HC and Life Series Content Creator Crit

I'm sick of pretending everything is fine

[my-cc-crit]

Pinned

This is my space to criticize creators. Yes they deserve love, but there's a lot of things to criticize as well. Some of it will be C!related some of it will be CC!related. They will be tagged with: #c!creator crit, and #cc!creator crit, respectively.

[antimony-medusa]

I’m typing this unable to feel my hands because of bus woes so forgive me if this is not the most eloquent, but man, the more I look at how some of these new CCs act the more I think that creators should not be in fandom spaces.

There’s this idea that we see where creators think thar material about them/their characters is FOR them, and so they lay down rules about how things should be depicted (like you would on a gift for you) and they go into the comments to fight with people who put their tag on things they don’t like, etc. All these things that we see happening.

But they’re missing the point that— and I am not the first person to say this— things tagged with their character name are not there for them to see it, they’re there for other fans of the character to see it. I don’t post into the murderbot tag for the edification of Martha Wells, I post it for other murderbot fans. If Martha Wells showed up in my comments on an established fandom space I’m liable to panic-block and scramble for the exit.

And so these creators come in and say “this isn’t a good gift for me, don’t do this”, but that’s an essential misreading of the situation, and the thing is it’s kind of a presumptuous misreading of the situation when you’re monetizing your character. As my friend TD pointed out today, “don’t draw nsfw of my OC” is a perfectly normal thing to do within a peer to peer fandom context, but you are no longer interacting peer to peer when you have monetized your OC and are distributing them to as broad an audience as possible. You are the creator of a marketed figure. If you try to keep dictating people’s behaviour, that is how you become Anne Rice, which is never something you want to be.

But these creators are walking into spaces and saying that *everything tagged with their character name* is a gift for them and just like, no. If you keyword search your name on the entire internet you’re gonna overhear a lot of conversations that were not meant for you, and acting like it is even possible to make The Entire Internet safe for a public figure to look at is not a workable exercise.

Creators should not be walking into spaces where people are talking about their characters unless they’re ready to see a lot of things that were never made with them as the target audience. Make a fan art channel im your discord and let people bring things to you, but don’t walk onto the site where people’s favourite holidays to celebrate with characters include kinktober and whumptober and goreuary, where people explore their trauma through the lens of their favourite characters, where people experiment with different art styles and body type depictions of characters, where things that fall under the “fluff” umbrella include making characters into toddlers and making them so sad so they can have a hug, and expect that everything is going to be made with your comfort in mind. That’s just not how the fandom emotion works.

Fandom isn’t for creators, it’s for fans, and believe me that I also have creators’ comfort in mind when I say that fandom and creators should be kept separate.

[my-cc-crit]

The thing that makes me so... hesitant to talk about the Skizz apology (that was forever ago now) is that... he IS being genuine. Coming from someone who lives in AZ, most of us don't apologize unless we actually believe that we've done something wrong.

But at the same time. It wasn't enough.

I do think he's uninformed and I do want him to grow and learn. And that takes time. But the apology we got also wasn't enough and that leaves me in a weird place.

Where I'm not quite comfortable talking about the apology, because I want to see where Skizz goes next; how he improves. However I also know, as someone in the trans community, it fell flat.

[my-cc-crit]

unfortunately the vampirism is cure for all forms of disease, sickness, and disability isn’t just a vsmp thing but the ableism behind it should still be talked about regardless so thank you for making that post /gen. it does suck that they included that ableist vampire trope within vsmp

That's very true, it is a common trope in vampire media (and fantastical genres in general). I think I had just hoped that them creating the vampire function and being able to pick and choose which vampire lore they draw from (and also change up how it works) wouldn't lead into ableist territory.

It is one thing to include characters who are ableist into a story (that's fine and can be good for a story if done right), it is another to make a system that gets rid of disabled people in general so long as you go with it. (Shelby no longer needs glasses to see, which is a disability aid, Owen got rid of his lesions by turning into a vampire).

It... It feels like a cop out of having to write chronically ill / disabled characters in general as well!

And before anyone goes: "well they didn't *mean* to do XYZ."

I'm sure they didn't mean to be ableist. But that doesn't mean they weren't.

[my-cc-crit]

I know it has been.... *A While* since the apology. But I haven't really aired out my thoughts on it?

I'll be doing that tomorrow I think...

[my-cc-crit]

I really do love VSMP, but the way that they explain vampirism as being a cure for everything: No sickness, getting rid of chronic illness, etc. is ableist.

To clarify: I don't think the crew mean for it to be ableist. But it is.

[my-cc-crit]

Ah. Apologies. It's not that I don't have crit. I do. I just haven't been posting it recently.

