Long live Matt Zimmer.

[classicswim]

 He’s said plenty nice things on my behalf, even today, and I’ll just state on the record that the only reason I made a blog account in the first place was to stay close by him.

The writing was pretty much on the wall that Toonzone was useless by the time I got here. And I don’t know. I could never be him. Genuinely not a pissing match of “oh, I’m not a great user, YOU are!” I mean I genuinely don’t put as much confidence or belief or effort into the things I do the way he does for himself. He’s got boundaries and standards as opposed to me and he handles any little thing with as much care as deserved. It’s an empowering headspace like none other.

Comments

[matt_zimmer]

Thanks, Classic Swim. To be honest, my posting style tends to throw people for a loop. I have a few VERY devoted fans because of it, but I can't really think of another person online who operates the same way I do.

Basically I consider everything I post, every message, every response, as a reflection of me and my writing skills and work. No exceptions. And that stymies many people. And it was very hard to keep up those standards for myself on a board with so many restrictions about what is the right and wrong thing to post.

I will say this: Those boundaries and standards you mentioned are what got me through the banning, and the reason I refuse to take it personally, or view the site as pure evil in hindsight. I've drawn clear lines as to what is acceptable posting to me, and Toon Zone often failed those boundaries by letting shitty posters who weren't violating rules per se just post stupid ass things and annoying the entire board. And while I do think that Toon Zone is a safer space on the internet than most for people on the spectrum, I didn't feel particularly protected there myself when things were hard for me.

I think the feeling was because I am both assertive and mentally together I could handle those things myself. But I was feeling extremely uncomfortable on the site in the last few weeks there. In response to the ban letter I asked if they were aware of how uncomfortable and weird I had felt on the board and as if I had little to no support and back-up. It was unusual for me because before those past few weeks the staff HAD been very responsive to me. I was getting a bit alarmed and even felt a bit unsafe with some of the disturbing things the site let go unchecked.

I did not handle it perfectly. But I'm a person, and it would be weird if I always did. And no, I'm not gonna shit on Toon Zone on the way out the door simply because it never occurs to me to be mad about things like that. Things like that are unfortunate. But there are much worse problems in the world and I consider myself very lucky in that I usually manage to avoid them.

If Toon Zone doesn't want me, that's their loss, and it's also their ultimate decision, and I will not tell them how to run their site. That is entirely up to them. I will say that I am well aware I have not been the only person feeling uncomfortable in recent months. I think the site would have been better off clarifying why I felt that way instead of ignoring me when I said it. Not just for my sake, but for everyone else's too.

[classicswim]

Any time I badmouth them (and believe me, any opportunity I get telling someone not to go there, I’m taking it) is my own thing. I don’t suggest you partake in that, and I’m glad you don’t.

I’m aware there are worse things going on and that’s just precisely it.

Toonzone can do the bare minimum of being an accepting and welcoming platform for how not serious and unimportant it really is. Yet somehow, they take the act of simply being uninvolved to a clinically toxic degree and nuke any genuine feedback.

They don’t clarify anything about your feelings or how uncomfortable you were because that would require them to have decent and thoughtful communication. They do not, and it’s their own problem.

I’m on good terms with those who actually do run a website and pay out of pocket to keep it going, and all it seems to take is to treat people like people. That’s it.

I can’t go on any ableist tiffs about the spectrum because I just have no experience in that. I only know you well enough and treat you no differently.

Any person I argued with that was autistic - - couldn’t have cared less about their diagnosis. I don’t think it’s at all healthy to allow sometimes grown adults to be assholes on the daily, and then have staff dial it back to say they don’t know any better. They do.

And then they make the joyous effort to actually treat you inhumanely when that was supposed to be what they were against all along.

[matt_zimmer]

The thing I want you to understand is I was on that site on and off for 20 years. And until the past month or so they had been very responsive to me and I had several meaningful back and forths with the mods before this. Them failing this specific thing was new and out of character. Clearly it matches YOUR experience but I'm not lying in saying this is a new problem. And I'm not exactly sure why. Most of the mods are the same.

As for people on the spectrum, I respect safe spaces. I understand their necessity. But I refuse to demand them for myself. Regardless of the fact that I am autistic, I am a grown-ass adult responsible for my own actions. Some of the Aspies on Toon Zone did not want to hear this, and believed their diagnosis gave them a free pass in posting stupid and harmful things. I'm not ashamed of being autistic. But the movement as it currently is asks other people to get used to people like me making them uncomfortable.

