#Mack3030

[simnostalgia]

TW: Stalking, suicide, death, death threats, Zoophilia, Pedophilia, etc.

This is a long read. Sorry about that. I have lots of thoughts.

A Little Background for Those Not in the Know Regarding Sims "for profit" Modding Drama.

Okay, so I know I've already kind of talked about the implications of the new policy a little, but I haven't really talked about what I personally think about it. This seems like a good time though. I don't really expect many people to read this all the way through but honestly, I just wanted to say something about it.

As some of you know I was the old head of DHM (Dollhouse Mafia) and original founder. I stepped down a while ago because I was spreading myself too thin on personal projects and also, I didn't like the way things were going. I have nothing but good things to say about the current leadership, but it just personally wasn't worth it to me. ANYWAY, that being said, I wanted to put my thoughts about how the community has changed regarding its stance on pay content and how it used to be

So back in the days of TS2 PMBD acted as a receptacle for all pay custom content to be leaked. TSR, way back, was the biggest pay site in the community with several other smaller pay sites that specialized in hair or clothes. These sites generally had a specific style and very obviously made their own content. I couldn't tell you how much creators made but I know that other than TSR users it wasn't a huge amount.

So, The Sims team has pretty obviously always had a love/hate relationship with pay content. Even though it seems to have cooled they used to be VERY close to TSR. I know that they've always had a policy against pay content but it's never been enforced really. Like I said though, the only people who seemed to be making BIG money from non-passive income was TSR.

The reason that I bring this up is that I think the reason that things went so wrong isn't because of pay CC. I'm against pay CC and I always will be, we can talk about paying artists all we want but at the end of the day this is a hobby and if you're trying to use it as your main source of income you're in the wrong but I digress...

EA's Relationship with for profit CC

Fun fact, Patreon was actually started by the voice actor that played Teen/College aged men in TS2. I suspect that he got the idea from watching The Sims community try and set up their own personal online shopfronts and figured there was a way to do it better. I also suspect that many people who worked within The Sims Studio were pro-paysite because it created a demand that kept The Sims brand in people's minds. If people were making a living off of it then it was always being bought and you had people who basically HAD to buy it because that's how they made a living.

When talking about his new NFT (gross.) project Will Wright actually mentioned that one thing he didn't like was that piracy was taking place when Sims players were creating pay CC and others would pirate it. I suspect that the only reason they kept the policy they did was in case creators would make something that rivaled the studio in terms of quality (which according to Don Hopkins was an actual concern and part of the reason that EA's CC tools weren't super powerful, we couldn't create anything "too good")

Like anything to do with money, I think people who were mostly outsiders to the community realized that they could maximize profits through unsavory means such as flipping meshes quickly and reselling them from 3D modelling websites.

The problem is this created a flood of people who started using The Sims as their SOLE income and they began making good money too. Enough that they wouldn't easily be able to make that amount doing anything else without a serious career change.

Low Quality, Quick Profit, Unruly Community

So remember how EA decided they wanted to reach out and start the Game Changer program for the better by doing outreach to players by trying to interact with the community online. Then very recently they were like... trying to start a "sims social platform"? Yeah EA isn't really crazy about the fact that we're a self-sufficient community.

Most other gaming communities that have player made content tend to try and keep that player made content in an official store of some kind. Both so they can monetize it and use it as a selling point and also so they can control what can be done with it. Roblox is a GOOD example of how companies tend this sort of thing to play out. Communities that exploit creators and allow companies to control the player content, so everything aligns with the "brand".

Now, I'm just a person who REALLY likes The Sims and knows a lot about it so take it with a grain of salt but I suspect that EA is trying to find a way to keep us under better control. They've likely seen the messy fights that the patreon creators have been getting in. They've also definitely heard about the wide-spread availability of not just sex mods but sex mods that allow for pedophilia/zoophilia.

People can act like this has happened before in The Sims community but not like this. Before people were getting legal threats here and there and a few people were doing some bad stuff with the game but now we're talking doxxing, half of 4chan has started using The Sims as a sex playground, and people are making crazy money from it. EA was willing to overlook sex mods but I doubt they want a replay of the Jack Thompson case or to get the bad press that Habbo of Secondlife got for being bastions of pedophilia and perversion. It used to be that TSR was one company that made a lot of money and acted like a company acts to protect their business interests. However, now you have several HUNDRED people who were using The Sims as a get quick rich scheme and they were willing to attack community members to keep themselves living well. Not all of them, mind you, but it is an issue.

I suspect EA is worrying how this will look for the brand. It was okay when we were all creating a few mods and making pocket change from custom content. But now, because we've all been content creators we're getting better at it and it's causing problems (TM) for EA.

Both because their overlooking of pay content has backfired as it became more of a business AND because their players started becoming skilled enough to create things that both rivaled their own content and sullied their brand for outsiders and started attracting more and more unsavory types (cough cough ColonolNutty).

TL;DR: EA did this to themselves. They wanted the community to create for their games but didn't consider the outcomes of monetizing it. Now no matter what they do, some group will be mad at them. No matter what they do it's going to result in bad press... And you know what?

[albycnyu]

Baby, I Swear It's Déjà Vu

TW: bullying, harassment, mentions of suicide attempt(s), racism, LGBTQIA+phobia, sexual harassment, ableism, abuse

Didn’t think I’d be making a post like this, but as the title states, I’m having a case of déjà vu that I wanna share. Before I get into the nitty-gritty of this post, I wanted to give a rundown about what I’ve personally seen within the year I’ve actively been apart of the Sims community (joining servers, following n engaging with other simmers, commenting on posts, etc.).

One of the biggest controversies that recently blew up at the end of July (and moved into August) in the Sims community and caused people to rethink (or double down on) their position on alotta things was EA “changing” their policy about modders paywalling their content; long story short, EA made a statement that CC and mods were no longer allowed to be paywalled and that the only means for creators to be compensated for the work that they’ve done was through donations. This included Early Access, which was clear to many but not to others.

Lemme explain to the best of my ability this Early Access thing and also add where some of the problems came in. Here goes.

NOTE: To skip this entire section, CTRL+F and type "unwashed".

EA’s early access policy stated that mods must be released to the public after two weeks (three weeks max) because while the assets used to create said mods belonged to EA, the company (who could’ve flatout pulled a Disney on everyone) acknowledged that modders deserved a form of compensation for the time and work they put in to contribute in making the Sims franchise (in this case, The Sims 4) a better and pleasant experience for everyone. That being said, EA still about they money and copyright, so they didn’t want mofos to completely profit off they assets which is why the policy was put in place (a policy, mind you, they NEVER bothered overseeing).

Although there were plenty (I’d like to think the majority) of modders who followed the ToS EA made to the letter, others (most of them who create Alpha CC and convert meshes n whatnot from other games) took it upon themselves to do the complete opposite.

From what I’ve seen, some would start out doing Early Access content then began to make Exclusive content for their supporters and one of two things would occur: eventually the majority of their content would become exclusive or Early Access would be used as a loophole to keep their items behind a paywall by claiming in their tiers that items’d be released in 2-3wks but then when you check it’s been months. Even years.

When they do release the content to the public, in order for people to get it, they’d have to go through sites like Adfly (a site which is known for causing viruses but compensates the individual who uses it) The Sims Resource, Simsfinds (formerly known as Simsdom), and Bootsy. Others would even go as far as to tell people who already paid for their content to go through the extra steps to obtain the content PAID for (ie emailing the creator directly to get a DL link)

And recently, making Sims content that’s Blender Only (yes, this is a thing).

I’ve also seen cases in which people would come out of nowhere and join spaces for the sole purpose of advertising paywalled content (early access and exclusives). Some of these advertisements were directed towards minorities (specifically Black n Brown Simmers) who had very little to no representation in the Sims franchise and would seek out content to represent them because if EA ain’t finna do it (and let’s be real, they haven’t) simmers that know how to mod will (and if they didn't know, they were gonna learn how that day).

Between the time EA announced the new paywall policy then changed it to an even vaguer one, specifically the duration in which modders’re allowed to keep their stuff behind a paywall, the Sims community was met with an entire wave of emotions ranging from devastation, confusion, rage, glee, disgust, disappointment, and relief.

There were Creators who-- along with going out of their way to call people who supported EA’s decision “broke” “whiny” and “entitled”— announced that they were done with making content for the Sims (mainly Sims 4) and either mass deleted their content or said they were moving to other platforms such as SecondLife or IMVU (despite rarely if ever showing interest in any of the two before).

They’d even block and/or be flat out disrespectful towards people who didn’t fully agree with them (regardless of whether or not they were a supporter).

Then when EA updated the policy they announced being “back in business”.

Arguments made by both modders and non-modders The Sims (specifically TS4) would’ve been absolutely nothing without mods and CC came about as well which completely disregarded the existence of both PC and console gamers who play The Sims without them.

Creators who followed the rules to the letter but also relied heavily on the income the Early Access policy provided them also voiced their concerns and devastation.