[my-cc-crit]

I love Vampires SMP so far, but there is definitely some unchecked ableism in the way they talk. Especially when it comes to mental health.

It would be one thing if they were *accurately* roleplaying what people acted like in those times. But they aren't.

We don't even know the time period this is part of.

But just. Them throwing around the term psychosis was... not great from someone who experiences symptoms of psychosis.

I know it's very on the spot. But I just think they could have gotten more creative with what's going on or *something* other than that.

[my-cc-crit]

I think it's very telling that a lot of the women content creators have to be girlbossified for the fandom to even begin to care about them.

The way that the fandom requires women to always be strong and independent in order to receive any admiration is quite telling how misogynistic it can be. Especially when those same women creators will then receive so much hate for having a moment of weakness.

[my-cc-crit]

I... can't believe I need to explain this. But apparently I do.

I did NOT cut the part where Skizz said he supports trans rights out of the video.

That is directly from the livestream at the earliest that I had been able to start screen recording.

It is NOT from the VOD, it is directly from the livestream.

It is not my fault no one else who got there earlier started recording and uploaded to tumblr for everyone to listen to his apology. It is not my responsibility to give full recordings straight from the livestreams perfectly.

While I will try to give the full context to what I have to say on the CCs whenever I give out criticism, I can not always do that for various reasons. Whether it be because I joined a livestream late and so therefor don't have the ability to get what was said earlier on video in the moment, or because it was deleted before I could archive it, or because I'm just really low on energy.

You can add the precontext if you have it. But if you don't, don't come at me for not always being able to perfectly provide things.

I don't hold the CCs to that standard when it comes to fuck ups, I don't hold other crit blogs to that standard when it comes to recording things. So the only reason for you to hold me to that standard is only if you do it 100% of the time yourself and hold everyone to that standard of perfectionism.

[my-cc-crit]

Okay so this just in, Skizz apologized /pos

We're going to talk about it, my thoughts on it at the very least. This is coming from a generfluid lesbian latina in AZ.

He seems genuinely apologetic for the whole situation, which is good. For right now, I believe this apology, and as long as things genuinely do change I want to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Here are the concerns I have with it.

No one I've seen was asking him to get rid of mods *just* because of a different political viewpoint. It would have been one thing if the mods were right leaning, but didn't say anything harmful. The situation would have sucked 10X less if that was the case. But it wasn't just that. The MAGA mods weren't just being casually right wing. They were retweeting transphobic, racist things from everything I've been able to find. With no genuine apologies. One of them ended up trying to cover up her hateful tweets.

It does seem he got rid of the mods, recently based on what he's said.

I'll need to see change before I make any other decisions about Skizz. But for right now at least, I'm going to choose to believe him, if only for the hope I need right now.

One more note, I personally will be keeping an eye on this for future reference as well. Simply because I've seen creators (admittedly for a different fandom) say they'll learn from their mistakes and then do the exact same thing all over again while the fandom sweeps it under the bus.

[sapphicselkie]

thank you for posting this but i do wish you hadn't cut out the part at the beginning where he explicitly said that he supports trans rights and always has, given that that was a huge part of why he had to apologize in the first place.

[my-cc-crit]

I didn't cut it out, I joined the stream late and that's when I was able to start screen recording

[my-cc-crit]

One of the things that really annoys me is how often Harry Potter is brought up in a positive light, not only by the CCs, but also by the fandom as well.

[life-critical]

I do want to talk about something that I think a lot of people missed about the mods situation and that is that, in America, it is illegal to fire someone based on their political beliefs.

So if Skizz was paying those mods to moderate his chat then he was already in a very hard spot. If he fired them and they sued him for it, he would not win, and he would have to pay both of them a lot of money, which would then put him and his family in a very bad spot.

So the fact that he's saying he doesn't think they are bad people is most likely influenced by the fact they left of their own free will. They could have stayed and allowed his reputation sink even lower because they were still moderators. They could have let it get to the point where they could claim workers discrimination and use the community's reaction as proof that were in a hostile enviroment and that he didn't protect them well enough. They could have gotten a lot of money out of this. But they didn't. And I think that's why Skizz thinks well of them.

