Forums / Discussion / Serious Debate

What I mean by that is that there are times when some users tend to act like complete doomers. When I left this site in late 2014 (I only lurked at the time), it was ultimately because I felt that the positive energy that kept me coming back had greatly dwindled.

I heavily doubted whether or not I could be able to find a positive or encouraging Internet page to come back to. Lucky for me I did find one pretty quickly, only for it to slowly die off as wokeness took over the Internet in 2017. It's what ultimately led me back here, and it's why I've continued to stick here even after leaving sites like Twitter.

It's just that sometimes, despite everything going on in the world, I wish this site and its user base would do a better job of encouraging me and lifting me up rather than trying to bring me down every now and then, and the same thing goes for anyone else coming to this site for fan art or some funny memes.

What do you think?

I find this site one of the more supportive ones.
The moderation team is pretty mild compared to the power-trippers on reddit.
If you aren't too much of a prick, the fellas around here are very welcoming.

The only problem i sense is how divided the community is around …certain topics…
That's why i try to avoid those as much as possible to keep myself from flying into pointless arguments.

We're seeing a lot of these threads pop up lately, so I'm going to give you the same advice we give on the Discord server: if KYM is bad for your mental health you should stop using the website. Yes, the community here can be fun and welcoming, but this is, ultimately, a mid-2000s discussion forum loosely attached to shittier BuzzFeed.

This isn't an admonishment; there's no shame in wanting this place to be nicer. But I need you to understand that between this community changing and you breaking, the latter is more likely. Pretty much the entire mod team is in their early 20s or older, and we treat this as a little side-hobby. It's the little model train set in our basement, or the unfinished oil painting in our garage. When it gets tiring we put it away. Let the massive list of deactivated mods be a testament to how badly emotional investment in KYM ends. This shit isn't worth it man.

If you've made friends here in your time on KYM, you should reach out to them. Add them on Discord, connect via Steam, find something you have in common. Then remove the KYM bookmark and never look back.

I'd second this. The community can no doubt be welcoming but long time members can not that it's not as it used to be. Hell, one friend of mine mentioned he used to have an account here but noted that the user base is just assholes and from what he told me, it was the entire site rather than just one side. And if one does look into comments, they can help reinforce the idea of this site being bad for ones own mental health. I'll admit in some articles with the comments over the years, I could agree with him on that just based on how people post regardless of whether they were right or wrong (though I'll admit, that may just be more of me being online enough in various terrible sites like Kiwi Farms and Twitter that I end up feeling like some comments or post can be obnoxious). Hell, this can go for any website or community, whether here or on other places that are worse like Kiwi Farms or places that can be better. But all this said, if this site is affecting one in a negative way, stop using it and find a place that's better for one's mental health. There's other places to find memes and fan art as well so you don't have to rely solely on this place.

To be fair it's getting really hard being optimistic

No!!, we talked about this.

I miss the humor/edginess of long ago and users mostly talking about trending show, game, or whatever internet phenomenon of the time. That hasn't disappeared, but I noticed the uptick of kym users treating this site like a platform for their own political or ideological spiel from every corner of the internet. There's a heavy air vindictiveness about it that comes off as petty, and more so, extremely boring to me. I suppose it only natural that as the internet zeitgeist would mature so would its interest grow outside simple entertainment. Of course that would manifest itself within KYM, this site is dedicated to study of it afterall.

I'm genuinely a pretty positive guy irl, but I think I would come off as egregious to tell others to cheer up. I try to remember that behind every avatar is a real person, I couldn't possibly know their life situation or what they are going through. There's a few pretty obnoxious or pessimistic users here I find annoying, but I prefer to stay polite or say nothing at all.

Part of the problem is that with the 2016 Election, politics became a part of pop culture. With how a lot of disappointing media was coming out at the time, a lot of people decided to see if they could find entertainment in political debates, which led to a domino effect of the election getting memed on, and in turn politics would go onto become mainstream.

Now, it's completely spiraled out of control, where so many people have grown attached to politics and some people are using it as an excuse to get away with some pretty malicious acts online (and sometimes in real life.)

