So for the longest time I was pro ComicsGate. For those not in the know, it was like "GamerGate" only focused on the "problems" within the comic book industry instead. To me Captain Cummings drew attention to the soy-fication of comics first. Aka, he would critique the worsening quality of art and writing, drawing attention to how "the rainbow sjw diversity squad" had infiltrated the big two publishers. (DC and Marvel respectfully) I feel you, I'm tired of the "social justice warrior" acronym too but as of yet no better term has been invented to describe this particular kind of person. Regardless comics started to put ham-fisted agenda pushing and identity politics over telling a good story so many fans (Male AND female) got rightfully pissed off. Eventually a more charismatic vanguard of faces began championing "the cause" including Ethan Van Schiver (A professional artist who worked in the trenches of comic-book-dom for many years) Richard Meyer, a former military man whom also struggled in the comics scene whilst experiencing his own small victories as well as small defeats trying to get his works published,Nerdette,a lover of DC's Batman run in particular while possessing the voice of a sexy siren,Umbrella guy,a southern boy like myself having a love of story-telling with illustrations,Yellow-flash, a sharp tongued no-nonsense lightning fast slick commentator, and Just some guy, a suave intelligent comics fan who has one of the most awesome "original character super hero avatars" I've ever seen. (There was also Nerkish and Cecil, two guys who excelled at comedy,satire, and hilarious skits!) I apologize for those I left out but rest assured you all have my best wishes!

I do not think "gate keeping" always happens because of some malicious conspiracy to "keep the peasants down". As human beings we simply give preferential treatment to the people closest to us and as we're social creatures we more readily gravitate towards those who are charismatic,good looking,funny,or well spoken. Ditto times ten if they also champion the things or viewpoints we particularly like. We're all bias assholes. There's no way of entirely getting around this conundrum though "attempts" at fairness and impartiality should still be rewarded I suppose.

Anyway, here I was watching two people I know having a stream (Both with connections to comicsgate) and I thought I would play "devil's advocate" and bring up the conundrum with nepotism (Which always surfaces within a large community in one way or another) and if it would be acknowledged there are creative people out there with great ideas whom none the less do not have the reach or social graces to "get out there" as much as say someone with a flourishing audience or who has had experience working in comics already.

Let me admit for the record I was once a pretty big deal on twitter. I had 2,000 + followers and many of my tweets would even get retweeted by the "even more famous" individuals I followed. This could have been used as a platform to continue to promote my art but sadly there was a moderator and a few blue-checkmarks who did not like me at all. So after a particular argument I was suspended from twitter "forever". (I say forever because every time I see what the status is on my account I'm still suspended!)

I also tried to make a youtube channel a few years ago but it was with subpar cheap equipment (At the time I could not even afford a yeti microphone) and certain listeners already expressed issues of not being able to clearly understand me. This is in part due to the fact when I was young I had to take speech therapy as I'd slur or mispronounce certain words. I'm better at speaking as an adult but I find I have to repeat myself sometimes when having conversations and my voice isn't "silky" or "smooth" in any fashion! (My audio has been compared to being a Frankenstein combination of kermit the frog and the friggin cookie monster for fuck sakes!) Regardless, I gave up and deleted my channel. Worse, youtubes additional stupid rules and authoritarian algorithm constantly get youtubers demonetized or outright banned so starting up a new channel would be a waste of time.

As you can see, I "tried". It's just it's really easy to find yourself on the outside looking in after a series of unfortunate events. I understand the argument of picking oneself up by the bootstraps and working hard until succeeding but times change and as they do people living in those moments often have to deal with additional challenges and hurdles people from another time period did not. This is why Millennials and Zoomers are often so mad at Boomers when Boomers talk down to them or give them "encouraging yet condescending speeches" about not giving up. Simply put, the Boomer means well but grew up when the rules were different and opportunities were more plentiful. Hell, Pewdiepie would flat out tell you it was much easier to be a youtuber many years ago but since then the platform has been bogged down by bad decisions and shit like the COPPA debacle. Aka, new youtubers starting their channels up today have a far different experience than what Felix had when he was starting his own channel back in the day.

"These guys" are not in the same ballpark as war criminals or serial killers merely because we had a spat with text boxes,I'm merely frustrated how my points seemed to fly over their dense heads. (Even the people we butt heads with on the internet are usually "decent people" it's just sometimes the best of us still devolve back into primordial poo-slinging simians!) Weird how the internet simultaneously brings us together whilst often causing multiple misunderstandings and miscommunications! (We also feel emboldened and full of ourselves online as we don't have to suffer the same repercussions or practice the same courtesies we do when standing next to another human being face to face!) Regardless, their immediate hive-minded gut reaction was "This warlock speaketh blasphemy,burn him at the stake for questioning our lord and savior insert-name-or-cause-here!" Hmmmm,I wonder where I've seen this kind of knee-jerk herd-like behavior before?