EDIT: I did a little searching and I found this old blog post from a former administrator (who I was kind of friends with) that's dated 2013. They're essentially complaining about the same things I am, but in a much more condensed way. But this goes to show how long these problems have been going on around here.
Hey there, Creepies!
Just to get the formalities out of the way, I was an active around here since the middle of 2012 to around late 2014. I used to be a member of the staff (a chat moderator), so I guess you could say I've seen my fair share of changes over the years. I know a moderator may not have had the same responsibilites as say, an administrator would, but I had to get acquainted with the rules in order to enforce them, so you can imagine my surprise when I take a look at how vastly different the rules are from when I was active around here.
For one thing, pasta standards were way lower back then and there were avalanches of pastas written for the Lost Episode and Legend of Zelda genres (those genres were terminated years ago on account of they were often so bland and uninspired and just a mess of grammatical and/or spelling mistakes). And in my day, oh boy, there were just tons and tons of lousy pastas related to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
Back then, you literally couldn't go anywhere for five minutes on the internet without seeing a pony as someone's avatar. Honestly, that's probably the only category I didn't mind being axed (The LE and LOZ pastas I actually enjoyed despite being mediocre at best). I mean, really? My Little Pony being scary? I mean, maybe one or two of them would be, I dunno, amusing...maybe. But, thirty, forty of them? Were users trying to be funny or something?
The only reason why that "category" even existed was because that series, from 2010 to I'd say around maybe 2014, was hugely popular. So naturally it was going to worm its way into Creepypasta much like it did memes and other junk. Not only that, but I also think a lot of the staff were fans of the show too. That's definitely a nice little perk, right lol? I think that's what gave those damn Pony pastas so much leeway.
Looking back now that its popularity is pretty much dead, it's kind of cringey to know that that thing actually warranted a category all on its own. No offense to people who still enjoy the series or who used to be fans. It just kind of blew my mind that that children's cartoon took up 1/3 of the 2010s internet culture.
I actually happened to write a pasta based on "The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past" prior to that category getting the pink slip. To date, it's still the most popular pasta I ever wrote with 17 reviews. I actually still remember the night I wrote it.
But all of this is besides the point.
I mainly wanted to write this blog to address some of the changes. I feel like some of them are decent but others are kind of flaky or flat-out wrong in my opinion. Now, I just want to make it clear that this blog is strictly based on just that: opinion. You're free to disagree with them, but here's my thoughts on what I see are some pretty big changes that have occurred.
#1. Censoring Pastas[]
I feel like this one may be the worst of the changes. A few weeks ago, I was browsing this old Fandom looking for a trip down memory lane. And I decided to re-read some of the old pastas that really unnerved me back then because, well, why not.
I immediately went to one of the earliest that I remember I really enjoyed: "Squidward's Suicide".
At the time, I recall the pasta so incredibly popular that readers of the Pasta even tried to get in contact with the people who worked on SpongeBob. When I myself read it, I didn't believe it was real or anything like that, but I found it very disturbing and shocking. This, of course, didn't mean I didn't like it. I mean, as a horror literature piece, it did the job. It made me feel creeped out.
This may seem small, almost insignificant, but I noticed a line from the original pasta was changed. It went from "But most kids at the time would have shit themselves over it." to "But most kids at the time would go crazy over it."
EDIT: I have come to learn that "Squidward's Suicide" had not been censored by the staff of this Fandom/Wiki. Instead, it was a very bizarre unsolicited user-generated edit (which would be considered vandalism under today's standards). Thanks to ChristianWallis for pointing this out in the comments section. However, I will not modify the original text in order to preserve the blog.
I know, I know. It's a small change. But just hear me out.
Maybe I'm a purist, but I feel this is an insult to the original author's work. True, the original author was an anon who wrote the story on /x/ in October of 2006 and was undoubtedly unaware of the enduring popularity their storywould get. On top of this, they likely weren't an experienced writer seeing as how clunky and poor the prose style is, but I just feel like the censorship was silly. Why change it if the original author intended it to be something else? I mean, authors like H.P. Lovecraft, one of the most reowned horror writers of all time, hated it when editors changed his work without his permission.
Some might argue, "it adds nothing to the story". Well, okay, that's your critique and that's fine, but why does that give you a right to change the story? As you can see, I'm not a big fan of censorship, at least not unless the original author agrees with it. An example would be Stephen King's It where he agreed a lot of elements in the original novel were too insensitive and disrespectful for today's society. But even then, I still wouldn't mind owning a copy of the original novel just to see what all the fuss is about.
Another example would be in "Normal Porn for Normal People" when there was a sentence describing a dog being "starved" and "abused" in a computer file. Now I understand this one is a little different, seeing as how it was the TOU that affected this one. There's a rule that says you can't talk about animal cruelty or something like that. But, are we not dealing with the world of fiction and fantasy here? The Pasta itself was not condoning or encouraging such terrible things. It's just a story, a work of art and expression and nothing more. Anyone with common sense can see that.
I know, this may seem small and minute, but I just feel it's wrong to alter the works of someone else for some arbitrary reason, like "not adding the story" or because of some silly policy.
#2. Higher Standards[]
This one, I guess overall, is a plus on the changes. I mean, obviously you want quality work on a literature website. Not garbage like,
"OK GUIZ SO 1 DAI I WAS IN MY HOUSE ALON ND THRE WAS A EVL MAN TRYIN TO GET IN WT A KNIFE HE KILED ME ND ATE MUH BRAINS!!!1!!"