TLDR: Incorrect, the state of Arizona won't protect you from termination due to political speech, which is what Skizz's mods would be fired for

I've already made a longer, more in-depth post about this but no, this is untrue, since political leaning is not protected by the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (Source: National Archives)

Post by @life-critical

💬 0  🔁 11  ❤️ 32 · Tbh I am not a skizz viewer but isn't firing people based off their political ideologies/stances a crime?? Assuming skizz

Now, it's possible that anon lives in a state where there are employee protections covering political speech but Arizona ain't one of em

A correction to thimy previous post: I said that Arizona has protections for political participation (ie what party you're in) in the private sector (non-government workers), as that's what my source (shrm.org) said. According to this video by Jackson White Law (uploaded a month after my post), though, these protections only exist for public (government) employees, which Skizz's mods are not

While this doesn't change the final verdict, I want to be clear that the few protections I thought the mods had don't actually protect them

According to both sources, though, election-related and political-based speech (ie supporting political candidates or policies), as seen in BunnyBond and Sokasop's Twitter posts, are not protected and Skizz could legally fire them for these posts. If they sued, they wouldn't have a case unless they accused Skizz of 1) discrimination of a different kind or 2) trying to influence their political leaning. Considering they wouldn't have cases for those either, Skizz could counter-sue for defamation and get money from them (I don't think he would, I'm just trying to give counterarguments for anon)

For the second time, though, and I cannot stress this enough: none of this legal employee protection talk applies to this situation because Twitch mods are not employees

Twitch mods are volunteers who are not contracted or paid for their work. If they were paid for their work, that would be private employment (which follows the above laws and changes nothing) but if they weren't, they can be removed for any reason, or no reason at all (which is also a part of at-will employment, which they would be if they were paid)

As for your point about community reactions being "proof of a hostile environment", sure that is a hostile environment but Skizz isn't causing it so it would be the biggest nothing burger to the court

The community's reaction would actually help Skizz if the mods tried to sue him for wrongful termination!

If consumers who financially support Skizz (his subs) demand the removal of certain volunteers/employees (those two mods), that gives Skizz a monetary reason (unrelated to political affiliation) to fire them. It's why people lose their jobs for going viral by being racist on camera. Their behaviour reflects poorly on the company (in this case, Skizzleman and Hermitcraft) and will cause a loss of profit, meaning that the employee has to go! No if, and, or but about it legally.

This combined with the fact that there is an archive of screenshots of the mods overstepping their legal protections (assuming they have any) with their tweets, would make Skizz's case way stronger

The mods sticking around for so long has nothing to do with money, Skizz just thought highly of them

Skizz thinks highly of them because they were his friends and they were never racist to him. They seemed like perfectly pleasant people and they were never transphobic to him

Skizz is not hurt by their actions because of possible financial loss, he's hurt because he thought he knew someone and it turns out they suck

We should be sympathetic to that, because that is a real hurt

[whereispearlescentmoon]

Let’s Talk about Skizz

Alright so, I’m sure some of you have seen and some of you haven’t, but Skizz addressed the whole situation both with the “trans rights” message and his moderators.

In essence, Skizz affirmed that he whole-heartedly believes in trans rights (he actually said the words) and that he has “parted ways” with the moderators in question. He also stated that his colleagues have helped him understand the situation better and have helped him navigate how to deal with it and how to better moderate hateful comments in his YouTube comment section (which I didn’t even know were happening but I’m glad to hear nonetheless). His wording wasn’t perfect, but frankly I’ve never asked for or expected perfection. Just hearing him outright say trans rights and him taking the step to remove those moderators is, frankly, enough for me personally to forgive him.

I know it won’t be enough for some people, and I understand that completely. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t going to take some time for my trust in Skizz to be rebuilt. But I will say that I am no longer reluctant to even touch his stuff for fear that my money will go to someone who voted for a man who wants me dead (to be clear this is about the moderator. I was never under the belief that Skizz himself was a bigot). I was a huge Skizz fan before this incident and that might be making it easier for me to forgive him, and I get that.

I just wanted to say this here because I know enough people follow me who felt deeply betrayed by this situation who may want to know this update, but haven’t been watching Skizz for obvious reasons. I only found out because someone posted about it on the Hermitcraft subreddit and I decided to take their word for it and watch his statement. I implore you to watch it as well and make up your own mind.

The statement is the first 8 minutes of this video. Again, watch it and determine how you feel for yourself. For me personally, just hearing him say “trans rights”, apologizing for how everything was handled, and saying those moderators are no longer on his team is enough. But I understand why for others it might not be.

[glacierruler]

Hey All, Long Anti HP, Grian Critical Post Incoming. <3

I'll keep this open for reblogs, but if I get an influx of hate for this we're turning it off.

Imagine being this privileged on a post. Anyways this reply is a response to this post

I would recommend watching These Videos by Jessie Gender and Princess Weekes to start out with. If you have time to be this fucking stupid on a post of mine, you have time to listen to them. And hey, Princess Weekes is cis you might be more willing to listen to what she has to say than me, your local genderfluid tumblr user. <3

Let's get into Why I think like this.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying that content creators all need to read, watch, and write unproblematic shit. But when a content creator is promoting, especially the new Harry Potter stuff, that is a red flag. <3

First of all, I did Not say that Grian was homophobic or transphobic. I said I didn't know if that's the case.