Some even lost their entire ever-loving minds and began to rage at the community itself. (lookin’ at you magic-bot and your r*pe comparison!)

Some Early Access creators announced they’d abide by the new policy (others said they wouldn’t) then when it changed, they immediately put their content back behind a paywall with an updated ToS of their own.

For the ones who were unsure about whether or not Early Access was allowed, there was a mixture of some releasing their stuff and others not doing it, while also expressing concern that if Early Access was no longer a thing, they’d be severely impacted.

There were modders who even went as far as to create FAKE legal documents that magically disappeared the minute EA said, “Oh Early Access is fine, but it’s gotta be released within a reasonable amount of time.”

On top of faking legal documents, they made this weird loophole by creating a Blender Only File that can be converted into a Sims .package file… even tho the Blender Only File still belongs to the EA bc it was made to work specifically for the Sims… yeahhhh

But there was also a huge wave of relief from modders who found themselves treating their hobby as a job and felt pressured to constantly put out content due to having a Patreon too. Even MoonChildLovestheNight falls into this category; despite literally comparing being put on a list to the Holocaust in her rage induced rant (which she denies), she let everyone know in more ways than one that something she chose to do became something she felt like she had to do (and that’s … really sad).

In short, alotta people were showing their entire unwashed bootyholes and it became very apparent that a particular group of modders— who very well may’ve started off making content for the Sims out of genuine love for the franchise itself and desire to make a broken game (yes TS4 is fkn broken) better experience for everyone (especially BIPOC)— saw the community as their cashcow much like EA itself (granted EA is 1000x worse). And while they didn’t wanna be treated like a business because that would require them to acknowledge the fact their supporters are also their customers who have every right to critique and inquire about products modders make (as well as call them out on their severe lack of professionalism), they certainly made money and paywalled their items like one. (You gotta be one of the most off the chains unethical greedy SoBs to paywall LGBTQIA+ content on PRIDE MONTH! And youse tellin’ me not to treat youse like a business?! REALLY?!)

So now that I got that part out of the way, here’re my thoughts about EA’s policy on paywalls and the situation as a whole. As a concept, I’m for it and, prior to shit hitting the fan, I’ve had no problem with the idea of showing financial support to modders that I like (ie SavageSims, Ebonix, etc.). This might be a TMI, but I’ve given modders $210 in the two years I’ve been playing/creating stories on TS4 and for me, that’s not alot compared to what I’ve could’ve spent had I constantly remained subscribed to these modders. However, the execution— correction, the severe LACK in execution— of the paywall policy is the reason why the Sims community is in such of state of disarray now. I’ve stated multiple times that people should be compensated for the amount of time and work they put into creating what is basically fanwork. I’ve also said that where EA could’ve pulled a Disney (or even a Nintendo) and flat out said, “Yeah, no.” they took upon themselves to acknowledge modders in the community and allowed modders to paywall their content provided they release it to the public after a certain amount of time (2-3 weeks). The problem comes in with the fact that many modders decided to break these rules (while simultaneously requesting theirs not to be broken) and created their own marketplace and EA just... let it happened.

And because EA did absolutely NOTHING to oversee that modders were adhering to their paywall policy (opting to just focus on releasing broken packs after broken packs), a lot of ish that should’ve never happened happened. Yes, I’m basically copy-pasting an old tweet of mine that has a few repeat but I feel these things must be stressed because I don’t think people understand how wild this is (and it’s in no particular order):

Modders claiming to have made items from scratch when it’s been shown that at best the items were bought and converted from 3d asset sites or at worst stolen from creators who don't even make Sims content (ie SecondLife).

Modders saying join their Patreon to get item(s) 2-3wks in advance and the item(s) remain locked behind a paywall.

Modders who take other modders’ items to make a build or recolor and lock it behind a paywall (even when told NOT to).

Modders who go out of their way to make alt accounts and basically scam simmers outta even more money.

Modders releasing their items for "free" then when you click to DL it leads you to Adfly or some other site that's capable of fkn your PC up.

Modders being straight up disrespectful when questioned about why they didn't release an item they claimed would be released after a certain date.

Modders who went out of their way to put trackers in their items and would either dox and/or harass people and make viruses to break your game; then tell their Patrons to EMAIL them to get the items they locked behind their Patreon. Even though Patrons already PAID to unlock the content (why the extra step, my guy???)

Do I even need to mention modders who’d leave for MONTHS at a time (or in Curbs case, they’ve been inactive for years) and still have the unmitigated gall to charge their Patrons? Or how some price their shit waaaaaay too high (and/or make almost six figures) and their stuff is low quality? Cuz guess what? That happens!

The list goes on, yall.

And again, EA didn’t do anything about it. They put all of the responsibility of reporting/documenting ToS violations, harassment and bullying, exploitation, etc. onto regular people (you n lil ol me) some whom decided, “If EA not gonna do it, I will.” to be the voice for anti-paywalls due to how problematic paywalling has become. However, even when this ish was repeatedly brought to their attention, EA kept going about their day leaving the ever mounting issues completely unresolved and the weight of this burden on those constantly reminding folks that, “HEY! Your fave is problematic!” until something happened in HQ which led to EA making their vague updated paywall policy. I dunno what happened, but it’s been theorized that it was either a doxxing situation that EA opted to ignore then caught heat for or that EA decided to cause the community to verbally tussle with one another to get heat off of them for once again releasing a broken pack (from what I’ve heard this broken pack was worst than Wedding Stories). Or yanno… Cowbuild charging FIVE FKN DOLLARS on Ko-Fi for a bed she didn’t even fkn make.

Either way, for the briefest amount of time, EA’s paywall policy caused a disruption which showed quite a number of modders’ true colors. People also started to educate themselves on the matter since what they was once thought to be a black and white issue was clearly not the case. (Oh yeah, love, there’s LAYERS). For a moment, it seemed like everything was going in the right direction, especially for Anti-Paywallers because as more and more people became aware of how increasingly audacious paywalls has become, people’s stances about paywalls changed as a whole. Even Early Access was now getting side-eyes which is crazy cuz literally everybody (even Anti-Paywallers) supported that. Finally, after all these years, people’re listening and these permapaywallers would finally be held accountable for their actions! And I betcha they were all thinkin, “It only took my ass getting doxxed, harassed, receiving death threats, attempting suicide— oh wait… no? It wasn’t that? It was yall seeing yalls faves act a whole fool cuz they bags were at risk of getting fckd up by EA? Oh okay.”

But then a few hiccups of some sort occurred in the Anti-Permapaywall community. Alotta allegations, alotta fighting, alotta screenshots, alotta shade, and alotta links.

And you wanna know what’s fascinating to me about this whole situation? I’ve seen this before. In a totally different community: The MLM v. Anti-MLM community.

For those who don’t know what an MLM (aka Multi Level Marketing, aka Pyramid Scheme) is I’ll tell you: It’s a SCAM! It’s A SHAM! IT’S A CULT! IT’S ALL LIES!! IT’S THE BAD. FKN. PLACE!!!

But, wait? Aren’t I comparing apples to oranges here? MLMs’re far more problematic than what’s happening in the Sims community. They manipulate people outta they money, the top 1% of MLMs abuse their downline, and said downline believes the bullswanky that their “mentors” tell them. So how can I possibly compare that community to this one? Because of the actions and reactions that I’ve seen. Lemme count the ways starting with the “Boss Babes”, the Modders who paywall content, and the companies that allow this ish to happen. And when I say modders, I’m not talking about all of them, I’m talking about the ones that fkd it up for other modders and continue to do so.

Okay so boom:

MLM companies make policies prohibiting their reps from making false statements about products and their compensation plans. Much like EA, these companies never oversee their policies and all their reps to spread false statements as means to recruit and sell products anyway.

It’s only when these companies receive notices from people capable of investigating and potentially shutting ish down did they actually start to do ish like give out warnings and fire reps.

I’m not gonna repeat EA’s policy being broken by perma-paywalling modders, so I’ll move on from that.

MLM reps claim that they own their own businesses when it in fact, they’re independent contractors working for an MLM, they’re also said MLMs’ customers because the reps’re are constantly buying and stocking ish.

Said it before, but I’ll say it again, modders in the Sims community don’t want to be treated like a business, but they operate their Patreon like one and much like how MLMs treat their reps and the reps treat their downline, modders treat their supporters like customers.

This’ll probably be deemed a snide remark but I don’t really care: in addition to this, modders claim that the items they create are 100% theirs when the truth is that it belongs to EA because without the assets EA provides (big and small) modders’ ish wouldn’t work in the Sims.

Both MLM reps and modders’re mad disrespectful towards their consumers/downline/supporters. In the Reps cases, they would curse, belittle, degrade, and even gaslight their downline. If you’re not making money the way you were told you’d be, it’s because you “didn’t work hard enough”, “you were lazy”, “you’re not doing enough to promote your business”, etc. Etc. Etc. It’s not the fact you’re in an MLM where the majority of people lose all their money— oh no, can’t be that whatsoever— it’s all your fault.