That's not reasonable. We all live in society with certain rules we must follow. And Lord knows my nervous demeanor in public has made strangers uncomfortable. But I will never tell them its THEIR problem, and something THEY have to accept and get used to. I live in society same as everyone else. I must follow those rules. And if I fail them? People have every right to not just feel uncomfortable, but to call me on it. I guess my problem with the current movement of autism awareness is a great deal of those advocates are asking people to let strangers that might scare them, or trigger their fears run amok, as if THEIR uncomfortability doesn't matter. It's all about soothing the autistic person. I don't agree with that, and the truth is several autistic posters on that board (including my stalker) believed differently. And me calling them on that was frowned upon when in reality demanding being treated decently is a basic human expectation in discussions and debates.

[matt_zimmer]

I used to occasionally make these exact arguments in the autism thread. Do you know who often liked my posts when I did that?

Red Arrow.

Yeah, the good guys and bad guys on Toon Zone were never clear-cut to me.

[classicswim]

Things aren’t black and white for me when it comes to Red Arrow.

He’s in his own little Belgium world where he thought he could make an asshole troll remark without me telling him to fuck his sister.

He couldn’t handle someone equally being a mean dick to him, so he cried to his Discord BFF; Pinkie the forum admin. Biased circumstances are biased, which is exactly what I said in my own letter.

Just because we kinda soft-patched the PM before my ban didn’t make me feel regretful. If my ban never happened from that, I still would think “yeah— he was a real fuckwit in that instance.” He’ll always be the initial aggressor on that end, but he’s PinkieLopBun’s little online bubble buddy so it doesn’t matter.


And I probably could find one or two stray comments from him that I’d agree with if I cared enough, but Red Arrow is someone who props down other people’s comments and considers himself his own messiah. I don’t have real contempt for him but wouldn’t ever want to be his friend. Even discounting all that.

[matt_zimmer]

You told him to fuck his sister? Remind me to never piss you off.

The way PinkieLopBun handled the ban for me made me a bit uncomfortable. She was not very responsive to my feelings at all. And I did and do still have them.

PinkieLopBun is very well-known on that site as a thoughtful administrator who cares about the people on the board. The thing is, I always got the sneaking suspicion she greatly disliked me, and I frankly don't know why, or even steps I could have taken to remedy that, or even if that was my responsibility to try and fix. She was polite enough, but I could tell my posting style rubbed her the wrong way, which I always thought was weird. And I can't change myself for a single person. I don't want to.

[classicswim]

The sister comment I just made was only metaphorical. XD

I mean I probably would say that on my actual boards, but all I truly did was clap back straight forward on his shit trolling. Basically if I never made the PM, they would still enact the ban just ‘cause they wanted to get rid of me, and the harmless comment was still juicy enough for them to huddle in.

What I previously said might also read off like I suddenly have this grudge toward Pinkie when quite the contrary! She’s simply one of the few to actually bear a grudge way longer than I possibly could have.

Can’t really single her out for much other than the fact any genuine problem I had, she wanted me to keep quiet. It was only a condescending shutdown or two. Like she could level with me on certain things if I’m that nasty to her, except gaslighting can also be her deal.

I got an anonymous note (1000% not from her lol) on the deleted Red Arrow comment that said my reaction was understood, and that was the precise level of genuine communication I needed from there the entire time. And I could only get that through an anonymous note...

[matt_zimmer]

How does one get an anonymous note on Toon Zone? Curious about that.

[classicswim]

I’m talking about just the “reason for comment deletion:” you get in notifications sometimes.

[matt_zimmer]

Oh, THAT. That is famously unhelpful. Honestly, those should not exist.

[classicswim]

At the very least there shouldn’t be anonymity attached if they’re gonna even vaguely personalize a notification. They like to think they’re equal cogs in the machine when they’re not.

[matt_zimmer]

That's actually poor form.

To be honest, I've had plenty of Mod notes telling me they understood my frustration. But they've never been thoughtless enough with me to offer anonymous support via a notification. That's not right.

[classicswim]

That’s all I could even get hahahaha.

Any type of comment that validates your stance and how you feel, even by a smidge can go a long way. It would’ve been the proper push needed to just let things go, but it’s clear they’d rather wait til there’s a spiral or blowout to finally take charge.

[matt_zimmer]

Even a year ago, it wasn't like that. This is a relatively new problem. I have no idea why.