So here’s the thing for me. Due to the nature of the Fluffy fandom’s birth and development on unstable platforms like the chan’s most of it’s early history has been lost for good with only a handfull of archived threads, and a fist fulls of anecdotal evidence remembered by those who lived it. Saddly human memory being what it is that evidence is just not as reliable as we would hope. That said the origin of hellgremlins is easy. The majority of people can take cathartic joy in breaking something, however those same people have a harder time enjoying it if they feel it’s undeserved. Let us lean on a real world example. I had 2 drills one was constantly giving me issues and while it worked the majority of the time it had the bad habit of fucking me over when I needed it. My other drill was old and tiered but it worked well and did it job. When I bought a new drill which is incredibly powerful and well sized and built, I had no issues chucking the drill that kept fucking me over acrose the shop into a wall and then blow torching the pieces. I hated that thing. But the old tiered one even though I’ll likely never need it’s services again I can’t bring myself to be rid of it and have “retired” it to a place of honer in the shop to live out it’s days. Long story short people like to break stuff they feel deserve to be broke and hellgremlins provide that cathartic release in spades. I think that’s the primary issue with alot of these analysis is that they look for a person or an event to explain why things happened, and not a motivation. The Russians, the btards, all of them did not operate in a vacuum. Their very existence did not push the trends. The content pushed their growth. The pleasure of breaking
the thing which deserves to be broken, a thing that the majority of users clearly enjoyed as it took over the meta is what drove the trend.
Re-reading your statement, I feel that it would be more apt to say that it was the influx of people from /b/ who “poisoned the well” and brought these hellgremlins. But that being said, part of the reason why I acknowledge the hellgremlin theory is because enough evidence seems to suggest it did exist.
Here’s the thing: more than one person has cited a specific push in how fluffies are seen. Santanon mentioned it on the fluffcast, and an anon on a fluffy thread on /trash/ mentioned it.
This is not to mention the tiff that abuse-sir had with Santanon, with the former resorting to sockpuppeting accounts and campaigns to attack him. To my understanding, abuse-sir and a few other abusers have been wanting to use fluffies to “troll bronies” and had been pushing certain abuse-ish narratives to that extent. So while it may not be a grand conspiracy, there were definite movements. For instance, gingerfig kept pushing this idea of fluffies as an invasive species, something which he had an argument with LordAnubis on.
And, one copypasta that kept going around on /b/ was the depiction of fluffies as “the literal representation of the seven deadly sins and worst thing imagineable”.
Thats literally what pandering is.
I feel that you are on to something @researcher7201, and its related to my own thoughts regarding fluffies as a whole. The motivation for hellgremlins was borne out of more abuse-specific approaches towards fluffies. Its part of the reason why I take up the title of hugboxer, and am so critical of abuse. The over-emphasis on abuse was what led to the creation of hellgremlins, as the idea of seeing fluffies as the worst thing imagineable justified their killing.
But even if we ignore the hellgremlins, even if we put aside that approach, I feel that other forms of abuse is too saturated on this idea of looking at fluffies as completely pathetic, or taking pleasure in hurting something thats innocent or cute. Its part of why I am so against “cute aggression” as a motivator. One thing that Santanon mentioned on the Fluffcast is that people get so stuck in their ways of looking at fluffies, that the genre and the fiction doesn’t really develop. In that sense, I am critical of the kind of opinion that @Vanner mentioned here: “as a species, they’re hopeless”. I disagree with that. I think that disliking fluffies purely for their inadequacies, or relegating to thinking of them only in the negative prevents the genre from developing further and, in addition, would make the endevaour seem pointless. Thats what I got out of KMEB’s last post.
And I get that hugbox may seem “boring”, because it paints too rosy a picture of fluffies having happy lives, something that they can get from any other “cute talking animal story”. But thats why I believe the genre has to aspire to be more than just edge for the sake of edge. The edge is needed, but it should be needed to make a point instead of an excercise of “I release my frustration on this animal because I hate the way it talks”. (And yes, I like the way fluffies talk) Its why I believe that hugbox needs to go further than just being “fluffies being cute”. The appeal of @Carpdime 's Avocado to me is how he excels and thrives, despite his origins in industrial sadbox. The appeal of FierceDeityLynx’s Plum is her tenacity to survive the prejudice at the hands of her herd, with the solance being her foals. The appeal of @mutagen’s Greg is how he is unique because of his intelligence, and the bond he has with the Russian (who has consumed the other members of his kind). I love @Muffin 's Tumbly because, and despite being born disabled, Tumbly does not let his disabilities define who he is as a character. And I could go on about the many unique fluffy characters I have come to love in this fandom.
But my point is, if people only look at fluffies in terms of “when are we going to kill this particular fluffy character”, then of course the genre is not going to develop.