As it pertains to modders, if you even breathe out a question about their content (specifically a release date), you’ll be met with hostility and immediately be silenced.

Case in point, alotta modders who create Alpha CC and/or convert content from other games believe that EA’s policy doesn’t apply to them or the way they operate their shop (I dunno why that’s just something a few of ‘em say), so they’re very quick to shut down any and ALL inquiries about when something’ll be released. If it’ll EVER be released.

If You’re Anti-MLM, You’re a Jealous Hater and a Misogynist:

Due to the majority of MLM reps being women (and/or femmes) if someone’s apart of the Anti-MLM group, they’re against the empowerment of women and’re jealous of the Boss Babes.

It’s not the gaslighting.

It’s not the lies.

It’s not the female MLMers abusing their downline.

It’s not the fact MLMers keep sayin’ ish like, “If you can spend money on this and that, you can totally invest in your own business.”

Not the fact that the majority of MLMers lose their money.

Totally not the fact that MLMs’re a predatory cult and MLMers prey on the most vulnerable people to recruit and manipulate (majority of said MLMers being women).

Oh no, it’s none of that. It’s you, Dear Anti-MLMer. You hate seeing people succeed. You hate your 9-5 and’re seething at these women being successful.

Maybe YOU yourself were in an MLM and never made any money because you didn’t “work hard enough” and now you’re a bitter individual with waaaay too much time on their hands, screaming into the virtual void to not be “scammed”. And you’re jealous. Angry. Bitter. And Broke.

If You’re Anti-Permapaywall, You’re an Entitled Hater who Doesn’t Respect Artists:

Why’re you mad over pixels, sis (or bro)?

No one forced you to buy my ish. Yall chose to support me. Not the other way around.

Without me and modders like me, TS4 would’ve been DoA.

You don’t know all the time and effort I, the Modder, put into my craft so for you to complain about paywalls and Exclusive Content means you’re entitled.

It’s not the fact that People constantly break ToS.

Not the fact people constantly create loopholes and alt accounts to drain and/or scam more money outta unsuspecting simmers.

Not the fact that Modders charge RIDICULOUS amount of money on ish they claimed to have made from scratch but converted from a 3d site and/or stolen from elsewhere. *Bonus Point if they already charged ya for that ish in their previous Patreon tiers.*

Not the fact that modders put trackers and viruses in their items.

Not the fact that people have been doxxed by Modders.

Not the fact that people have been stalked n harassed on and offline by Modders (and they fans).

Not the fact that people outside of the Sims community have had to deal with modders stealing their work.

Not the fact that an individuals make 10x more than actual EA employees but still want MORE of people’s money cuz Greed.

Nah, it’s definitely none of that. It’s 100% you.

You mean to tell me that you can spent money on NetFlix, Amazon, Spotify subscriptions etc., but can’t afford to spend “$2-$5” on content made from scratch?

You just want everything I make for free? That’s Broke Bitch Behavior.

Then we have the Anti-MLM and Anti-Permapaywall communities.

Much like the Anti-MLM movement, the Anti-Permapaywall movement came about when people started voicing their concerns about not only the amount modders in the Sims community charged for their content, but the lack of transparency on modders’ parts about when (if ever) they’d release items they’ve had locked behind a paywall for a very long time.

I personally don’t know when modders like Cowbuild, Pixelvibes, Bergdorf, and Busra-tr (just to name a few) began their create a doxxing list crusade of some sort, but information about that (and more) can be read here and here.

While the Anti-MLM movement began to increase so did the number of people (alot of them being former MLM reps of all ranks) sharing their stories about what it was like being apart of an MLM. The Anti-Permapaywall movement imho is slowly growing and gaining more traction not only due to what happened these past few weeks, but also because it’s still a new-ish thing alotta people aren’t privy to. To be frank, you really have to look for the Anti-Permapaywall content at times.

From what I’ve seen, the goal of this particular movement is to

spread awareness of modders who’re milking people out they money (like EA does) and actively go out of their way to silence people through intimidation

basically demand that EA creates a stricter, blunter paywall policy and see to it that it’s followed so that permapaywalls (and the folks who make ‘em) come to an official end so that modders who actually follow EA’s ToS to the letter can be rewarded for their hard work (either through donations, Early Access and general support).

Both Anti communities literally do the same thing (albeit different subjects) in terms of seeking to make the world a better place. And, as I’ve stated before, a huge shift recently occurred in people’s attitudes towards paywalls so, there’s really only one way a movement can go like this can go: up.

However, as I’ve also stated, hiccups occur in which a community with a common goal begin to fight amongst each other and majority of the time, it’s due to the actions of people within the community and the sudden inability to understand the concept of what accountability is.

It’s here I’d like to tell yall the story of Mallory, formerly known as idontwantnohuns (I don’t want no huns).

Mallory entered the Anti-MLM community, I wanna say almost a year ago. Her Anti-MLM content consisted of skits, a variety of characters (one being a hilarious elderly woman, the other being a “Boss Babe”, and more), songs, and when it was serious (ie racism, ableism, homophobia, abuse, etc.) she’d get serious.

Due to all of this, her platform grew pretty quickly. I mean… how could it not? She was rather unique. She was met with alotta support from the Anti-MLM community, especially those who contributed in spearheading the movement.

Because I wasn’t always in the mood to get my fill on Anti-MLM content and wasn’t on social media as much— come to think of it, I may’ve went on a small break at the time— I didn’t see everything, but when I returned I noticed that alotta cryptic shit was going around about how “everyone oughta go their separate ways”, “the Anti-MLM community isn’t a place for drama”, so on and so forth.

I’ve also noticed Mallory beginning to talk about how the Anti-MLM community was as catty and bad as the MLM community and not only had she lost followers, a number of Anti-MLMers distanced themselves from her.

So, lil ol me, bein’ outta the loop and wanting to know wtf happened decided to a lil digging, and here’s what I managed to gather to the best of my ability:

According to some Anti-MLMers, Mallory went from being a woman contributing to the conversation of MLMs topics to wanting to be first in starting the conversations.

An example of this would be the incident in which a former MONAT rep was sharing her story about getting bullied out of the company by her upline. I’ll get discuss this more in a minute.

Some found it a lil annoying how Mallory would always seem to focus on one topic when the majority have moved on from it. I’m not sure which topics— I’d like to think it was something like the MONAT convention or somethin’ and not the times when she called out racist bigots— but it was something that made some folks go, “Let it go, sis.”

There were allegations of Mallory bullying and harassing individuals as well as using an MLM tactic known as love-bombing.

I’m not too familiar with the term but from what I heard, it’s a method in which an individual gives somebody (who might be vulnerable) attention and affection as means to influence them into doing something.

Allegedly, Mallory love-bombed the former MONAT rep into doing an interview with her. According to the former rep, she said that Mallory would shower her with praise, telling her how brave she was in speaking up against MONAT and their practices, giving her compliments here and there, and other stuff that I don’t recall. The former rep also discussed how an incident occurred in which a friend of hers allegedly said something transphobic on a podcast and Mallory repeatedly contacted her about it to the point she (the rep) felt she was being harassed.

Other Anti-MLMers began to share their stories about Mallory’s behavior towards them which they deemed being toxic and practically harassment. And then at some point, people (Mallory included) started sharing DMs and voicechats about private conversations.

Of course this was met with people saying, “Why couldn’t yall handle this private?”, “What does this have to do with the Anti-MLM movement?”, “Why the drama?” Details. Details.

To be honest, there’ve many cases in which Anti-MLMers have engaged in harmful behavior towards other Anti-MLMers. But I guess none of that matters to some folks because the common goal is end MLMs— everything else is drama.

During this time, Mallory was relatively quiet and mainly focused on putting out Anti-MLM content; whenever she was asked to respond to said allegations, her responses were usually, “I apologize and I’m reflecting on my actions and if I’ve wronged you please let me know. My DMs’re always opened.” However when people (who were from marginalized communities) did come to her about things the harmful things she’s done, she’d reply with a thank you and, perhaps my favorite, “I’ve received your messaged.” (whatever the fuck that means).

Small Note: I received a message just like that one before. I told a white Anti-MLM that using Tupac’s love song to Black Women as a Roe v Wade anthem to all women was extremely inappropriate; I didn’t request for her to remove the video just told her next time to pick a different song. Her response? “I received your message. Thank you.” Then she deleted my comment and blocked me when I got into an argument with a white woman who accused me of being a “segregating gatekeeper”. (That was truly a fun experience).

While I don’t know what went on through Mallory’s head at the time, it appeared to me that she figured if she ignored it, it’d go away. But it didn’t. Instead it increased, especially when she talked about how MLMs needed to be held accountable for their actions.

Because these allegations mounted and she was being faced with more criticism, she finally had no choice but to address the allegations.

