BFG-9KRC

Now that I got your attention, let's all take a moment to celebrate one of the finest tuners going, shall we?

<Crosses legs, puts on a fez and lights up a pipe as I pointlessly stare into the fireplace>

Greetings, people. Today, I yearn to ask the one question I've been living with in my head for far too long now...

At what point do we, as one of the largest content creator communities on the Internet, start to make a concerted, tangible effort in drawing a distinction between the "good faith" modders with skills they want to hone and put to good use as a part of the greater goal to enrich the overall experience of whatever game they're doing this for, and emotionally stunted hacks with no concept of basic Netiquette and no skill of their own looking for a cheap ego boost by trying way too hard to be part of "the scene"?

Now, I know I may be ruffling some feathers with the "good modder/bad modder" bit, but do hear me out:

Based on what I have witnessed over my 8 years(?) of involvement with a few modding groups out there, I can safely assess that the the only conceivable reason things such as toxicity, needless bickering, content theft (which, admittedly, is another debate altogether) and overall bullshit are still allowed to persist in mUh cUrrENt yEarZ is because LITERALLY ANYONE and their granny's dog can christen themselves as "game modders" willy-nilly and we're somehow meant to act as though they're on the same level as those with a proper understanding of a game's workings when too often, they reveal themselves to be someone so fucked in the head that it's the only way they found to feel any better about themselves.

Seriously, there is no way in the Nine Hells we can keep on fooling ourselves that every fucker who pumps some GTA:SA mod site full of "Generic Forza 4 Silvia S15 drifto edition HD 4516516518156517816511 polys" is someone worthy of anyone's time when we have no way of telling if they've mastered tying their shoes yet or not, knows anything about modelling/texturing/scripting/etc at all or has any understanding of the things they love about games.

To put it another way, they're like that slow kid next door slapping together a lemonade stand, start selling lemonade to people and whenever someone rightfully remarks that there is too much/too little sugar or he needs to handpick his lemons more carefully, he throws a big ol' hissy, kicks the stand to the ground and storms off back home while screaming from the mountain tops that his lemonades is the best thing since sliced bread, and that we just don't understand his genius.

I don't know for you all, but this really is no sustainable way to maintain a community's integrity at all. It's high time we started setting some standards in stone so we can at least begin to try to have this mess somewhat cleaned up by 2029.

And lastly, I would love to close things off with something of an open letter to someone I thought was a friend, but turned out to be the absolute incarnation of all the things I mentioned above (among other uniquely fucked up shit I'd rather not lay bare here):

Tony...

I've been making car add-ons since the better end of 2012. During that time, I've seen fellow aspiring modders who shouldn't have given up, but gave up anyways. Heck, I've seen people who were truly skilled but needed to work on that extra something to make their stuff truly stand out.

And based on that and what I've seen from you, it's time for you to call it quits.

You don't have what it takes to succeed at whatever you've set out to do. You don't have what it takes to make it on the scene. You don't have what it takes to be a modder. And more to the point, you don't have what it takes to be a decent fucking human being.

After your constant blowing out my DMs asking for my stuff to convert into AC...

After your attempts to talk me into joining the AC scene despite repeated refusal to do so for reasons personal...

After your announcing your plans of distributing a bootleg build of AC chock-full of rushed-ass car mods, track and what have you, much to my confusion...

After your approaching a minor on Discord in a less-than-appropriate fashion (don't try to worm out of this one, I got direct access to the screencaps)

After all of it...It is time for you to FUCK OFF!

You are, hand to my black cold hollow heart, a waste of sperm. You're too much of a fuckboi to nut up and better yourself.

You're too much of a bitch to stop negatively impacting every modding group you're in.

You're too much of a cuck to start working on making legit contributions to those communities, and basically just not be a menace.

One day you may or may not see the error in your ways but personally, you're beyond redemption in my books.


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Thank you for coming to my TED talk  

Well well well, it would seem that I am now in a position to have to make a few changes to how I handle friend add requests. Ain't that a bummer?

Effective immediately:

• You will have to PRIVATELY message me on my other public-facing contact channels to be able to add me on Discord and/or Steam (the latter contact's custom URL has been changed by the time of this writing).
• If I ever go out of my way and add people on the aforementioned media without prior prompting, is because I actually know said people and wish to maintain contact, be it in the immediate or distant future.
• The only way I'll ever accept an add request out of the blue on those platforms, will be that their username or other info is familiar beyond reasonable doubt. If we know each other well enough and for some reason I didn't recognize your add request, do not hesitate to let me know.
• My Steam profile's visibility is set to "Friends Only", though this may change in the future.
  

Effective January 1st, 2020:

• My Discord server will effectively go the way of all flesh. The abysmally low traffic, combined with my ever-dwindling supply of free time and continued criticism for running with shoes I'm not big enough to fill, are no longer worth the hassle of keeping that card castle standing. That said, I will make a point to find ways to keep contact with the people there in anticipation of this decision taking effect.

