RANT

Something funny a couple weeks ago happened, which I didn't address till now so the steam could blow over. Some goobers on the Janitor reddit tried to stir up a hate mob over the "Premium Follower Verification Code" on the bottom of my profile. I want to be clear the poster didn't try to target me, but people VERY QUICKLY started making up countless rumors to try and bandwagon. All they saw was a screencap of that widget with no context. What did they do? they assumed the worst, claimed what they made up is what i was doing, and ran with it. So i just wanted to talk about the immense stupidity of the people who jumped on the hate train, let alone the rumors that powered the entire hate train to begin with.

People thought i was charging money for hidden bots locked behind the code. First of all, I never at any point tried to charge money for anything. If anyone spent 2 seconds to check out what it was, they could find out it is 100% FREE for ANYONE who joined my discord as an incentivization to join my community. Second, it would be totally fine if it would, as if that lie even deserved that immense amount of anger. COUNTLESS people on this platform monetize, not to mention, accounts much much bigger than me, INCLUDING long time moderators of the official Janitor staff. I saw some people bring up how the ToS doesn't allow monetization, but then when someone commented "what about bot commissions?" a lot of people seemed to agree with comments such as "that one is more of a grey area". What? What insane double standard is that? Monetization IS monetization. someone is charging to make bots, it breaks ToS as much as anything else if that's going to be the main point. An extremely weak double-standard that was supposed to be used to try and take my down. On top of that, people mentioned how charging bots behind some kind of paywall on this platform was not just unokay, "but truly evil and disgusting." That take is so far out of reality and I'm surprised how popular that point of view is. Not only countless creators, (again, not just commissions, but EXCLUSIVE bots you have to pay for to get access to at all) are on several accounts much much bigger than me, AND who are official staff of the Janitor platform. So its crazy to me that something so normal was being made pretend as 'evil' just to try and burn me at the stake. It's all over the platform and nobody complained for even a second about what they are doing. Instead the mob was more interested in pinning it on me, which is something i never even did on the first place lol. Let's say I were to charge for exclusive bots? how tf is that wrong? I spend average 4 hours on every single bot, including time spent on making the custom art. I work 50 hour workweeks to put bread on the table and still barely carve out time for this bot making hobby. Yes It's AI art, and yes its hard work to nail and make good to my standards. I see a lot of people cope about how because its AI, they can say "I didn't make it" and dismiss the fact that hard work is possible (more on this in the next paragraph). I should be allowed to charge money for actual hard work. I think its within reason to think that I could be paid for my work if it were to be exclusive or paywalled. What is there to be upset about on their part? its not free for them? Welcome to life, where things that cost people's time and effort and skill aren't always free to you 100% of the time (I think its fair to say that my bots stand out in their own unique way in terms of quality and immersion and would totally deserve a cost if I did charge), DESPITE THE FACT THAT I MAKE ALL MY STUFF FREE ANYWAYS LMAO.

About AI:

First of all its not a fight, and i am being honest by disclosing the origin of my work. Yes, I did make it, and the AI is the tool used by me, the creator. Of course unless photographers never make art, the camera does, or painters never make paintings, the paintbrush does. I work very hard to make sure the AI art looks good, i edit in adobe including parts by hand if i have to. It just IS