She denied all of it and said, “Look at all the allegations and ask yourselves if you really think that’s who I am? If you do, I can’t argue it but I’m not that kind of person. I’m reflective in my actions and I do my best to make things right. I pride myself in helping people and that’s all I wanna do.”

She also mentioned her ADHD and whenever something happens to somebody or community she cares about, she spirals and wants to resolve the issue otherwise she can’t rest; as a result the situation with the former MLM rep occurred where she repeatedly sent voice messages asking to have a conversation. But she wouldn’t necessarily call that harassment, but she apologized if the former rep (and anybody else) felt harassed by her.

I didn’t know where to put this, so I’ll put this here too. At one point in time, I can’t recall, she doxxed a former friend’s number while sharing messages between them, due to not scratching out the woman’s number completely. But by the time she came back to correct that mistake, the damage was done. Did she do it on purpose because she was angry? I truly do not know, but it definitely wasn’t a good look for her.

Another incident occurred in which Mallory announced her departure from the Anti-MLM community on Instagram and moved her entire platform over to YouTube. In her farewell message she talked about being bullied and betrayed by people she trusted. While she would continue the fight in helping bring down MLMs, she couldn’t see herself being associated with the toxic Anti-MLM community on Instagram anymore. Then she dipped.

Now let me tell you the story of Sunny, aka Mack3030. Just need to repeat that this is only from my point of view.

Sunny started off reblogging posts from other bloggers about their frustration with paywalled content being low quality and locked behind even more paywalls. Then she herself began to make posts of her own about this topic. In addition to this, she took part in exposing permapaywallers and their shitty practices.

She made a directory that contained quite a number of paywall modders and their problematic behaviors (mild and extreme) which is very helpful considering it saves the hassle of having to look everything up yourself (the available links’re right there).

She also made a list of modders who followed EA’s ToS to support and where to get permapaywalled content for free. Cuz let’s be real, if these permapaywallers’re happily breaking the rules (cuz suck it EA), why should simmers care about abiding by their rules? Equal playin’ field imho.

At some point in time, Sunny ended up becoming another one of Cowbuild’s victims and she proceeded to get doxxed and harassed. Because of this, Sunny’s mission to end scummy permapaywalled content became very personal. It’s one thing to steal and convert items then overcharge unsuspecting people, but to try and intimidate people into silence over pixels (many of which you didn’t even make)?! You really got people fucked up.

Sunny’s blog started to gain more traction and with the way shit blew up on Twitter, I’d reckon quite a number of people (myself included) shared her directory so that people can be informed.

It was during this time, a memory of allegations I saw in passing about Sunny potentially being a racist was circulating, so I decided to do some digging on good ol Tumblr.

According to a variety of what seems to be throwaway accounts, Sunny went by the username SolarPirate on DollHouseMafia. In a no longer private conversation, SolarPirate engaged in a political conversation in which she said revealed she had voted for Trump twice, but after the terroristic attack on the Capitol January 6th, 2021, she expressed deep regret in her voting decisions.

In addition to this, there were allegations of SolarPirate engaging in bullying and harassing multiple Black members into leaving the DHM. which was operated by Pescado, whom’s been shown to have made quite a number of racist remarks about Asians.

(Update: I made a mistake about Pescado's involvement with DHM. Here's the info I copy-pasted:

Pescado **DID NOT RUN DHM**. I was a part of the Dollhouse Mafia mod team for a time as 13Ravens. 

Pescado was never involved in it. The only relation he had to any of that was, or so I heard, sort of helping in hosting links and shit on his domain Paysitesmustbedestroyed (which was the OG years before downwithpatreon), also similar to TS4Rebels.

Sorry about that. I know this lengthy post is based solely from my POV, but I still wanna make sure I give yall as much accurate information as possible, so please lemme know if there're any mistakes and I'll fix and/or link the correct info in a timely fashion. Thanks!)

There was also a time where Sunny on her Mack3030 account laughed at an anti-Black comment made about Harrie, a Black Woman. In response to the allegations, Sunny confirmed being SolarPirate and the fact she voted for Trump, however she denied being a racist and alleged that alotta the screenshots circulating about her were doctored by the permapaywallers themselves to discredit her and the entire Anti-Permapaywall movement as a whole.

(I also wanna add she made several attempts to defend herself against the racist allegations (along with her voting decision at the time) and as a result, people who used to be friends and/or cordial with her cut ties with Sunny as well as voiced their disgust and disappointment in her. Yeah even Bucky-- who's no longer in the community (iirc)-- and that speaks volumes.)

There were also comments here and there about the relevance in who Sunny voted for. Talking about it was distracting from actual problems in the community, the permapaywalling doxxing thieving scumbags. This was unnecessary drama and people just needed to go their separate ways. (y’know… ain’t it funny how politics just neeeeever seem to have a place anywhere even when it’s present everywhere (even in things that serve as forms of escapism)? Very interesting).

After much back and forth, along with several deleted posts, Sunny eventually issued a public apology which can be read here. To sum it up, she apologized for her political affiliations and those hurt by her decision to for Trump and other harmful actions she's caused and she’d do better. However, it's important to note that it was heavily implied that this conversation about her was a “distraction” from the Anti-Permapaywall movement. Based on the comment section, it’s also important to add that Sunny had edited her apology at one point because of this. And this happened in April. Three (soon to be four) months ago.

Okay, so Sunny owned up to the fact she a not shit person and wants to do better, right? We love somebody actively calling for accountability holding herself accountable! Well… uhm... no. It didn’t end there. In fact, the topic of Sunny being a racist (among other things) returned. Along with that, the same “What does that have to do with anything?”, “Unnecessary drama” arguments returned as well.

Since this post is already rather long, and I don’t wanna make the mistake of repeating myself, I’m gonna pick up the pace here and link a few posts by people who’ve documented their interactions and experiences with Sunny (from there I highly recommend going through their Mack3030 tag to get the full picture). That being said, I’m going to summarize to the of my ability the rest of this interesting lil saga.

On Tumblr, Sunny proceeded to get called out for not holding herself accountable for her actions (and lack thereof) and people voiced their concerns that Sunny was trying to make the Anti-Paywall movement all about herself due to being the target of harassment, bullying and doxxing. Even when someone else was targeted by a paywaller n friends, it appeared as though she'd make those situations about her too. In addition to making things all about her, there were allegations that alotta her attention was focused on non-white paywallers. (Very sus if y'ask me.)

A few also expressed annoyance at how paywalls seemed to be the ONLY thing Sunny talked about nowadays. Sunny admitted this and said it was a result of her ADHD.

In addition to this, she was associated with an individual by the name of texasthegreatdestroyer (TGD), who was allegedly bullying and harassing gyaru, a disabled transindividual of color and Yoonie, who's biracial (as seen in their links and posts). There were even allegations made that Sunny and TGD were the same people (which they both vehemently deny).

Yoonie and Sunny had a private conversation with one another and at some point, Yoonie requested that Sunny denounce TGD’s actions and holding them accountable for their actions. Given that Sunny is all about accountability, this should’ve been something done immediately, especially given the fact gyaru is a trans minority and Sunny is all about supporting the LGBTQIA+ community.

Sunny didn’t do this right away, opting instead to continue posting and reblogging Anti-Permapaywall content rather than addressing a problem within the Anti-Paywall community. About a week or so later, Sunny made a post showing that she blocked TGD and didn’t condone their behavior, but also added that if anybody else had problems with TGD to go to them and not her.

However, somehow someway, TGD was able to find out about said conversations about them and still continued their abusive behavior towards gyaru and Yoonie. They even found out about the recent conversation between gyaru and Sunny and made remarks about that. This meant one of two things: Sunny was still in contact with TGD and pretended to block them or TGD is Sunny’s alt account. (Now, I would've said that it was possible TGD found out about this stuff well after the fact, however, based on what I read, TGD was already aware and talking about information from these convos loooong before they were ever posted for everyone to see)

It's also interesting to note that TGD was able to reblog (and respond) to Sunny’s final post and I was curious to see if it was possible for a blocked account to do that. So I blocked my alt-account and with my alt-account, I looked up this account. I did this give or take a few times because sometimes technology won’t let me be great (and I’m rarely active on Tumblr so I’m not familiar with the new features). Couldn’t find the unwashed bootyhole tweet I posted. In fact, I couldn’t find my account at all. Just a lil somethin’ to think about.

The situation on Tumblr moved over to Twitter and whenever Sunny was met with criticism and questions over there, she’d either ignore it and/or block the people questioning her (most of 'em from what I've seen being Black n Brown Simmers).

Not only did Sunny express her frustration at being allegedly bullied and attacked for her past behaviors that she already addressed and was striving to do (and be) better, Sunny vague tweeted about Yoonie (who iirc doesn't have a Twitter) being a manipulative clout chaser, which led to Yoonie releasing the conversation between them basically asking, “Bitch where?”