Yes, he has done charity streams for queer non-profits. But him consistently bringing up Harry Potter taints that for me for many reasons. Now I would like to believe that Grian's not either of those things, for my sake. But I'm not going to say he's not because I don't know him.

Personally, I'm really hoping that his choosing to engage with Harry Potter and new Harry Potter stuff is out of ignorance. Maybe he 100% Truly Does Not Know about the fact that JKR takes any and all support she gets to strip trans rights for individuals. Maybe he 100% Truly Does Not Know that so many trans people are hurt by her. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt for this post...

But you, the person who came into My House and Plastered your love for Harry Potter all over it? I'm not going to be that nice. Because based on your reply you clearly know she's doing harm to my trans siblings. That she tells my trans sisters that they aren't welcome in spaces for women. That she tells my trans brothers to detransition because they're confused and betraying women.

So many people were disappointed in JKR, in what she said online. So many people who grew up on Harry Potter have had to throw this once beloved series away because of her bigotry, because of her hate.

Note that I did Not say:

that anyone who has ever enjoyed Harry Potter ever is queerphobic.

However, it is concerning when a Content Creator who is online enough to know there is a new Harry Potter series coming out is actively talking about it. It is concerning when they yap about Harry Potter so much the fans make memes about it instead of choosing not to engage with it. It is concerning when someone who says they are not queerphobic, goes around and promotes everything Harry Potter in his videos.

Also there are plenty of people who enjoyed the books before the author came out as a hateful bigot. Because guess what, I enjoyed them until I got social media and found out that she's not a great person. It kind of taints the books when the author is alive and telling you to kys. <3

Note that I did Not say:

That liking just a kids story about wizards makes someone queerphobic.

Unfortunately Harry Potter is Not just a kids story about wizards. Sorry to burst that bubble for you (not really). It is a way in which the author makes money in order to perpetuate and spread hate. She spreads hate through sales of her book, which go up when people talk positively about it. She spreads hate through sales of the old movies, which go up when people talk positively about it. She'll spread hate through sales of the new movies, which will go up if people talk positively about them. She'll spread hate through sales of the new audio books, which will go up if people talk positively about them.

And before anyone misconstrues this as well I do not accuse the actors of the old movies to be queerphobic. Many of them have gone on to be pro-trans and pro-queer rights and cutting off ties with JKR. I do not accuse people who have bought, read, and loved the books before she was openly bigoted to be queerphobic. Until she started doing all this bullshit, it was just a kids book about wizards, the way she warped it over time is unfair to everyone who loved the series.

Unfortunately that has been warped and twisted by her views and JKR's spread of hatred towards trans people is more important than a book about wizards that you used to love.

[hybbart]

If you haven't heard but Skizz has made a new statement and new apology on stream, in which he confirms he's let his mods go and spoken with other hermits on the matter.

First of all, it doesn't change what he's already said and done, he's repeatedly put his foot in his mouth about this, and I'm not entirely happy with the new apology, particularly the fact that he still claims to be able to tell when people are good and that the tweets came off worse than they were meant to be. These are just blatantly incorrect. And no one's owed forgiveness. He was right on one thing which is that he was not prepared for this job and how to handle it.

That being said he did follow through with firing the mods, and he has verbally expressed his support for trans folk now instead of just in a comment. I don't think he fully understands even after talkign to other hermits but he is clearly aware he hurt people and wishes to correct that.

I'm still not going to be drawing him or watching his videos for now, one statement can't change the things he's already done especially when there was another incident more recently making the same mistake. He needs to show he actually means what he said.

I do wanna show support though, because it's important to signal to people that try to change that they are doing the right thing. God knows people are going to be in his other ear giving him a hard time for "caving to the mob" and it would suck if that's the only reaction he got for doing what people have asked of him of his own volition.

No one else is obligated to interact with him ever again though, and don't feel like you are. You're time and attention is not owed to any creator even if they didn't hurt you.

[my-cc-crit]

I think Skizz's apology was okay, but I didnt love the way he talked about his bigoted (ex)mods and also kinda feel he s only really speaking bc he can t really get away from the topic. I do hope at least he has learnt from the whole thing

I did really like knowing that the topic was discussed throughouly behind closed doors with the rest of the hermits tho, with others explaining to him why his actions were harmful

Yeah I 100% agree. I think, based on what he said there were probably hurt feelings about the mods.

And I definitely think we would not have gotten an apology if the community had let it be swept under the rug (although we definitely had to fight to keep people talking about it tbh).

And definitely nice to know that the hermits talk about these issues.