The CTFG circlejerk: an in-depth study

Hello!
I am weighing in on this topic because it has all the relevancy to the forums that many SD threads lack. (Not that other threads are worse or bad in any way.) Also, I have merely skimmed a majority of the posts, so if my following assertions have already been superseded, then allow me to extend my apologies beforehand.

I do not find CTFG alluring at all. I tried it, pre-CTFG days -- the ones you are so nostalgic about. I didn't like it, for the same reasons why I don't like any chat threads in any of the forums I've visited:
1.) Everything feels incredibly superficial. I can appreciate the "let's get along" and "love everyone" sentiments, but the brevity of most posts gives me the feeling of people saying things for the sake of saying them. Text, especially non-verbose text, has very little meaning to me. Someone I don't know very well could say "I love you" and merely mean "I'm generally fond of your company and enjoy chatting with you". While this is an extreme example, it is not unheard of and also the reason why I hold words at a far lesser value than actions or behavior.
2.) Unintentional shunting. (At least I hope so.) What happens in a high activity chat thread (so high activity that it would be better suited for messenger/chat room) is that many people can be posting at the same time. This can lead to conversation disconnects where someone gets replied to but the other doesn't, due to simultaneous posts. Your post(s) are "shunted" aside. Maybe you had a great one-liner or some meaningful interjection. Too bad, next page.
3.) Nobody cares. Threads like "What are you listening to" or "Say something random" are an incredibly huge "WHAT" factor for me. Why did I make a forum account and integrate myself into a community just so I could go into a thread and post two words that have meaning to practically nobody (assuming people even read it)? On that matter, why WRITE something if it holds no meaning to others? (You could be writing for yourself but with two words how much value could it possibly hold for you?) The entire concept is fraught with a frivolity that I despise. Plus, there's easier and better-accessible ways to do this, like Twitter.

Can you really consider the people you interact solely with in CTFG your friends? (If you interact with them outside CTFG then this point is likely moot.) If you had a spectacular experience one day or a sob story and you told them, would they remember it a month from now? Would you even be able to get to know them well enough as a person to be attuned to their likes, dislikes, and general personality? If not, does this mean my standards for considering someone a "friend" are simply higher? If loss of interaction with someone you don't know very well causes you a substantial amount of grief, does this not mean you are taking your internet relationships too seriously?

Regarding the aura of superficiality, if I wanted to go somewhere to exchange smiles and pleasantries I'd accept every dinner party invite from some friend's friend that came my way. On the internet I expect things to be more to-the-point. Once you connect with someone positively, you exchange a means of contacting each other better, and move on. I view CTFG (or at least the core concept behind it) as a means of gerrymandering around the stage of pleasantries, one of frivolousness and uncertainty I've come to deplore.

I used to be a CTFG user, that much is true. The allure of it was or the impression it was trying to give was a tight knit community. A place where you're instantly accepted for who you are. I loved it there, it was fun posting, "huggling," "glomping," and "nibbling" on people's ears. But what I slowly began to realize that I was merely hiding, making up lies about who I was, and lies about what happened to me in my past.

CTFG showed me that places that preach love and tolerance couldn't be more hypocritical. You post a certain thing or way? We shun you. You act in a way that isn't "acceptable" you get open hostility. I guess IB is much in the same in that regard of shunning and hostility. But we're less deceptive about it I guess.

Another problem I had with CTFG was the drama behind it all. How best friends one minute could become hated enemies faster than you could say typewriter. I think the final nail in the coffin was when I started frequenting IB more and more and began disliking certain users for their total lack of true respect towards me in CTFG. I used to be a nice guy, always helping other and putting people above myself. CTFG and IB changed me into the dick I am today. I mean I still have nice guy tendencies every now and again. But I just generally don't put up with people's bullshit anymore.

I thought you said you'd reply to the posts here? Ah well, I'm a little late but I'll do what I said I'd do. I kind of forgot to post here due to the heaps of other tasks I was dealing with, honestly. I apologize for that.

Anyway... I see that most posters are those who speaks of their older experiences. But I appeared on CTFG a little later, way after the section-split, even though I was a part of the community in the past. My post shall regard the times that came way after your rate of activity fell. Oh wait, it was like at the end of 2010 so, perhaps not. I dunno much about what to tell you about CTFG here, so I'm just gonna dump my experiences and some of my history, if that's okay with you.