People went to those associated with Sunny and requested that they address the situation as well because silence is compliance, babe, and we can’t have that regardless of having a common goal.

During this time, quite a few things happened on both Twitter and Tumblr. Unfortunately, I can’t remember all of the orders in which it happened, but I'll do my best to sum up everything I saw. An unknown pervert made a Tumblr account called MacksDirtySecret (or something like that). The account contained Sunny’s simself having sex with the Sims townie, Bob Pancakes. They also went outta they way to add Sunny's Mack3030 tag in these posts; although the account’s existence was extremely brief and it’s looong gone now (I hope so, because I don’t see it on my block list anymore) the damage was done.

Lemme digress for a minute because I saw this and practically howled with laughter because I was perplexed. In one of Sunny’s recent posts about the sexual harassment, someone added these screenshots (it looks like it came from either LiveJournal or DreamWidth but I really don’t know) and when I saw the last comment, all I could say was, “What?” Did this guy compare some creep sexually harassing Sunny via her simself to Simbelene making fanfic of Marvel Characters and posting it to OnlyFans?!

One’s completely harmless and the other’s fkn disturbing. Yeah it’s in quotes and heavily implied to be sarcastic, but c’mon dude. Don’t bring somebody into a conversation that got nothing to do with Sunny. I don’t know Simbelene’s relationship with Sunny; all I’ve seen them do is reblog each other. I wouldn't constitute that as a friendship. (but go off I guess...)

Sunny continued to make anti-paywall content and ignore criticisms against her, choosing to reblog those who supported her (and sorta kinda maybe definitely shaded people for not speaking up like she supposedly was) instead.

On August 21st, Sunny made what appeared to be her final post (with some questionable screenshots) on both Twitter and Tumblr about what she was working behind the scenes while being harassed and bullied. Then she dipped.

Didja see it? Yall saw it right? The similarities in both stories? Quite fascinating don’t you think?

Here’re some things that fascinated me the most:

Mallory and Sunny allowed allegations against them to fester by constantly avoiding the issues and/or ignoring it until they couldn’t anymore.

When when it blew up in their faces they found themselves being questioned and criticized at every angle and couldn’t handle the pressure anymore which led to them removing themselves from certain platforms altogether. While I absolutely believe (especially in Sunny’s case) harassment and bullying contributed in both women leaving their respective platform(s), I also believe that they couldn’t handle being called out for their actions.

In wanting to basically do the right thing, they hurt people in the process, majority of these people being-- you guessed it-- BIPOC. (I also feel that more often than not both Mallory and Sunny used their autism as a shield to avoid accountability.)

In Mallory’s case, she didn’t respect the boundaries of the WoC she interacted with because she wanted to resolve issues on her time and legit harassed them. Sunny, on the other hand, contributed in silencing of BIPOC people by blocking them and constantly saying things like, “Can we stop focusing on me and my faults and focus on more important issues, like scummy permapaywallers in the Sims community?”

And contrary to what Sunny (and even Mallory) may believe, if you as white person contribute in silencing, tone-policing, and violating the boundaries of BIPOC, that’s racist.

[CUE THE RANT]

Do I think Sunny did the damn thing when it came to the permapaywall situation? Yes. She just happened to get more attention because of it, which isn’t a big deal to me because, as far as I know, everyone just wants to spread awareness and put an end to this particular mess that’s been plaguing the Sims community for years. I just don’t appreciate people acting like Sunny was the ONLY one talking about this ish and doing all the work when "nobody else would". (Just take a look at the links she's provided in her own directory and you'll see that she weren't made by her)

Do I also think Sunny’s a racist who failed miserably at convincing alotta people she’s been doing her best to change her ways? Short Answer: Yes. Mid Answer: Yes! Long Answer: Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeessssss!!!

And it’s absolutely a relevant topic to discuss because, much like permapaywallers, it's about character. Just like I wanna know who a modder is before deciding whether or not to give my money and/or support to ‘em, I wanna know who people in the Sims community are before I make the conscious decision to associate myself with them.

If they’re an insensitive greedy SoB, I wanna know.

If they’re toxic AF, I wanna know.

If they’re a cultural-appropriating bigot, I wanna know.

If they’re a racist, homophobic, transphobic ableist bastard. I. WANNA. KNOW.

And that ish does NOT solely apply to modders.

Sunny spent a lot of her time demanding the Sims community hold shitty people accountable for their actions and made it her mission for that ish to happened to the point of she became extremely aggressive and rather unpleasant. But when it came time for her to do the same thing, crickets. Crickets! Add a few cicadas and grasshoppers in there too if you want. It’s totally fine if she constantly reminds everyone about Anto being apart of the doxxing squad (even though he apologized for it), but don’t bring up the fact she voted for Trump twice. Don’t remind everyone that she tried to defend and minimize that shit on more than one occasion which resulted in her losing friendships. Don’t talk about how she laughed at racist jokes and remarks. Don’t talk about how she's associated with other problematic and racist people and rarely if ever addresses that ish. Don't talk about the allegations of her taking a page outta scummy paywallers' handbook (ie sharing private conversations w/o consent, allegedly making alt-accounts, etc.) Don’t talk about any of that, because issa "distraction" from "real issues", she’s "changed" for the better and apologized for all of it THREE. MONTHS. AGO. So just drop it, okay?

(and please look at the timestamps that show the time between when she tried to once again defend (and minimize) her political affiliations on a deleted reblogged post she made and the time she posted her apology. I wanna clarify that the timestamp is when somebody responded to Sunny's post, not when Sunny made the post cuz again, she deleted it).

Is it possible that some screenshots may’ve been doctored up by trolls to discredit her? Oh yeah, most definitely. I won’t deny that. But is it more probable than not that Sunny's a racist and (to be a lil blunt here) a fuck up? Yes. That doesn't mean she's beyond redemption. That doesn't mean she's incapable of changing. It just means she can't go around saying she's changed because saying it ain’t enough. This isn't some minute situation in which somebody says your least favorite food is their fave and you agree to disagree on that ish. This is about Sunny participating in putting the lives of BIPOC (especially those whom're disabled, apart of the LGBTQIA+ community, etc. cuz Intersectionality exists, sis) at risk-- (and it must be stressed) not once but twice and continues to cause harm through various actions and inactions-- and wanting to get over (as well as minimize) it because she already "apologized" and "addressed" the situation. But I (a Black Woman) am supposed to take into account that Sunny's mad, and frustrated, and tired that people keep talking about how she's a racist and continues to be problematic???? Newsflash, your road to redemption doesn't end when you want it to. It doesn't end with some apology that can be easily edited and move on from. It begins with you putting in the work to change and accepting the fact you're not owed forgiveness from those you hurt nor are you owed a second chance.

Just like she put in the work to bring attention to the paywall issues, she's gotta put in the work and show that she's taking the proper steps to change and not only does she gotta do that, she gotta put her hurt feelings aside in order to do it; it doesn’t matter how exhausting and frustrating it is to constantly have your character called into question -- especially when it's been shown multiple times that you not only come from a place where you have multiple layers of privilege, you confessed to using that privilege to further the oppression of people who're already oppressed. And need I remind everybody she apologized for this ish three months ago (soon to be four) but was still doing and getting called out for problematic ish she did after making that apology up until she left??? This isn't a walk in the park. It's NOT an easy task. She really gotta own that shit and do better, but she hasn't; that's why she's received alotta backlash and she ain't like it, that's one of the main reasons why she left.

If, for whatever reason, some of yall still don't see how and why Sunny's voting record and other actions're relevant to this "pixel drama", then so be it. Do you, boo.

In conclusion to this very long ass post (haha I feel like I’m writing a term paper again), in both the Anti-MLM and Anti-Paywall communities, I believe Sunny and Mallory’re like broken clocks: right twice a day. They did good work, but they’ve harmed people and were wrong and ended up discrediting themselves to the point they felt the need to leave when met with alotta backlash. Mallory’s still doing her thing on YouTube, and Sunny’s probably moved on to something else or is actually taking a break. Will she come back? Dunno. Don’t care. But her leaving isn't this giant blow and mega loss to the Anti-Paywall movement some people out here're tryna make it out to be and again, I don’t like (nor do I appreciate) seeing that kind of narrative being pushed out like that. It’s very inconsiderate to the people who contributed just as much (hell maybe even more) to this whole anti-permapaywall thing as Sunny has and erases them and their hard work.

Thanks for takin' time to read this in its entirety. Or if y'skimmed it, that's fine too. Still appreciate it. I'mma head out now.

See ya next time.

[yooniesim]

Is there like a link I can go to to see what is going on with all this drama? I see so many people posting about it but no one seems to lay out the whole story, just the bits and pieces they feel are pertinent.

Okay, buckle up for this one, kids. I can’t give my personal perspective for all of it, since a lot of this happened while I was on hiatus, but I’ll do my best to link what I can. I’ll split between past and present, because Mack constantly likes to say that people only bring up her past and “old views”, when there’s definitely more concerning details than that.

