kidz s☆cial medi☆?! [opinion/rant]

Instructions

please read --> the pressure of becoming more popular has been rising on scratch, as a few people may know, i was on here for about 4 years ( including my old accs). I've seen many of my close friends come and go and even quit scratch for two-three years until i decided to rejoin with a new account. (@staxbeqqy) this trend it started about 6 or 7 years ago , im told but scratch has become more of a kids and teens social media than the coding site it was meant to be . people go around doing f4f's (follow for follow) where they gain followers in order to make themselves popular. the other day someone commented on my profile (now deleted) "i would be so honored to be followed by someone popular like you." while this may not seem that negative, i think we all have to keep in mind that everyone even your favorite scratcher is a person and if they do follow you, please go check their content out before just looking at the number of follows and commenting about how popular they are and if they could/ why they followed you. get to known the person rather then just never talking to them other than f4f. get to know their content that they put the effort on. i don't think it's a problem to make someone's day with a follow, the real problem is hidden behind the covers where people go around following each other. oftentimes they never even considered each other idols, or even friends it would just a race for popularity, ive formed a closely knit group of friends from two large sized studios, (girls who dont fit in and the aesthetic community 2023 ) and i've never really cared about living up to someone else's standards especially people online (no offense) bc the only person who i ever particularly care about pleasing is myself. at the end of the day everyone's a person; even if u have 3.8 k followers (not referencing a single person) you still have your own real life. with school, friends and maybe even your outfit choices, and family. sometimes i feel like scratch has become more of a popularity contest, than a safe and enclosed space it was meant to be. commenting first on someones prf and never talking to them again shows a kind of ownership which yet than again is like "oml- i was the first person to comment on your prf and now you have over 5k followers?!" like no you dont own them either... ok, this next one may sound dumb but like the way that people try to advertise and ask for follows just gets to the point that makes me cringe, online d on scratch has also been a problem, like y'all's partners may be a 7yo ☠️☠️ looking into this, scratch has become more toxic and a social media than a kids coding site. people need to stop glorifying "popular" scratchers and always listening to what they say- most of the time, it's just a kid who's good at coding, you shouldn't be blindly influenced by them. (this is in no way bashing anyone popular just an expression of my opinion ^^). like everyone's just another kid, and they're not like your certification that you're a good scratches. being a good scratcher to me just means living up to my OWN standards. i honestly don't care what others think of my projects too much because of the fact that as long as i gave it my best. at the end of the day, you dont have to get certified by others, just give it your best and others will come to you and look up to you. honestly, i feel like living up to random strangers standards, is a really dumb way to live your life. i also think that aesthetics are sometimes over done on scratch, while i am an aes account.