything based on their artstyle. people with great art styles win events with a singular piece, when people who try their very best and clearly would love to win get ignored." Although this quote has good intentions and some decent points, there is a major issue with it. The majority of contests are based on how "good" your art is in the eyes of the host. The majority of contests on scratch are inherently opinionated, and there is no single infallible way of defining how much someone will use an oc. While it is a good idea to not chose someone who made only a handful of pieces, I, too, have struggled with losing a contest to someone who made like 5 pieces, contests shouldn't be judged just based on the amount of art, skill needs to matter too or else the contest is still unfair. In my eyes, it should be a mix. While the skill of the creator of art should be prioritized [ as the main point of contests is to have "the most talent" ], quantity should definitely not be overlooked like it usually is. What I'm generally saying is, good point, bad wording. 3. Common scratch misconceptions [ misc points ] 3a. "Scratch got worse." As someone who has been on scratch for YEARS, I feel like I need to say this; no, scratch did not get worse. No, it did not get better either. It has /always/ been like this. Even back in 2019, which in retrospect seems like a great time to many people, was not all to grand. The same exact issues were just as common, just as serious, just as dangerous. There were still people quitting daily. I even remember studios being made where people held protests back then. I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to make scratch better, it's not a lost cause, I'm just saying we shouldn't see the past as being as great as we thought it was. [ + ]
We were just younger and less popular back then, with no idea of all the drama surrounding us. 3b. "Popularity = good" & its culture SAVE YOURSELVES FROM THIS FATE!!! this is constantly repeated by everyone around you, but I feel like I need to ingrain this into your brain: popularity isn't great. It can actually be very limiting. This is often repeated by smaller creators too, even they feel the effects of it! Just. Save yourself. Scratch will seep into your brain and alter your brain chemistry I swear... I would also like to say. Please don't judge things just for being popular. Popular doesn't automatically mean bad too PLEASE. This is constant! It's always one way or the other, either popular stuff = good or popular stuff = bad. It's neither. Some things are good, some things are bad. View things as though it came from a small scratch creator and see if your opinions on it would change. It can say a lot about internalized hatred. 3c. The reason I left. Rant's nearly over! Great job reading this far. But it's time to address something incredibly important to me, and something that echoes to every single person who uses this site regularly. Scratch /is/ a social media. By definition. A social media is "a collective term for websites and applications that focus on communication, community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration". That is exactly the goal of scratch. Despite scratch being a nonprofit organization that's educational and doesn't collect data on you, it still poses the same exact risks as social media. The same risk of addiction. The same risk of ruining yourself to grasp at straws for fame. Like I did. I used to not eat in order to post DTAs on time. I used to stay up until the sun rose, working on scratch projects. And that is, believe it or not, awful. I do not /care/ how you think you feel about staying up late yourself, or pushing yourself really hard to complete a project for your fans. Because you shouldn't. It's awful for you! In almost every way. The reason you feel this way generally boils down into the following reason; you've become addicted. Not to the site itself, but to the attention. You need to distance yourself from that. Because it will warp your brain. Being so attention focused made me a very brash person, easily snapping both irl and online. Don't fall into the same hole I did. Limit your time on scratch. Give yourself a bed time. I know it's "something for little kids", but believe me it works. Seeing the sun, literally touching grass, can help in so many ways. So please, don't be like how I was. Care for yourselves. [ rant over. It's done. I, dee, shall depart for who knows how long once more, goodbye mi amigos.