The “Past” (within the last two years at most):

You can find all the receipts for Mack’s previous transgressions on the blog @mackisakaren. It includes the voting for Trump twice and then defending it incidents, as well as perspectives from Mack’s former friends. Almost everyone that comes into contact with her winds up denouncing her, either because of her past actions or how she conducts herself to them later. One of her former friends came into my inbox recently to explain a little more about that. I’ve had at least 10+ anons from black simmers that said she’s displayed microaggressions and talked over them, not acknowledged their concerns and blocked them for disagreeing with her, etc. I haven’t posted them all yet, but you can check my anonymous and mack3030 tags if you’d like to find some. 

But for the account I linked, the highlights include:

the aforementioned voting record

laughing at harrie being called “shiny wig” (anti-black sentiment)

defending voting for trump a second time because biden “creeps on little kids” (alt-right rhetoric ripped straight from pizza gate 4chan conspiracies) and doesn’t have it together mentally (as if Trump isn’t a self-admitted rapist with more than a few screws loose- Mack called him a “playboy”)

saying that she only regretted voting for Trump after the Jan 6 insurrection

claiming that people putting “labels” on each other is the reason we have so many “-isms and -phobias”

You can also take a look at this post by @/anachrosims, who was previously a good friend to Mack. Mack claims that she hates politics and “both sides”, which is often the route that previously conservative, educated white people take when they feel being Republican isn’t socially acceptable but they still agree with those types of ideals (either “fiscally” or socially). Her friend Texas also claims that she voted for neither Trump or Biden and that both sides are the same, which first pinged my radar as a clue that Mack truly hasn’t changed. Having a neutral or enlightened centrist mindset is unacceptable in an environment where entire groups of people are losing their human rights, being imprisoned, or killed. As anachrosims says, there is no seeing the “other side” when that side wants minorities to disappear. People that use this talking points are immediate red flags for me, because it’s often a cover for their true nature. I also want to make note that the post where Mack tried to “both sides” the issue was only from 3 months ago.

Anachrosims also made another post about how she and the others that were anti-paywall denounced Mack for her past and response to the criticism. I want to emphasize this because all the people claiming that Mack has done all the work for the “movement” and is the only reason it exists are wrong. Although I wasn’t here to witness it, everything I’ve seen indicates that it has always been a collaborative effort within those in the community, and there is no reason to hold Mack up on a pedestal without acknowledging the hard work of everyone else involved. Also, the person Anachrosims took the statement from there, Bucky? That publicly denounced Mack for her voting record and behavior? I’m pretty sure that’s the same Bucky she constantly refers to as the person that was attacked by perma-paywallers with transphobia and was pushed to suicide attempts twice. The fact that she constantly mentions this in her posts while the person involved is no longer online here and publicly made a post against her disgusts me. How dare she blast that all over the internet constantly when the person involved wants nothing to do with her. It’s gross and no doubt triggering and extremely performative.

But let’s move on now.

The Present (within the last month):

Now, my limited interactions with Mack started when I tagged her in this post as a reference for someone that had been doxxed by perma-paywallers. Promptly after, a user started replying on my miiko post about Mack being racist. I asked for receipts because I had no idea who Mack was at this point other than being a person that was doxxed. Mack had come into my DMs at some point to ask me a question, and later on I had messaged her about Miiko in order to have her added to Mack’s red flag creator list. So, when I posted this, Mack defended herself in the replies of the post and came to me to chat about it more. I showed sympathy to her because the person in my replies was very aggressive, and as someone that also grew up in the South surrounded by racism and brainwashing tactics at every turn, I wanted to believe that she had changed. We exchanged stories related to the election and I tried to be as kind as possible.

After talking to Mack and considering the receipts carefully, I decided not to interact with Mack as a precaution (and courtesy to anyone that had been hurt by her) and removed any reference from her from my blog. I wanted to give her a chance to show that she had changed, but I didn’t trust her either. I was going to organize my thoughts better in another post, but EA’s policy update happened then and everything blew up. So, I didn’t really think about it again until the next incident.

I made this post denouncing Mack because I witnessed the harassment of @/gyarutrait and @/saruin by Mack’s friend @/texasthegreatdestroyer. Texas was harassing them because they had blocked Mack because of her past racism, all of it was 100% in her defense. Previous to this post, I had DM’d Mack asking her to get Texas to back off because it was unacceptable for her friend (who she was still DMing and associating with) to be saying ableist and transphobic things to defend her and it needed to stop. Mack told me that she needed more time to think of what to say in a post about it, and to give her time to do so. Over a week passed, and although Mack was active and making posts throughout, she still said nothing. Texas was still harassing @/gyarutrait, to the point where she had to make multiple posts about it, and so I made my post about it. Notably, @/gyarutrait was given proof by Texas that Mack had told Texas her username, knowing Texas’ way of “handling conflict”, more or less sending her after her. Mack made a throwaway post about not being responsible for Texas’ actions and posted a screenshot of Texas in her block list. Nothing else was said or addressed.

At this point, Texas continued to make long, aggressive rant posts about myself and Dreamie. Dreamie had to make another post asking for people to please report Texas’ posts. It wasn’t anything I couldn’t deal with, but I noticed very quickly that Texas (on anon) was making disgusting references to my terminally ill family member that I had only spoken about in DMs to Mack and nowhere else on this site. The only way Texas could have known that is if Mack told her about it, and the only people the anon could be was Texas or Mack herself. This gave even more weight to the theory that Mack was sending her friend after people purposefully while sharing DMs with her. Texas continued sending me anons until I made this reply saying that she wasn’t shit and I wasn’t going to reply to her lame attempts anymore. Take note that through all of this, Mack was silent. And yet...

Mack made a post chastising the community for staying silent over her own harassment by perma-paywallers. She emphasized people’s mental health being attacked and that people could die. I responded that she had no right to lecture anyone on being silent about bullying when she herself said nothing about her friend that is still harassing and stalking people to this day. After all, how did she know that no one was going to attempt to hurt themselves because of that constant and violating harassment in her name? Mack then quickly... ran to Twitter to call me a clout chaser and manipulator that she had lost respect for as a friend... because I called her out for her hypocrisy. She still hasn’t responded to me directly or done anything besides victimize herself. Apparently she’s still talking about me on Twitter and reblogging from people that agree with her, but I have no interest in chasing her vague posts.

I want to emphasis that I chose to give Mack a very limited chance that she was not entitled to. I wanted to give her the opportunity to show with her actions whether she had changed, since I had not been in the community to see her previous actions for myself, and she made it very clear very quickly in the last few weeks that she has not. I would advise anyone reading to not make the same mistake, regardless of your stance on the paywall debate. Because what I’ve experienced is truly the tip of the iceberg if everyone that has come to me to testify about Mack is any evidence at all. I’ve barely even interacted with her and this is the shit show that resulted.

I hope this answers your question, nonny.

[littleblackbooksims]

For the good of the community

We apologize for the delay, a couple of us have been dealing with personal stuff, and we also had to figure out some things internally. We wanted to make sure that we were able to dedicate an appropriate amount of time and bandwidth to this post even if it was a few days late. Thanks for allowing us to do that. We’ve tried to remain laser-focused on bringing awareness to the bad behavior of shady creators and not speak on much else as we felt it would distract and detract from that, but the past few days have made that no longer an option.

First, we want to fully denounce the actions of both Sunny/Mack3030 and Simvault. It was truly stunning the amount of damage they both have done to this movement with their harassment, bullying, microaggressions, racism, and various other damaging actions to this entire anti-paywall community. It is infuriating and enraging that in a matter of 48 hrs. they managed to undo months and months of work from all over the community, through their harassment and micro-aggressions of people in marginalized communities on Twitter.

We acknowledge that Sunny/Mack3030 has done a lot to raise awareness around the issues of paywalls, but it’s clear that she is no longer the person who should be at forefront of this.

For those of you that say that those who hold them accountable are divisive, we must wonder, why are only the people who have decided to voice their opinions on Sunny/Mack3030 and Simvault divisive, but they themselves are not? Simvault whose horrible behavior truly shocked and disgusted our contributors? Mack3030's repeated new and old controversies that feed the narrative that this movement is unjust. Because we bit our tongues and tried to be diplomatic for the "good of the anti-paywall community" this whole time and yet again we are watching another controversy unfold distorting all the good that was done. A controversy that she was an architect of through her endless hypocrisy, impulsivity, need to call out everyone who didn’t fall in line, her increasingly reckless behavior, a lack of regard for others privacy and incessant need to center this whole discussion around herself at every opportunity. We tried that approach to try not to further divide the anti-paywall community and focus on our shared goal, which was misguided.

Lastly, we must ask you if this is who you want as your champion?

Someone who would've sold out had circumstances been different? That doesn't sound like someone fit to be the figurehead of this. We are no longer associated with Sunny/Mack3030 and with her leaving the anti-paywall community, we hope that we can have continued productive conversations on the abuse of the community by creators.