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Mibu was the one who suggested that CTFG may be a fun place to visit when I asked where I should go to in order to make friends and get along with people, actually. This was a long time ago when he used to practically talk with me via PMs on Fakku, probably just to kill some time (I can guess that now, lol, but I couldn't in those days). I was told to start with the Cafe, and so I did. At first I felt out of the place, like I didn't belonged there, but something compelled me to really get into it. In those days, knowledge regarding the internet was beyond scarce to me, I didn't know much about how to get around it, in all honesty, I didn't even knew about torrents or where to find what to download hentai from. And nor did I know of roly-playing, I just did when I felt like it to get into CTFG. I remember being a maid on the Cafe, hired by Asa, back then. And from there my journey started. I started giving and getting virtual hugs, before I knew it, started typing tildes (~) at the end of my sentences most of the time, even had a supposed "lover" whom later couldn't trust me for God knows why, and I did all the things that you may have possibly done in your days of activity.

Everyday, I looked forward to meeting the general crowd. I woke up really early in the morning just to post around the sub-section and even stayed up till late straight from morning, and I loved the times I had spent there. But as time went on, my personality started to shape itself differently. Opinions of people regarding me seemed to matter a lot in those days, and I was always self-conscious.

IRL, my life was always boring. I never liked it. This country, this family, this society, I hate every part of it, and some people today who gets to talk to me knows of it. I was and still am always alone IRL, I just can't trust anyone, all those that I did betrayed me one way or the other in the end, that said; I'm quite aimless, too, or so I used to be, and the only dream I had was way beyond my grasp because I knew that my parents wouldn't like it. But CTFG made me enjoy my life for the first time for real. People in there made me feel like they are the only people I could really trust and have fun with. Then life went on - I started realizing different things, I started to see the darker sides of people. Them not trusting me, hating me, seeing what their real opinion of me was while putting up a font, and leaving me. Was I acting too serious in the internet? Yes, I probably did back then, it was at the center of my life, after all.

Drama and hate just appeared out of nowhere to my face in CTFG and after it did, I really didn't know how to handle it. Before I knew it, there was (and is) a family of people hating on my existence, and at that time, I was quite the immature one so I barely even knew why I was hated. I don't remember much about the drama which took place on Skype so I have no idea anymore. After all that, things just changed in me. And I decided to kind of start over. I guess I just started to grow at that time. I made my mansion thread because people seemed to move away from whatever thread I'd start posting on, and at that time there weren't many other house threads, either. I think my one was the third or fourth most popular/highly-posted-on thread back then on CTFG. In about two days my thread had like 40 pages and some people kept nagging at me on Skype saying that it's too fast to follow, lol.

The personality that I seem to have in the CTFG, Skype or the whole of Fakku - more so, the internet - these days is what I once used to call the 'inner-side' of me coming out to life in the internet. Due to the anonymity and being someone none can see, I felt that I could release that side of me safely and no one would find that utterly strange. And then I faced the cons of doing that I suppose, and perhaps that was the cause of the countless dramas I was involved in later on - one way or the other. That said, I believe some people there seems to just get a kick out of drama, always raring to have a good fight vocally... err, by writing, I mean, lol.

My life in the CTFG then faced the times that I feel are vital to the development of myself, as a person. And all of that came in after my mansion thread was created. My own family was made there, I had lots of fun. I enjoyed it, I loved it, CTFG seemed more and more worth to be looked forward to everyday. I skipped studying, I tried ditching some classes, and more. All for the sake of talking to the people I cared about the most. And as my everyday life progressed nicely along with Fakku, I had gained many more experiences, realizing that people always comes and go, regardless of being very close to you, they'll one day just disappear, especially the ones who used to actively post in my thread, this is perhaps - something inevitable in the internet - perhaps I knew about it at that time but I just couldn't accept it. It felt lonely, a lot of the time - it felt as though I was in a different country outta the blue somehow and I didn't really knew what to do, I just went with the flow because I really had nowhere else to be where I could truly feel at home other than Fakku, and then the newer people saved me from this loneliness. I think every one of my experience will come handy one day, or perhaps they're already helping me, I'm not too sure.

Regarding the backstabbing, at first I had outright disagreed with that but now that I think about it, it really does happen. It may not be beneficial to the case. But Keirova, a person who is apparently from the military, more so, a sergeant simply just dropped his job at my place (after all the acting for an year) to reveal that he was using me for solely his amusement, and once he was done, he had to move on and find someone or something else to amuse him. He tried many different kinds of tricks, used his cousin, etc. Just to incite a type of reaction that would make a large grin on his face. But that never happened, and he got bored and I was soon simply disposable, just as the others are to him in actuality, some people says I should learn from him, some says he's just insane and others says nothing. Perhaps that's something I had deserved, the shock from that, I mean, because sometimes I don't think I've treated some people rightly, and that was simply a part of me that had caused that to happen. But I moved on from it really quickly, perhaps that's something that my past experiences helped me with, I'm just quick to let go of some things now.

