Blogskins, reluctantly

/It's completely insane that I could be summarising the process of a beating heart, yet here I am typing a post that none of you will ever bother to read or take a second glance at/

When I first started out in the world of blogging, I was clueless. I did not create a blog by myself, in fact, it was my sister that saw I loved to write and suggested I create a blog. Then, I was introduced to Blogskins.com by a friend. I lurked for a few months, or maybe more, I cannot remember.

One day, I was feeling brave so I coded my skin into something completely different from its original and I was so proud. Then I went on to code my best friend's skin and used Photoshop to edit images of runners. She's one.

As I grew more confident, I took the first step and created an account at Blogskins.com. At that point of time, I felt just like a little girl coming into a foreign land. Here are people that speak a different language from yours; they actually have names for these funny letters and numbers you throw into a skin. I only knew how to recognise codes and tweak them to my liking, and yet there I was, trying to push out skins that people would comment and rate, and hell, fav...

I ripped. I ripped my first skin. I had lurked around some more and found a skin that I loved and found a way to change. It was insane. I remember how I was so shaken and afraid that people would find out I had taken codes without permission. It was my very first skin, and I was clueless and daring. I took great pains to make sure it did not look anything like the original and I prayed hard... and people actually liked it.

I have since deleted that skin, and several others that looked hideous. I became better at coding and I was making friends. There were very nice and talented people like Nicole, Dorothy and Puiling on Blogskins. I was (and am) so honoured to have befriended the "stars" of the scene - all my friends used those skins and the three of them would snag day after day of "Skin of the Day"s.

There were people I looked up to as well. They were a special group that seemed to come from a time before mine at Blogskins and the best part was that they knew each other's names. It gave them superiority in my eyes. These were the people that I often saw giving serious comments on skins and intellectual arguments in the forum.

Life went on well for awhile... I learnt that Blogskins was once a thriving place, yes, way before I appeared, but activity was ceasing. Still, it was an exciting place to be, pretty skins all over and plans to revamp the place, organise competitions and the sharing of the older generation of blogskinners with the younger generation made it an exclusive place to be.

Then the troubles started. At first we had a few run-ins with rippers but the storm would pass and the case closed with time and by chances of deletion. Then came taytay_zhuzhu and the spam bots. She would always rip skins and would never feel remorseful. The community dissed her and tried to correct her ways, playing it tough and nice, but she never did repent. Threads were created to facilitate the hate she was gaining and people enjoyed giving.

The bots also made things worse because they would rate our skins down and ruin prefect 5-star streaks for "rating-conscious" contributors. These things died down gradually, with TTZZ disappearing and Myles exterminating the bots.

With this TTZZ fever dying off, the blogskinners craved more drama. But at what expense? Obviously it was the beginning of the downfall of a once glorious community. The TTZZ fever was not one to keep the community aware of the lines that we shouldn't cross, instead, it was more of a form of entertainment. Look at Blogskins now and the comments that people make about TTZZ,
how she was a "lasting" form of entertainment, and somewhere to channel the hate.

Finally the last straw that broke the camel's back was the fact that several skinners started classifying the community into caste groups. The worst part? The ones who did it were the one that I, and many others looked up to. They said, perhaps in a tongue in cheek manner, that those who were in the community for a longer period of time than about 3 years were considered "senior" and that the new generation of blogskinners that moved in to take the place of the image skin generation did not meet the standards. This of course, riled up the community and myself, given I was no more than 6 to 12 months old at that time.

Graphic Sites were also the fad, and many skinners owned and were proud of their flourishing graphic sites. The so-called "seniors" went on to gang up on and criticise these groups of people.

One fine day, a senior snapped and became a troll just for the fun of mocking it. This was not the wisest thing to do, especially since the newer generation just got flamed and dissed by a hypocrite that decided to irritate the living hell out of us. People were more convicted and left the community for good. Those left in the community did quite a fair bit of eye-rolling.

Thus Blogskins.com moved into the trolling era, when every single thing that skinners did provoked the few seniors left. They creating threads for the fun of things, commenting on clean and neat skins as too simple, different skins are too much and too overwhelming, harping on the fact that the once glorious Blogskins was gone and was a barren land, deprived of talent, intellect and spirit, while driving the wedge between all of us even deeper.

Many people left at this point in time, even myself, and only returned to submit skins that would simply join thousand of others in the bottom of a dirty clothes pile - if you needed something, you wouldn't dare look, in fear of finding things that might have been ripped or criticised so badly. For me, it was and is still a period that you can't put out your thoughts, no matter how appropriate and within the boundaries they might be, in fear of people disapproving of them. You cannot agree with anyone on anything without having a virtual spit ball being launched at your face. You cannot rate anything below 5 stars or a flame war will start.

I used to look forward to receiving a SOTD. I still do, but I don't get the greatest satisfaction from it now. Back then we had people actually competing for it and every SOTD deserved it, with a few exceptions. Today, take a look at a month's SOTDs and you have the exact opposite.

The worst thing to happen to Blogskins.com is what is happening now. The leftovers clash with the ignorant next generation; notice how sad that sounds now. Remorseless Rippers meet angsty abandoned crowd. Fine. You get the drama you called for. It's back now. But even the fights suck. Tumblr-gif spamming thread? Mortified, I really am. I don't expect more heated debates in words, but if you have nothing to say that will improve the situation, I don't see how gifs of aliens flipping pancakes, middle finger flashers, or for God's sake, boners have anything to do with the situation.

I don't know how I'm helping the situation right now but I guess it doesn't make a difference now does it? You don't have to have something of substance to say to create a thread, make a reply or to gain hate. You don't even need to gather people to hold a demonstration in the street. All the riots and stupid can be found right here, on Blogskins.com.