Thanks for your continued support!

[mack3030]

Goodbye! Enjoy your community you've made. :)

[merdeusa]

TW: BULLYING, S*CIDE, NARCISSISTS

I know I haven’t said anything since @mack3030 left and the last time I had posted anything I was defending her. First and foremost I want to start out saying, I no longer stand by Mack. I will also be removing my blog that was in defense of her. Not to “hide” or “cover up” that I had defended her at one point, but so it doesn’t spread misinformation and so it doesn’t continue to be used by the wrong people to side with her.

I have no problem admitting when I’m wrong and I was wrong about Mack. That’s on me for not being able to find better proof of her behavior. I do want to offer up some advice. And this is not me being passive aggressive. This is me giving actual, serious, advice based on experience. I don’t want anyone to misread my tone. My advice is that if you are going against someone you know is manipulative and you want to call them out for their wrong doings and you want people to believe you, don’t stoop to their level and don’t stoop lower than their level. Manipulative people know how to come across as the “good guy” and a lot of the people calling her out made it easy for her to look like the “good guy” or “victim” in the situation.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand the reason people were angry. But you can be angry and call someone out in a way that will make their side believable or your side believable. If a few people that were calling her out had approached it differently, it wouldn’t have taken multiple actions on Mack’s side to convince people. They could’ve been convinced much sooner.  When I first heard about Mack being a racist, I saw it from her point of view because I was following her on Twitter. The perma-paywallers that were doxxing others had already been harassing those in the community to try and silence them. So when I first saw her post about people “lying” about her, I figured it was probably someone mad she was outing them. Her and I had even talked privately a day or two before (whatever day I made my first blog) she gave us her “grand exit”. That was when she told me that the most harassment was coming from tumblr. I didn’t use tumblr because this place is more toxic than Twitter, somehow. I didn’t want to defend her and be wrong about it, so I looked her up on tumblr and on twitter. I searched her name and saw posts about her. The issue is that I saw extremely immature posts when I looked it up. I saw accounts made with different names like “Mackisracist” and “jumpoffabridge” that were dedicated to bullying her. I know the people who were trying to spread awareness about her hate when they’re being told they were bullying her but that’s exactly what it was. Bullying. Just because she was a bad person doesn’t mean it isn’t considered bullying. And yes I know the accounts said they wanted to get the truth out there about her, but all it looked like was people harassing, bullying and mass reporting her which in return made it that much easier for her to manipulate anyone following her into believing she was the true victim. Then anyone against her would attack anyone that didn’t believe she was racist. Instead of directing them to evidence of her behavior, they were attacking anyone that still believed Mack. And the only proof I saw (at the time)about her was cropped screenshots from private messages. So when she said the screenshots were fake, it seemed plausible. People that were being immature and clearly hated Mack, and showed proof, didn’t appear to be reputable sources. Once people started to get petty because of their anger towards her, anything they said she could easily twist to make herself look like the victim.  If you were an outsider looking in and you saw her posts before anyone else that was calling her out, it looked like she was this poor me victim and they were these hateful aggressive people.  Even after she left and before I read all the screenshots from her goodbye post... I saw someone call her a “disgusting bitch”.  But after all that I was directed to actual proof of her behavior and then I fully read her last tumblr post and I knew that I had been wrong and she was what everyone was claiming. But my opinion on some of the individuals that were calling her out has not changed.  I saw people getting harassed because of Mack, to then in return harass mack as if that made it “okay”. Literally the excuse for how people treated Mack was “It’s okay if she does it but not me?”. No, it’s not okay if she does it. It’s also not okay if you do it.  There’s a lot of victim mentality in this community. A lot of people weaponizing suicide. The whole thing looked like a contest on who could push who over the edge first. It’s sickening and immature. I grew up without a mother because of suicide, I know what it feels like to lose someone because they took their own life, I know how it feels to blame yourself over it even if it’s not your fault.. and the fact people kept using suicide as a way to garner sympathy and guilt trip others is so, so morally wrong. And not being able to see that is childish. Especially if some people out there truly did want to harm themselves because of harassment due to Mack then you’d know from personal experience what your own hate and harassment could cause someone to feel in return.  And the truth is, you cannot force anyone to feel bad for you if they don’t want to. If you think telling others that you’ll hurt yourself is a way to make them feel bad and stop harassing you, then you’re wrong. The people who would be most impacted by that decision, would be people in your personal life that truly love you. Not strangers on the internet. It’s rare for someone bullying you to actually be impacted by that. It’s more common for them to realize their words affected you like they had wanted, maybe they’ll feel bad, but eventually they’ll forget about that person they were bullying. So, using that as a way to guilt someone or trying to get sympathy is immature. If you or anyone you know truly does want to hurt themselves, have them call 988 or even text it, it’s the Suicide Hotline. If you aren’t in America then google what hotline you can call and please seek help.   As for myself being accused of not respecting someone’s pronouns, that’s just ridiculous. Not even worth arguing about it but in case it puts your mind at ease, I will. I did not once misgender the user that claims I am “transphobic”. I referred to them by their username or I said they/them. Because, they never stated what they wanted to be called. Only what they didn’t want to be called. So, even though I don’t agree with things they have said or the way they behave, I made sure to not call them she/he. If you want someone to call you the correct pronouns then tell someone the correct pronoun to call you.  I’m not going to put down the username of the one I’m talking about because 1. last time I did call them by their username(to prevent misgendering them) they were upset about that as well and said it “wasn’t their name”. 2. because I’m not trying to send hate to anyone I’m talking about.  My conclusion is that everyone I’m talking about seems to be narcissists. Everyone wants to make sure they have the last word. And I’m speaking about 4 of you. Mack, someone who speaks on her behalf often and the 2 other users who were very vocal about how they felt about mack and her friend. All of you seem to want to be able to have the last word, making sure you have some edgy comeback. Making sure you’re “quirky” with your “comebacks” and think you’re better than everyone you speak to and everyone you talk about. And hey, maybe you all are better than the rest of us. And all of you can go ahead and comment on anything I’ve said here, because I know none of you can resist it. I’m sure it’ll be so edgy and since you can’t resist having the last word you’ll be happy to know I have no plans on responding to anything any of you say.  To the people that send me dms with screenshots from the users that blocked me and bring me up, I appreciate you trying to “clue me in” on what’s being said about me but I genuinely don’t care. If someone has me blocked then they have me blocked and I don’t need to interact with them. Plus, they’re the ones that want the last word so let them have it. They can’t have the last word if they don’t block me. That’d risk the chance of me responding, of course.  I also did see the post assuming that I am an alt account for Mack and her friend and um, sure. Your proof is kind of not proof, since you made claims I haven’t been “online” since Mack left. Which isn’t true. I have been “online” but also why do you have me blocked if you’re checking up on my account? seems counter productive. But also even if we were all the same account, now what? If you want them to leave you alone, I genuinely suggest to stop bringing them up, because as long as you do, they’ll keep talking about you as well.  anyways I just haven’t posted because well tumblr is a weird place and everyone wants to fight about everything that’s said on here.  To end this long as blog- Don’t send any hate, harassment or whatever else to anyone I’ve spoken about. Again, it’s why I avoided putting out usernames. I don’t want to send hate to anyone here. No one needs to be bullied, stalked, harassed, called names etc. I honestly want to be done with all of it. It’s all petty and immature and not worth any more of my time extra time.  If you want to talk about paywallers then that’s fine, but if it has to do with this other drama I no longer will be commenting on it. 

[simmerbackup92]

this one hurt

[vampirfreak]

« they apologized » i don’t give a FUCK

it’s not like they apologized for saying something racist years ago, THEY VOTED FOR TRUMP

THEY VOTED TWICE

bro i cant with yall, « i don’t care who anyone has voted for » you’re privileged as fuck then, fuck you

[zebrafiz]

imo idc how much u’ve “changed” since the last election (or 2016s) if u voted for trump at all u don’t get to sit there and complain when ppl don’t forgive and forget and brush it off as a ‘mistake’ ……… lolz

[warwickroyals]

why do you guys think that someone just votes for trump in a vacuum and that it wouldn't inform said person's opinions on certain social issues and how they interact with other groups people? like these are simple things.

[simnostalgia]

[gothoffspring]

Template to send to EA regarding Paywallers.

Hey y'all! I had an anon ask about this, so I wrote this up real quick for anyone who doesn't have the time or ability to pen a long thing to send to EA about the paywallers. Feel free to change it up as much as you'd like, add even more paywallers (highly recommend this), do whatever you want, let's REPORT REPORT REPORT 💖

How to report:

To report Mods, give us the details right here on EA Help:

Click Contact Us from any page on EA Help.

We recommend logging in to your EA Account.

Select The Sims 4. If needed, use the search bar to find the game.

Select your Platform.

For Topic, select Report concerns or harassment.

