i'm posting this stupid video just for posterity. i didn't make this, but my character, sids, is featured in it. she was my persona and a parody of myself. my real name is cid. i kindly ask that no one ever call me "sids" again.
the read-more is going to be long. i just want to finally put my story out there, even if it doesn't go anywhere.
my friend lionessjenna or nenna / jennabee made it. it was very popular at the time it was made. if you were wondering what happened to lionessjenna, last i heard about her she was making money off of drawing anime cp. sorry to everyone who idolized her at the time. i don't know what she's doing now or if she's changed. i can only say i recommend not looking into her.
we all made fun videos like this with our characters and developed a following. my character sids in particular became a fan favorite and she was usually the butt of the jokes we made. i was 14 when we began making stuff together. 4chan would inevitably find this video and also developed an obsession for sids. they made sids the "queen of /jp/" for a time and drew a bunch of p*rn of her. they drew a bunch of p*rn... of me, essentially. when i was 16. you can still find it, too. the p*rn... i wouldn't mind if that was gone forever. i will not be saving it for posterity. lol
then they doxxed me, made fake accounts pretending to be me, and both of my friends featured in this video would leave me to date those abusers. i never realized at the time how deeply this would hurt me.
and for the record, i don't talk to the third girl, and i won't mention her by name, but i still love her with all my heart. she was a positive force in my life, despite everything. on my old tumblr, i think i still follow her. nenna (this is what people called her at the time) however was 7 years older than the both of us, and put us both in a very dangerous situation with this video. then she went on to draw cp. i'm mentioning her if only to warn people about the dangers about being friends with adults online, and idolizing random people online.
i will say this, though. we were all traumatized kids, and the internet put too much power in our hands. i forgive both of them, and i hope they're both doing well. it's been probably over ten years since i last heard anything regarding nenna, and i'm not friends with anyone anymore who would still be in that friend circle. nenna, i know i aired out your dirty laundry, but i only did so under your old username. i have no intent of finding who you are now and bringing it all to light. i'm only posting this video as a way for me to heal from it and move on. (and ftr if you find anyone under a similar name, that still may not be her. it's been a really long time. please just leave nenna alone. i want to assume she's doing better)
i deleted everything because of this video. i didn't want to be known anymore.
but now i do. i want to be known for me and not just a parody of myself. i'm trying to create again, and i have a story i want to write that i have been working on based on my experiences growing up as a very-micro-celebrity online. i feel like i'm overstating my "success" at the time, but that was kind of what it felt like to me.
but it's hard, you know? revisiting trauma is never easy. but because of this video, i lost my drive to create. i lost so many things i cared about. i lost the ability to be myself. you can probably assume considering i spent my childhood online that i didn't have a great home life either. i won't get into that.
i revisted this video because someone on youtube was kind enough to repost it after all three of us inevitably deleted our accounts, and i've been recounting my trauma in therapy. the comments all ask where weve been off to. most of them only mention jenna, because while i took a step away from the limelight after the doxxing, she continued to make videos after the /jp/ raid and gained a huge following with a bunch of big original youtube animators at the time.
i want to say i was never a perfect person, and when you live your entire childhood on the internet, your mistakes never really go away. i don't think i ever did anything atrocious or evil, but i still had my problems, and i'm sure there are plenty of people that are still out in the world who would be glad to share.
but right now, this is a plea for help, i suppose. a plea for peace. i just want to move on. i've become recently disabled, and i was forced to leave my career because i can't walk. because of this and therapy, i've been trying to make a return to creating. i loved creating. it still makes me happy to see people comment on old videos asking where i am today. i never respond to them, but knowing i haven't been forgotten is what's giving me the strength right now to type all of this.
it's very likely no one will see this post. it's very likely this will be buried in the ocean of posts that make up the entire internet. but right now it feels like deadweight in my lifeboat, and i need to get it out.
"why post this video if you don't want to known for it?" and the answer to that is... i don't know. there are a lot of internet events that happened in my life where someone else got to write the story behind it. i guess i just wanted to write mine. i wanted it out there. i wanted to be known.
