*Note: If you're still on Twitter, feel free to share or send this to your friends to let them know what happened to me*
Hey, guys! I'm going to explain why I suddenly left Twitter -- ahem, X -- for the second time, and why I won't come back.
It has been over ten years since I started out on Twitter -- first starting a fandom account for the Disney series The 7D -- and then I decided creating a personal account and I steadily gained a following making fan art and talking about cartoons while making new friends. As you obviously know, Twitter went through a lot of changes. Over time it became a place where people share ideas and talk about their interests into a toxic dump with people having their own echo chambers, trends dominated by bad news, AI bots, bullying, and many more. And it doesn't help that it had become much, much worse when Elon brought it.
Recently I have been contemplating leaving Twitter forever and want to do a proper sendoff to my followers, but a series of incidents over the last seven days before this post nip those plans in the bud and I left abruptly. Here's what happened:
Long ago, when I was a fan of The Loud House, I met a young woman who was also a fan of the same show and we became fast friends. I even drew art for her. But what was a friendship we had deteriorated over time. She started to behave erratically, which I believed to be stemming from personal issues in her life that she told me. However, for no reason she started acting nasty towards me, even accusing me of doing things towards her that I never did -- but it might be because of the shows I mentioned or retweeted from other people and somehow it struck a nerve with her as far as I can remember. By doing this she left me such messages on Twitter. The first few times we worked it out, but as she continued with her outbursts towards me, I simply drifted away from her for the most part. By the time she did so again last weekend I know it's time for me to end our friendship. Whatever happened to her, I just want the best for her and for her to get some help.
Another factor in this whole debacle involved me posting an upcoming animated series: There's a series I'm really interested in called Willy, about a gay teen living in his world in Australia. Being the animation fan I am I always want every animated series I'm interested in to get attention, and by doing so I posted the pitch trailer that I saw over on Vimeo. I never expected my tweet to be big -- in fact it was the only time in my ten years being on Twitter it received a lot of attention. While it did get some positive comments, there were also anti-gay comments. And there's a much bigger problem: Somehow down the line, my tweet had gotten the attention of furries. While I don't have a problem with furries as a concept in itself, the furries and other people who like or retweeted it and even began following me contain loads of adult material. 😑
I have a policy for my social media accounts and it's that I want them to be fun and safe spaces for people of all ages. I do not want people who are NSFW accounts to follow me or interact with my posts. And yet people who did ignored my bio when it said "This account is a safe space. ❤"
What happened next was the final straw.
On Monday, there was news circulating around the Twitter animation community about a new series that will broadcast on Cartoon Network throughout Europe next month called Goat Girl. As usual, with any new cartoon being on a major kids' channel making the news sometimes, there was backlash even though this is the same community who kept asking for more original cartoons (I tried my best not to generalize...but still).
So I decided to voice my opinion, with how the show being silly is its intent and with a reminder that more originals like Goat Girl need to continue. Also, for whatever reason, my ever hyperactive brain says that there aren't many girl-centric cartoons out there so I typed it out there.
And while there were people who understood and agreed with what I've said, that didn't go well with some.
And it went ugly from there.
I was kinda surprised that people hurled insults at me. I tried to figure out what went wrong, did I misspoke, etc. At the same time, as the insults continued, I had another mental health crisis which was triggered by the ongoing financial situation I'm in which I was threatened with eviction out of my apartment and that I had issues explaining to my aunt about stuff relating to it.
With me being in a dark place yet again, that was when I had enough and made a quick decision to deactivate my account. No saying goodbyes, nothing. But before I did, I made screenshots so it can allow me to explain everything here, in a space I deem safe.
While there were people who agreed with me, I wanted to clarify nonetheless. Here's what I said:
You might feel that I was exasperated during the whole thing, and you're correct. I was. I just wanted to make things right.
Here's the responses I got before I clarified myself, many of them negative, and I'll respond to every negative one in order:
For the first response, I've always known the existence of the shows they mentioned, and I'm glad that they have become popular for a long time now. I watched some of the shows and even made fan art out of them.
If you think cartoons today are bad because they have more diversity than ever, then I don't know what to tell you. There's nothing wrong with that, and there's nothing wrong with cartoons that simply tell you to be good to others. And I hate (strong word, I know) the other side's hair-brained reasoning that 'toons with beanmouths or thin, soft, rounded outlines are somehow "woke", which it doesn't mean anything in that context. It doesn't work that way.
It's called Goat Girl because she's being raised by goats. That's...that's the name of the show.
See my first response.
To the person who mentioned Toca Life and the fact that I didn't brought it up: I have no idea what you're talking about. If I haven't mentioned it, then that's because I never heard of it.
I don't think I'm literally setting for anything, and I'm still having some trouble how you meant by that. However...they could mean that I love to watch something like Goat Girl. And they're right -- I love to watch silly shows. But there's nothing pathetic about that in any way. They might also mean that I want everyone to like Goat Girl. But I always believe that everyone should like what they like, and that's fine. My original tweet literally said that no one has to like the series.
Lastly, I deliberately saved this for last -- the tweets highlighted in red. This had hit me in the worst way. Apparently I'm an idiot for thinking there aren't many kids' cartoons out there with female leads. Of all the negative responses, he decided to talk down to me like I'm a fool. And while his full response isn't shown here, I do remember what and how he ended it with, to paraphrase: "You don't watch enough cartoons, and the problem is YOU." And YOU didn't even bother to go through my page where I had talked about animation a lot, mainly animation from other countries and the shows I watched -- and many of them have female leads. I just started watching Living with Dad where four of the main characters are girls, just so you know.
When I saw that response, I knew it was time to go. Even though I simply misspoke -- and I know in my heart I meant well -- it's a shame that we're now at a time when we can't have normal conversations and we're insulting people left or right.
As some of you may know, this wasn't the first time I left Twitter: I explained about that time in 2022 when I deleted my original account, but I eventually returned, that you can read here. However, there was a time when I nearly ran off Twitter in 2018: Controversy erupted over the announcement of a re-imagining of the classic ThunderCats series called ThunderCats Roar. I simply voiced my support for the new series. But then I get dogpiled on by random users. (The backlash had more or less directly led to a bomb threat at CalArts -- it goes to show the online animation community had so many insane people.) I announced to my friends that I'm going to be off Twitter for a week and I returned when the controversy and the attacks largely ceased. Oh, and there was that time when I talked about Primos and wanted to give it some support, but similar things happened and yet I remained -- that's a story for another time.
When things like these happen to me, I always have to wonder whether I said the wrong thing. I always had moments or even the feeling that people misunderstood me or what I said. I even always tried hard not to say the wrong things as I don't want to upset anyone. And while I'm just very different from everyone else, I also wonder whether I'm the problem.
And Twitter over the years has become a place that my mental health can't take it any longer. Friends came in and went. I've seen people I know causing problems and not being nice to each other.
As mentioned earlier, I had plans to leave Twitter knowing that it's no longer a place for me to stay, though I've been waiting for the right time to say goodbye to the people I love so much. And I'm so sorry that I didn't do that. I have to leave -- it's the right thing to do.
However, since I'm gone for Twitter permanently it doesn't meant that I can't be found elsewhere -- you can find me here, of course, but also:
DeviantArt
Threads
Bluesky
Discord
Artfol
Cara
All under my username! And I also have a cartoon blog here! I'm going to make it active again soon!
Please take care of yourselves, and I'll see you elsewhere!
Randy