We're at a point where people just can't bring themselves to let go, to stop letting politics and world events basically control their lives, how they think, how they feel, they act as if their whole happiness depends on what happens in the world, when no matter what way you slice it: the world hasn't changed for the worse, your outlook has.

There will always be a divisive president in office, there will always be some sort of contagious disease that's making headlines. There will always be some form of deadly conflict happening somewhere in the world. There will always be headlines about how Hollywood is corrupt. There will always be some hotly debated humans rights issue that no one can seem to agree 100% on. There will always be degenerate personalities to circlejerk their way of thinking. And there will always be someone who sees all of this as a reason to never shut up about how the world sucks. The only thing you can do is choose to not give a crap…

…like I did.

Not to turn this into a culture war debate, since even I'm trying to wean myself off that, but there was a point when it wasn't really possible to ignore it. I still vividly remember when a Trump supporter wished more terrorist attacks on me on another site (and worse), and there was a point during the 2016-2017 where KYM was extraordinary unpleasant to visit. Not so much proof of that left since a lot who were active then have been banned, but it was there.

In the end, politics posting is what made me stop lurking. We're mostly living in the aftermath of all that, and honestly? I think that even with the popularity of doomer stuff, the internet in general is in a better state for me. I'm starting to go back to up-voting and looking at the trending tab instead of constantly looking at the recent scandal (whenever I'm on here).

In terms of stupid entertainment, I'm optimistic. I'm not saying it's a good thing to hold resentment and obsess over politics (guilty as I am of that), that's just bad, but the overall situation is less oppressive to me now.

That and it's easier for me to find images than Twitter, Redit or Facebook, without having to wade through art sites (pinterest, deviantart, pixiv, instagram etc…) on KYM, so using it for it's intended usage still works.

I read from the AMA thread by SicklyVivian that some previous users attempted some mass-shootings, what was up with that? It sounds like things were pretty wild for a long time.

We actually have an entry about it (check the Online Reaction section). It was more a case of severe mental illness than anything explicitly political.

Isn't it always? A neo-nazi brony who thinks they're the reincarnation of other mass-shooters, something wasn't right in the machinery upstairs.

Still, being terminally online couldn't have helped. It's a good lesson in being careful of your mental health, that's always been an issue, but it's only recently that people have started to realize how much of a risk that was.

I feel like I can relate to wanting a bit more support here, but one should be turning to family and friends for that. I know that I have been talking with family a bit more after turning 29 triggered my depression. I'm also trying some self-improvement and working on writing to help cope.

I guess it would be nice if folks would understand that disagreement isn't the same as wishing harm on others and drop that "with us or against us" mentality. It also helps to engage with one's community more by doing things like going to the library.

Just don't expect too much from this site.

Excuse me for being a day late in the response but yeah, the user in question was more or less fucked up in her thoughts. Hell, one can only wonder how some one born to a FOB (fresh off the boat) immigrant would fall for the tenets of national socialism and idolizing scumbags like the columbine shooters outside of any mental illnesses. That said, there was one other user who DID create a school shooting and sadly, he managed two people. Thankfully though, he killed himself after being stopped by someone barricading a door with a couch. Only, I don't know if he was mentally ill but he definitely would spend too much time, enough that the FBI apparently knew but acted nothing on it because they didn't deem him a threat which gotten them a lawsuit only for that to be dismissed with prejudice.

That aside, being online for a long period does take its toll no matter what site it is. I remember reading one post from a guy on Twitter in how he claimed that site was his emotional support and yet seeing as to how that site is, not to mention what the guy posted about in "hot takes" and the like really speaks otherwise. And this can extend to other places like Reddit, Facebook, comments sections, and in my case sites like Kiwi Farms. Hell, looking back with Twitter, not even that site can be mentally healthy even if you do agree with a person or have a similar stance on something. The phrase "touch grass" is something we all need to do, we need to find better outlets and hobbies than just being online and getting into flame wars and clout farming and the like.

In a sense, I find it funny thinking back to something CWC in saying the internet was making everyone more "autistic." Only swap out the word "autistic" for something actually negative towards mental health and it makes more sense.