14 votes

Joy of sharing a creation replaced by a longing sadness

So I recently put out a custom map for Beat Saber that I had started work on when the internet was cut for 14 days in Iran to pass the time.

Gameplay video of the map, Odysseus from Epic The Musical

Everyone I sent it to enjoyed it a lot and I got the happiness that I needed.
One of them recommended to send it over to some twitch streamers as well because some of them have a bot that lets you recommend maps.

I've never used twitch, I found a steamer, made an account, sent it in the chat and had my chat at messages tts'd in the stream. It was absolutely lovely seeing their reaction and it had made my night.

Then I noticed that my 'thank you!' messages didn't tts, huh weird. After watching them for a bit longer I thought maybe I'll send some other stuff I've made their way too. Aaand it didn't send, the chat message sent but the bot response didn't come, a bunch of testing later I found i was shadow banned.

A bit more searching and I found that VPNs are the cause. So changed from TOR to Express and tried again, no dice.
Made a new account with Express and tried and success! But only for 4 messages total, then shadow banned again.

I got a friend's dedicated v2ray server and tried with a new account and my messages were sent again. So I went to a bigger streamer who was also doing the map requests and sent my map... Only to see I'm shadow banned again.

At this point the joy I had felt from seeing others enjoy what I made was gone, replaced by a familiar sadness, the same type of sadness I had gotten when the internet was cut and essentially a one way communication not too long ago.

It's a pain. these sites don't load without VPNs, I had already spent a whole hour trying different VPNs to get the 7mb map to upload to the site (and experienced like 30 errors in the process), then had to try out a bunch more to get the file to upload in Discord (with a bunch of VPNs I can only send messages, files don't upload), and then I experienced the happiness that came from seeing a live reaction and wanting to experience it more, only to have it wiped away.

I want to start work on the next project, i have so much in my mind that i want to put out into the world, but it takes time to switch back to the mentality of "I'm making this for myself and others may never see it" that I had to adopt to get back to creating.

2 comments

  1. [2]
    thereticent
    Link
    I hate this for you. I remember the joy on my son's face when a major creator simply commented a compliment on a level he made for Geometry Dash. Unfortunately, the internet disruption is working...

    I hate this for you. I remember the joy on my son's face when a major creator simply commented a compliment on a level he made for Geometry Dash.

    Unfortunately, the internet disruption is working as intended, but the intentions are poor. Love to you from across the globe. I hope you keep making levels!

    3 votes
    1. slabs37
      Link Parent
      Thank you. I'm trying my damn hardest to not let my inner child die, Thank you so much.

      Thank you. I'm trying my damn hardest to not let my inner child die, Thank you so much.

      3 votes