Friendships nowadays that are blooming on CTFG, and the ones that sometimes form with me, feels quite shallow. Almost as if they're as thin as transparent, thin piece of paper that could easily be teared apart - relationships that are not too meaningful too, or not at all. Even something that is said in jest is immediately taken seriously and drama sometimes emerge, I still know someone from the cafe that can't take my harsh judgements sometimes. I used to find dramas rare, a long time ago, but I don't anymore. It's something that isn't too hard to find. And it irks me to say that if I really want, it wouldn't take much efforts to ignite one before me, either. But I just don't, I don't see the need to do so.

Fakku has played a major role in the development (as a person) stage of my life. The people, community, the general standards, almost everything about me were indirectly or directly shaped by my life in Fakku. Which kind of sucks, probably. But I enjoyed my times here and will continue to do so. People tends to leave this site after dramas, hatred, rage, or problems they face, but I won't. I'm just too engrossed into it even now, haha. Sorry, my haters, but I don't plan to leave, but at least my rate of posts around most threads on CTFG decreased due to me getting my hands full with other things.

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Just ignore me I guess, I think I wrote lots of unnecessary things, but it'd feel bad to just rub them out now, lol. It's probably not too beneficial to your case study, maybe.

Well i guess i may as well give my piece on this i guess:


I really do like the CTFG Community. The roleplaying aspect was very hard for me to get into at the time because i'll be honest, i kept to myself quite a lot but now it does feel a lot more natural and i know that wouldn't be judged for it. The people there are nice enough and quite easy to talk to. Weather it be about IRL stuff or Roleplaying in virtual worlds, it's very fun and i do consider them friends (sorry but i personally think that the idea of them not actually being friends is quite silly...)


However...Just like in everything, there is a downside to it. There are some topics that are just asinine like ''Say something random'' or ''what song are you listening to''. It's just a big 'who cares?' for me. Another thing i don't like is, like others have said, people taking things TOO seriously. There are some threads that i will not name that i have tried to socialize with but i just couldn't get into it at all because they took it seriously to the point where it was not enjoyable and it was somewhere i just didn't want to socialize because i'll be honest, when i tried and failed, they let you hear it. That got to the point where i felt like leaving Fakku. And it really didn't feel like a big lose at all to be honest, i could live without it, however Asuzu (My best friend) convinced me to stay. Then i was able to develop more strong friendships with people in the 'Forest Abode' thread. Now i'll be honest, 80% of the time we are roleplaying there. But there isn't any 'hidden depression' or 'Forceful escape from reality' because lets be honest, life sucks lol. Although i will admit, some people love CTFG so much to the extent that it does become their life and it's all they have and they will love it more than real life itself. (I am not naming any names whatsoever and i mean no offense from this.)


I've been babbling and rambling so much that i haven't answered the main question so i would say that what is so alluring about the CTFG culture for me is the ability to make new friendships and relationships, roleplaying and having fun all around. however on the flip side i will say that it can be taken to seriously. Like if drama happens, it's treated like real legitimate drama. It makes sense if it were between friends of course but i have seen some people become REALLY angry about it that they don't sign in for a while or they just leave all together. I have yet to witness any backstabbing. However if i experience any of it, i will dust it off my shoulder and carry on in life.

Hey , dumb question but what is CTFG or what does it mean ?

Chat Topics and Forum Games

Like say what said, it's Chat Topics and Forum Games, a sub-section of Incoherent Babbling.

You don't go out of Serious Discussion a lot?

Indeed i don't , people are retarded in other sections but that had nothing to with the fact that i didn't know what an acronym stands for .

Still that's a stupid question

From the guy who purposely tried to incite an argument by bashing someone's belief when that was not the topic in another thread I find your post arrogant and the reason why SD is shit now.

Ever realized how many people are retarded around this section?

Some people now stays away from it because of the kind of people that posts in this place nowadays.

And you've been here for 2 years....

That's pretty pathetic...

Wtf you're talking abouth ?

And arrogant ? No , kona-chan's comment is arrogant , mine at least is justified .

Stop acting like a smart ass, just because you hang around in SD

Holy shit ,i got the fakku elders brotherhood on my ass just for asking what an acronyme meant .

Yeah sorry , i take back what i said , i suppose it wasn't a correct statement , even in SD people are retarded .

Stop. You're making yourself look bad right now.

Let go.

You're a prime example of that. Congrats, have a fuck.

I don't really care what you guys think of me , your comments are pretty funny and i enjoy reading it .

And Tyranosaurus_Secks , i think the right word would be more something like "asshole" since you guys are making the retarded comments right now not me .

Derailed topic is derailed.

I said 'stop' because your replies are off-topic.