Skippy it is not pandering if someone asks for water and you give them water
Of course fluffys have changed how they are seen almost all of there fantasy-whimsical nature is gone the age of fluffy shits on the floor fluffy is killed has faded hell you can’t even say fluffys are bio toys or soap those that mean that certain narratives are being pushed or is it that fluffy stories are continuing to evolve whit the changing of the community .
For some one that claims to see the destructive nature of pushing one set of ideas you are very keen on discrediting all ideas but your own very narrow views on fluffys
There’s a difference between giving water to someone who asks for a water, and adding a sexy woman showering in John Carpenter’s The Thing simply because “sex sells”. The Thing’s story worked without the presence of women, and didn’t need further pandering.
~
I’m not here to discredit any particular headcanon. If anybody wants to come to the fluffy fandom to read about fluffies being some kind of ecological nuisance and thus get exterminated, that is fine. If people want to come to this site to read about fluffies being bad and getting karmic punishment for their misdeeds, that is also fine. If people want to read about fluffies getting abused and tortured simply because they’re annoying or too dumb, then that is also fine.
But I draw the line at people putting overly-abusive comments on hugbox. Because some people do come to fluffies for the hugbox and to enjoy cute and innocent things, and don’t appreciate rando’s shouting and demanding blood.
What I’m asking for is mutual respect.
People wanted abuse creators where not pandering they where making content that was popular. If it was a simple case of pandering you would not need to write this whole abuse bad fluffies always good diatribe what you perceive to be the correct fluffy content would have long since over shadowed abuse based content
Your whole post is how abuse centric content ruined fluffies and how that is bad and should be looked down upon and if we return to the oculus approved content every thing will be better your last minute gaslighting of I just want space for hug is very unconvincing
Oh my god.
fluffies are not real.
My fluffies literally defy basic physics, others prefer a very realistic view of them. Some make them kind natured, others make them hellgremlins. Let people enjoy pretend cartoon horses however they want.
I am not the one condemning a sub genre of fluffys that would be oculus I am the one pointing out how it is wrong to demonize people for liking one type of content over the other but good effort whit the non sequitur
As a Transformers fan I can tell you that IDW Comics, Michael Bay, and Japanese music tie-in insanity is exactly what you just described.
Summary
Bumblebee’s mouth is a fucking ballgag! Why?!
Seems like without Hellgremlins to balance the woobiness, there wouldn’t be much Neutralbox.
The duality of Fluffy and man allows simple neutrals trying to survive/be happy, human or Fluffy, to flourish.
You know you can admire a hugboxer’s art and disagree about whether fluffies deserve it or not.
Echo Chambers are dangerous. Even for a stupid group of fucked up little shits like ourselves.
And that’s why Virgil’s decision to not update a ‘pride’ banner makes him a saint among Hippocrates
Hippocrates
I believe you mean “hypocrites”.
Yeah what he said
wait when did Kennedy die
ohhhh
but hey, now you have a saturday morning cartoon about the CIA!
Deadass! It’s a dynamic I love half to death, but people hardly ever include it. My own headcanon has it, but I haven’t gotten around to including it much-
I’m gonna be straight up and honest. With all due respect, I can’t help but find these history lessons bullshit as they stand. They’re incredibly biased and heavily rely on one person’s anecdotal evidence and are made by someone with an agenda against certain types of content. That being said this is history and history is always subjective and biased, making one person’s telling incredibly inaccurate even if they lived it. What we need are more opinions and more people giving their testimonies about the old days to get a clearer picture of what happened. Maybe contact some of the old creators and lurkers that have come back and have them give their experiences. If you’re going to try and catalogue the history of this strange fandom then you need way more people and a much more diverse array of experiences and opinions. As it stands now I can’t help but take these think pieces with a grain of salt and an eye of extreme suspicion. But hey who the hell am I but some random lurker.
I agree with you actually. It is the reason why I am against trying to construct a narrative regarding the history of the booru itself. I will readily admit that I have my own bias and agenda when looking through the archive of past booru artwork and fiction. That said, effort is being made into contacting some of the older creators, though yes, they too have their own biases and preferences.
A part of me wishes that an immediate backup of the booru in its entirety remained. I don’t mean just the art and fics, I’m talking about the comments - because in many of the uploads, the author or artists intentions could be found in the comments. Now though, a lot of that context is gone, and has lead to some images to be easily misunderstood.
I still stand by the account of the fandom’s early history as depicted here: From MLP to Fluffy Pony or How Fluffy ponies came to be on 4chan's /co/ and /mlp/ (which is also on the subreddit)
Research into this was easier because an archive of 4chan threads made by the early bronies still exists, and this was something that I had consulted with the aid of people like @BKCatharsis and @meganonymous . Even the article itself has input from LordAnubis, and yes, LordAnubis was one of those early creators, as you would put it.
But as I said earlier, the same cannot be said about the booru. I only have fragments of what happened in the booru’s past, and some conjecture, but I will agree that its not enough to make a conclusive history.