But...Why any of this?

In spite of what the somewhat dire tone of this journal may imply, this is not a knee-jerk reaction to having my safety as a Netizen (or indeed, a Human being) under threat from a deranged relative or some Twitter Blue Checkmark thug. This is clarity coming to me in the guise of the realization that 24 y/o is never too old an age to accept that not everyone in my field of interest has my best interests in heart.

Oh, and another thing...

Times have changed, and so did my relationship with the stuff I'm polluting the online space with. But that's a journal for another day...

UPDATE 2: Finally, a new invite link: discord.gg/c2q25VR

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UPDATE: Invite link revoked due to "join-and-run" spambot invasion.

This entry will be updated again when I see fit to set up a new invite link. With my apologies for any inconvenience.

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discord.gg/3xXMUWe (Invalid link, see entry update(s) above)

Although I set it up only days ago, this is where things such as gaming, cars, anime and even art at large are discussed. Feel free to join if you want  

NOTE: Upon joining, remember to mention your Discord handle on this journal's comments to help me assign the right roles.


Also, some chans are marked as NSFW for an obvious reason. Proceed with caution.

That's all for now. See ya when I have something worthwhile to write  

Why hey there friends, watchers, bypassers & stalkers alike!

Time for a big ol' journal entry about stuff 'cause...why not?

Part One: Giving this group thing another shot...

Since my plans for a previous group of mine pretty much fizzled out, I elected to close it down to leave room for another, hopefully more successful one:

fresh-touring-orig.deviantart.…

But then, I do not expect it to gain much traction due to its niche subject. I'm in the process of scouting DA for deviations worth featuring though...

Part Deux: I'll be damned if I come up with a proper title for this one

Oh boy, that's one hell of a rambling about to poke its head forth...

To be more specific, I'll be talking here about two things: How I'm really doing in terms of online presence and only then I'll be touching the meat of the subject, which is online communities' supposed deaths. Let's get it done, shall we?

As it is no secret to a few of you, I spent much of the last year pooling cash for a new laptop (A fairly worthwhile investment so far, considering what you get for its price, along with a "drawer" CD loader and a VGA socket, a rare sight in its category).

Now you'd think I'd be pumping out artwork much faster, right? Well, guess again: As soon as I hit the "power" button of that thing, a bit of an epiphany struck me: Despite of what I've been telling myself for too long now, I cannot simply claim I'm 100% satisfied with my way of doing things.

So I went on about my usual projects, trying new stuff, accepting to get out of that goddamn bedromm a little more often to gain some inspiration, adapting my ass to new responsibilities and tighter schedules... So yeah, I'm still as active as ever, only I decided to rethink some of my priorities in life, hence my marked unwillingness to submit art as soon as I'm done polishing it.

Perhaps the biggest casualty of this shift in my relationship with social media is my Flickr account. With barely any time for carspotting, even less time for my little MBK Booster tuning project, increased difficulty to keep up with recent activity and my stats there hitting an all-time low, the future of that account is pretty much under a question mark. I've been considering a bit of a cleanup just like with my DA account, though I still don't know how I'll really go about it.

This brings us to what I actually wanted to talk about here: Too often, be it on DA or anywhere else, I keep reading the occasional "this place is dying" comment, typically referring to the end of an alleged golden age in terms of overall community activity from an individual's perspective.

I remember when PJ059 once stated in a TMCP forum post (that was back in 2012) that he distinctly remembers when those forums were a lot more active. I keep running across those "leaving 'cause of lacking activity" posts on various social media. I browse through DA journal entries raising concerns about the site's ability to survive (with the earliest entries on the matter being from as early as the mid-2000s. I really wish I was making that up...)

So, is there such a thing as a dying online community? Well...I really don't know. There might be a few select occurences of such (usually a consequence of people in charge no longer being able to keep the proverbial ship afloat for any given reason), but most of the time it doesn't seem to me like a death per se, but more of a consequence of real-life commitments, dwindling motivation, decreasing interest in the platform itself or a varying combo of all of these. Really, I cannot pretend to give an objective answer to this.

With that hopefully not-too-random thought salad out of my system, let's move on to something merrier...

Part Three: Getting to know me a little bit better, I guess?

Thanks to the awesome Sakamoto-chi . But I'm not going through the trouble of tagging along 8 other peeps (last time I tried, barely anyone responded for some reason :'D )

Name: Ismaïl Taha

Star Sign: Pisces

Average hours of sleep: Sleep schedules are for pussies

Lucky Number: 69  

Last thing I Googled: Like I'm assed to remember. Plus, I use DuckDuckGo anyway...

When I started this account: 3 years

Amount of watchers: 863

What do I post: Cars, car liveries, anime-themed car liveries...and the occasional (un)popular opinion.

Do I run any other blogs: I wish I could...

Do I get a lot of comments: Not that much, and to be fair I'm quite happy that way. Every bit is welcome though...

Why I chose my username: B-B-B-BIG FUCKING GUN!!!