For Issue, choose Report website.

From here, you’ll open a webform to let us know more about what happened. Please provide a link to the Mods you think break the rules, and as much detail as you can about why. Your report will be reviewed by our team.

Then you just enter your name/email (which isn't shared with anyone but EA)

Here's my lil template! THIS HAS BEEN CENSORED. In my actual report I listed their full names, and patreon/tumblr pages. I HIGHLY recommend you check out mack3030's anti perma paywall posts. Give EA as MUCH info as you can on this. The more of us that report the better off we'll be. Also i borrowed a little bit of wording from @myshunosun (the distribution and installation part) sorry but it sounded nice and I couldn't think of how else to phrase it.

My Template:

I made the subject "Custom Content in the Sims community- perma paywallers"

"Hello there, my name is ______, and I have been an avid sims fan and consumer for MANY years. It has recently come to my attention that EA has released an official article on the distribution and installation of mods and custom content. It states to reach out if we find any mods that go against the guidelines in this article. As a community, we know of MANY people who permanently lock their custom content behind what we call 'paywalls', which means simmers have NO access to them unless they pay. This is clearly against EA's policies and I would now like to report them to you in the hopes that you will not let this continue any longer. As someone who has already spent hundreds on this game and franchise, I believe it is wrong in so many ways to lock content using EA's intellectual property/program/meshes behind paywalls when it is clearly against your policy. Following is a list of some of the most notorious paywallers in the community.

S*xamcc

currently makes over 10k a month from perma paywalling their custom content. They have removed thier public patron amount due to the backlash they have received. This is unacceptable when EA CLEARLY states that mods are NOT to be sold. This creator will continue to lock all of their content behind paywalls until someone stops them.

Other perma paywallers:

antos*ms, bergd*rf, cowbu*ld, P*xel V*bes

Thank you so much for reading my report and taking what we as a community have been against for so long seriously. I greatly hope that you look at these reports and do something about these creators."

[yooniesim]

This is fucking embarrassing, @mack3030. If anyone has a doubt, this is her true personality. If you feel like this, say it to my face. Post the fucking DMs where I tried to "manipulate" you. No wait, I'll do it myself. Here's our entire DM history for everyone's viewing pleasure. I tried to give her the smallest chance and that's my own fucking fault, but how dare she call me a manipulator for that. Maybe that's why no one will give you a chance, if this is how you treat them. And a clout chaser? What clout? How fucking humiliating.

PS: I was never your fucking friend. I'm a stranger on the internet that had two DM convos with you! I don't even follow you, girl! Stop! Btw, if I'm causing you so much grief while you're out in public, it might help if you don't follow me after I reblogged your post 💜

By the way: fuck you.

[xsavannahx987]

Ho postato 884 volte nel 2022

Sono 187 post in più del 2021!

586 post creati (66%)

298 post rebloggati (34%)

Blog che ho rebloggato di più:

@xsavannahx987

@mack3030

@themoonglitch

@13pumpkin31

@helloavocadooo

Ho taggato 589 dei miei post nel 2022

Solo 33% dei miei post non aveva tag

#thesims4 - 524 post

#ts4 - 520 post

#sims4 - 519 post

#mysims - 361 post

#actual gameplay - 143 post

#erin maslany - 112 post

#gen1mint - 110 post

#notsoberry - 110 post

#nsb challenge - 110 post

#not so berry - 110 post

Tag più lungo: 37 caratteri

#my 2 year old daughter does it better

I miei post migliori nel 2022:

#5

🌴Jungle Adventure ADD ON🌴

All CC on this pack are base game compatible.

clay brick fireplace - new mesh, it came with 8 swatches, all lods and shadow. Fully tested in game. Cost 800$

hand carved ceiling - new mesh. It  has 12 swatches, all lods and shadow. Fully tested in game. Cost 130$

hand carved floorlamp - new mesh, it came with 12 swatches, all lods and shadow. Fully tested in game. Cost 225$

rustic wood barstool - new mesh, it came with 10 swatches, all lods and shadow. Fully tested in game. Cost 410$

selvadorata barstool - new mesh. 11 swatches, all lods and shadow. Fully tested in game. Cost 230$

traditional family endtable - new mesh. 12 swatches, all lods and shadow. Fully tested in game. Cost 135$

married vase#1 - new mesh. 8 swatches, all lods and shadow. Fully tested in game. Cost 250$

married vase#2 - new mesh. it came with 8 swatches, all lods and shadow. Fully tested in game. Cost 250$

To find all objects in game, type [JUNGLEADVENTURE ADD ON] in the search bar

DOWNLOAD (Patreon, early access)

Free on 23/01

@moonglitchccfinds​ @emilyccfinds​​ @maxismatchccworld​​ @sssvitlanz

566 note - Postate 3 gennaio 2022

#4

Moon vanity table 🌙

I loved the new crescent mirror added in TS4 Werewolves and immediately thought it was perfect for a vanity table. Hope you like it!

Vintage Glamour is required for the animations to work properly (i'm sorry)

10 swatches

all lods and shadows (1k poly)

11 slots for decorations

tested in game

cost 825$

DOWNLOAD (Patreon, early access)

Free on 20/07*

*date dd/mm

@moonglitchccfinds  @sssvitlanz @emilyccfinds @maxismatchccworld

632 note - Postate 26 giugno 2022

#3

Guarda il post completo

643 note - Postate 12 febbraio 2022

#2

📚High School Years ADD ON📚

All CC on this pack are base game compatible.

multicolor loveseat - new mesh, 14swatches, all lods and shadow. Fully tested in game. Cost 180$

stand out sofa - new mesh. 12 swatches, all lods and shadow. Fully tested in game. Cost 505$

accademy diningtable - new mesh, 12 swatches, all lods and shadow. Fully tested in game. Cost 335$

comfortable loveseat - new mesh, 14 swatches, all lods and shadow. Fully tested in game. Cost 275$

stand out armchair - new mesh. 12 swatches, all lods and shadow. Fully tested in game. Cost 160$

To find all objects in game, type [HIGH SCHOOL YEARS ADD ON] in the search bar

DOWNLOAD (Patreon, free)

High School Years ADD ON Part 2 

@moonglitchccfinds @dreamstatesimsfinds @emilyccfinds @sssvitlanz

1.168 note - Postate 5 agosto 2022

Il mio post numero 1 del 2022

Hi guys! As a Christmas present I decided to convert all 30 items of Everyday Clutter Kit to base game.

🎄 Merry Christmas 🎄

2.247 note - Postate 23 dicembre 2022

Guarda ora l'Analisi del tuo anno 2022 di Tumblr →

Many thanks to everyone for this wonderful year! ❤️❤️❤️

I love u

Happy 2023

[1-800-cuupid]

that's it i need to compile a list of all the creators who do weird crap like DOX and THREATEN and TRACK so i can see if I have any of these creators in my mods because HOLY SH**T

Mack3030 had complied a whole directory of perma-paywaller misdeeds before they were run out of the community. Check there.

[synystersimss]

Okay. I’m not much of a talker on here but I felt the need to give my two cents on the ongoing paywalling debacle. 

I have been modding and creating mods for a long ass time. I’m not a spring chicken in this game. I played Bethesda games looooong before I ever even opened The Sims. I didn’t start playing The Sims until right before Sims 3 Into the Future came out and I got Sims 3 and like 2 expansions in a Humble Bundle back in the day. 

The thing you perma-paywalling jagweeds need to really understand is the fact that fucking ELECTRONIC ARTS, one of the most ass backwards companies in the gaming industry, and the sims community as a whole lets you make profit off of mods is a FUCKING GIFT. Them allowing you an Early Access period as all is a FUCKING GIFT. 

You know what would happen if you tried that shit in the Bethesda modding scene? Your ass would get chased out and you’d probably get some sort of legal action from Bethesda themselves. We as a COMMUNITY rejected paid mods both when Valve tried to pull it and when Bethesda themselves tried it we all said NO. So count your fucking blessings that you get to make a profit AT ALL. 

You aren’t entitled to lock your shit behind permanent paywalls. You aren’t entitled to act like a dick. You aren’t entitled to doxx people. You aren’t entitled harass people. You aren’t the shit. You are just lucky enough to have found a community insulated enough in the gaming sphere to be okay with charging at all for mods and that a game company let you do it. Count your fucking blessings. 

I’m just sitting here fucking dumbfounded that this community has let this go on this fucking long. I have never been in a modding scene so full of shitty ass people. How have we as a whole not chased the doxxers out?? and the Perma-paywallers out?? How can you sit and watch your fellow community members be harassed and just say nothing???? How is the modding community for a game generally considered a casual game so much worse than that of a AAA game known for having dudebro players?????? I don’t understand. 

This one is for @mack3030 and @timmssimmsplays and @littleblackbooksims and everyone else I’ve seen fight for this that I can’t remember right now because I’m frustrated. Y’all are the real ones and I see you and I’m in your corner.