Yeah, I'm not good at these things.
Fun fact: I hated pastas that started off with "Okay, guys". Seriously? "Okay, guys"? So show me where a genuinely scary story starts off with "Okay, guys!" Did Edgar Allan Poe or H.P. Lovecraft start any of their greatest works off with "Okay, guys"? Did Miguel de Cervantes start Don Quixote off with "Okay, guys"? Does the Bible start off with "Okay, guys"!?
You will not get an impactful story in any genre if you start it off with "Okay, guys". I feel like this is definitely a plus regarding the improvement of the standards.
It's like how in that one episode of SpongeBob Squarepants where they were all pirates and Mr. Krabs scolds SpongeBob for saying "Okey-dokey, then!" when he's supposed to be going "Aaarrrghhh!" (that was the name of the episode too, I think) like a bloodthirsty free-booter.
Sorry, I'm ranting, but you get what I mean.
But my point is, yeah, there really was garbage like that floating around on this Wiki. I think these things are what led to the now-defunct "TrollPasta Wiki" that was popular for a time. This is just my two cents, but I honestly think that that place was a waste of time. I understand that that place existed for laughs and entertainment, but I feel like when users tried to be funny, it just fell flat. Those lousy pastas were funny because you were supposed to take them seriously but they came off as just laughable. But it's like that old saying goes: the funniest jokes are the ones you don't see coming.
Again, I know the argument is, "Well, something can be funny if it tries to be, it's not like every joke has to be like that etc. and we tried to preserve it because it made people laugh etc." But again, when I read pastas, I wanted to be afraid or unnerved. If I found an absurd pasta, it was funny and all that but afterwards I would've just thrown it in the trash bin. I guess it all boils down to opinion, much like this blog.
But, I'm talking about the standards here.
The higher standards aren't really a new thing though, as I remember certain categories being blacklisted and what-not when I was a moderator on the chat due to how poorly they were often executed. Back then, I found it a little disappointing that Lost Episode pastas were no longer being accepted. If anything, that may have been the category I visited the most. You see, I was a latchkey kid who often sat around watching hours upon hours of mind-rotting cartoons and browsing the internet for whatever the Hell my younger self wanted to look up in a big, lonely house. I loved the idea of warping my reality of those ho-hum entertainment outlets with eerie and disturbing things and ideas so I often went to them first.
In my sincerest opinion, the majority of them were actually written decently. Was I expecting something as eloquently written as Wu Cheng'en's Journey to the West? Obviously not. But, I got through them and I was entertained. But, I guess someone on top thought they weren't written well-enough, so they pulled the plug on them.
Nowadays, as I look through the categories and catalogs of stories being written (I think it's debatable as to whether or not they should be called "pastas" anymore, really), they no longer have that punch that the older pastas used to have. True, nowadays they're a bit more refined and fleshed out, but when I read a pasta, I wasn't going for a novel-esque work. I was going for a "campfire"-like story that left you with many questions and gave you chills. These more "elaborate" stories tend to bore me a little and don't have the authenticity the originals had.
One of the charms of Creepypasta back then was how they were kind of messy and "realistic" they looked and seemed. Creepypasta itself was an online underground movement for aspiring artists, writers, and filmmakers to explore the darker and scarier side of human nature or people who enjoyed unorthodox literature.
All of these neat, organized pastas were rich storylines and developed characters or whatever takes away a lot of the stuff Creepypasta was made of: Excessive violence, unsettling situations, and dark themes. These are what made the classics great and lovable and left us wanting more. Now, all I see is a bunch of amateur writers trying to promote themselves and sell their merch on here. I understand wanting to sell your product and trying to make a profit doing what you love. But in my view, Creepypasta was not about making a profit or promoting yourself as a "horror writer or artist", it was about scaring yourself out of your mind and loving every second of it.
#3. Categories based on users[]
Okay, don't bite my head off for this one.
I feel like this one is kind of clunky. I mean, basing an entire category off the works of one user? Look, I know people around here are talented and all that, but to make an entire category based on their works alone, is, well, kind of boring and needless.
I've scanned some of the works of users on here who have categories and, honestly, I found absolutely nothing special about their works. They were dull, dull, dull. Drab "spooky" stories you could find on any run-of-the-mill literature website or sites centered on paranormal happenings. This raises the question: Why are these users given their own categories? Does the staff see some sort of redeeming qualities in those users' works alone and everyone else is seem as just stamp collecting?
It can be argued that having a category based on a users' works isn't anything special and people hardly click on them anyway. Well, then that raises another question too: why even have this at all then!? Just to gloat or brag and say"Hey, look, I got a category! Neat, huh?"
I recall it happening back in my active days when one user got a category dedicated to their works. This was the first of its kind that I can clearly remember, and I actually read one of their more popular Pastas, and guess what? Yep, nothing special. I said to myself, "Okay, why is this considered so amazing? It's no better than BEN Drowned or the Tails Doll curse in my book".
In the end, I just find this categories based on users' works kind of clunky and poorly thought out and, much like the Higher Standards critique, pretty crummy and defeats the original purpose of this entire Wiki.
Conclusion[]
These are just a handful of thoughts from an old user like me. Again, it's okay to not agree with me on some things or even any of it. I just wanted to voice some opinions and concerns I apologize if I got some facts wrong, feel free to correct me if I did. Thank you very much.