Curious
I am admittedly overly curious whenever I see someone have a meltdown on twitter either over another twitter user, or a discord server. Today, it was a discord server and a threat to mute anyone posting about it, or even a part of it. All fair and good if that's what someone wants to do, but it was over something that on paper looks to be very black and white, but that has people considering it more of a grey area.
There's these content creators in the FFXIV mod community. A boyfriend & Girlfriend pair. The boyfriend posts/creates mods that are obviously meant to get a rise out of people sometimes. But even when he posts something completely fine, people will go over it with a finetoothed comb to find something wrong about it, to flip out about.
This creator's method of dealing with it is to... stoke the flames. Insult. Belittle. Etc.
The girlfriend apparently is completely fine, until the boyfriend says he's being attacked, and then she'll back him. Because they're together. But this now has her lumped in with him, and it's a whole mess.
The accusations are in the racist/transphobe flavor. I don't know much about allegations toward the racism outside of a military armband (many militaries use them, including the US' military police), made to a military-centric nation. It was pegged as a Hitler thing. And over a gallows mod because out of the 4 models in one of the ads, one had darker skin.
The transphobe comments are directed at the girlfriend, for using a very common slang/saying ('girrrrllll!') to someone that got upset as a ftm trans person. Which she didn't know they were, and it wasn't listed on his profile. Immediately she was given the label of a transphobe for pointing this out.
So the discourse in the mod community now comes at the risk of facing accusations yourself for being a racist or transphobe if you use any of their free mods. Mods that are released often, and had already flooded the market prior to the drama.
This situation I saw on twitter today, was someone posting about muting anyone associated with a particular discord. This person apparently criticized someone within a discord community for using a mod from one of the above creators, and that no one should be using their mods because of the discourse. Apparently it was over an earring.
The response was a tired, fed up one, where the creator was told that it shouldn't matter. The mods are free and therefore the other two were not monetarily supported. Others chimed in with how the discourse was hearsay and rooted in personal opinion, and therefore isn't that big of a deal.
More people also added their two cents, saying that coming for anyone using a mod from either of those two is risky. Someone could either not know about the drama, or not know who made the mod thanks to mod naming conventions, & would wind up being hit with terrible accusations out of the blue. That it drove perfectly good people away from the community.
I do agree with the last sentiment. Not everyone lives on twitter, or is engrossed in discords that cover it. Some people are just stepping into the modding scene, and downloading mods that they like before posting their pictures.
I, myself, had to ask twitter why I was seeing people ban images or mentions of these two creators in their own spaces because I had no idea what was going on. Also because someone commented to me with snark stating they don't know why I'd give money to [the boyfriend] over a free mod I had been using for months.
Thankfully I wasn't deemed a racist or transphobe, but I was belittled for something I didn't even know about. Something that many people in the community expect everyone to know, like everyone is as twitter-scrolly as they are.
I know now, and I'm realizing that trying to remain removed from the drama is costly. Other mods with similar quality cost money. As Patreon rewards or straight fees on ko-fi or similar. I am a little annoyed, but don't want to risk supporting the boyfriend due to his questionable arm band. And a lot annoyed, that I can't use the girlfriend's mods due to her being lumped up with him. Using either could get me 'canceled'. Or potentially reported.
But it does make me curious when people post about muting anyone that's in a discord where someone didn't agree with them. I kind of want to look at this discord, now. This person basically advertised for them.