☽ untitled-10 hehe I took an old vent project so I didn't add to my 180 projects- I never realized old me felt unhappy at all, whenever I saw the project I thought it was another piece of ridiculous junk, nope it was angy me wow I'm saying "me" more than I've said um/uhm/uh that's quite an achievement, considering it's *cough* meh anyways hi hello um yeah anyway this is a project. uh. hi. idk what I was doing with this project. so uh. since I have no idea what I'm going to do with this, ig I could turn the old vent into a new one? you don't have to listen to me rant but I would appreciate it. ⠀⠀um. Scratch has been a place I could go if I was bored, mostly I just experimented with the coding stuff at first. I joined like four years ago, but I only really became active two years ago, 2020. y'all should know that's when we all had to go home and stay there. The pandemic. I became less active in the summer of 2021, but sort of got into it in 2022. (ik, a lot of year names and awkward sentences.) I started posting stuff again and exploring other people's projects. I've seen so much kindness. Scratch isn't just a place to code, it's also a place where people can socialize, make friends, and connect. I've met so many amazing people (@SiphonophoreDrawing, @cs2401003, @BlisterWoF, @MarseillesCreates, @raiinshxdow, and others), but I've also seen people being toxic and mean. I only realized it this year, but it's been going on for a long time. People tell others to report someone who hasn't done anything wrong, they insult someone, copy them, spam others' profiles, and say/do things that are just rude. The list shouldn't be that long. This shouldn't be a thing. The report button exists for people who've done something wrong, not innocent people who haven't done anything. Plenty of people get banned when they haven't done anything at all. This is unfair. Bruh, this place is not a poisonous plant. It's not the digestive stomach of a venus flytrap. It's not supposed to be toxic. The point is that it's a supportive, accepting community. I go here when I feel lonely, when I need a friend. I see people leaving, so many people leaving. It does the opposite of what I intended to do, coming onto Scratch. I don't feel inspired at all. ⠀⠀And then I see the rudeness. People feel bad, they feel bullied, they feel hurt. When you talk to someone on Scratch, you're talking to an actual person. People have feelings, those feelings could already be hurt. Don't make it worse. I don't blame you, whoever you are, the person reading this, I don't mean to make you feel guilty. It's just, this really, really needs to stop. I feel really strongly about it, I'm part of this community, if you're reading this I'm guessing you are too, even if Scratch is new to you. ⠀⠀This is really important to me. I don't want new scratchers to feel like this is a bad community. Guys, really. We need to stop this. Scratch is a great place at heart, but will it be if this keeps happening? ⠀⠀People comment homophobic things on the profiles of people who are proud LGBTQIA+ members. They spam people with random messages. I've seen people pretend to be others, I've seen someone make an account similar to someone else's and follow all of their friends but hate on the real person. They tell others to report innocent scratchers. And the worst part is, I've seen ALL of those things happen. Every. Single. One. I tried to explain to someone that it was annoying that they kept spamming my sister with comments, their friends said I was being rude, to stop it. This isn't a story, it's not a book. It's real life, we can't write a few words and fix it, but that doesn't mean we can't change this. thanks for reading all that, it means a lot to me. art - meh
