I think any sane world, someone would have stepped in a decade ago as an advocate, and gotten them the combination of mental health care and accountability explained to them in compassionate terms they could understand. There has never needed to be a fucking wiki dedicated to this person.
Early Sonichu is fascinating and compelling ad outsider art. Daniel Johnston famously had a breakdown and was protected from the world after getting famous. The world needs to react to weirdos with a little more kindness.
Y’all also have to remember that KiwiFarms started as a Chris-Chan harassment forum. Kiwifarms is so fucked up that cloudflare won’t even host them. There’s something about staring into the void long enough…
I think capitalism has a way of bribing people to make them into ridiculous caricatures of themselves, because anything authentic would be a threat to the powers that be. I can’t even rightly articulate what I’m trying to say, but the type of content that makes it big on YouTube, the way that people in TV commercials who are in the same role the viewer’s meant to occupy are presented as stupidly endearing with all these flaws on display, the way that even wildly popular content starts to get downplayed once it comes across as “political” or “overserious” or something like that. It’s all of a piece. If anyone with money is making media, it gets set up to send a message that at the end of the day needs to include “You, the viewer, are powerless and kind of stupid, make sure you stay in your role.”
Once, it was conspciuous consumption (my personality IS what i consume, purchase, own…) along with the ‘keeping up with the joneses’ effect of feeling compelled to portray any visible signs of wealth as a sign of success… and the warping of your own personality into a caricature was more or less relegated to TV/Muisc/Movie celebrities, high profile PR people… people whose job it was to be the living embodiment of a brand.
KPop idols are that turned up to 11, and now VTubers signed with agencies basically follow the same model.
But uh… the problem is ironically the democratization of… not real ‘celebrity’, but influencer culture, being a brand ambassador, livestreaming, podcasting… OnlyFans…
Everyone is now presented with a very low cost of entry way of becoming a micro celeb.
So… either you remain authentic, and maybe get a small fan base… or you play into the algorithm, and become a cariacature of yourself, and/or outright grifter/scam artist… and yeah, better chance of making serious money, but you lose your morals/personality/soul in the process.
I was born before the internet age began, and I’ve seen these just unbelievable social changes occur in just over 20 years.
Now we’re at the point where 2/3 of Americans can’t survive missing one pay check, somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 of people are buying groceries on some kind of credit…
Oh well, I guess.