The Seedy Sides of Aniblogging

Anime

Kid, you really want in on this? This is the sorta info that could change you for bad, taint how you see things. If you know, then nothing’s the same no more. Ignorance is bliss and I think you’re better off happy.

Really? Well, alright. Don’t say I didn’t warn you, kid.

Here you are, then: five seedy things some anibloggers do because they only look out for number one (and I’m dropping this streetside way of speaking because I’m typing this up at 5:52 am when I have work at 6:30 and I still need to shower and eat).

Skeevy Comments

Some of you, be it anibloggers or visitors, are pretty rude when it comes to commenting on posts. Rampant use of quotation marks to completely undermine what was said in the blog post, blatant misogyny, implying that being a feminist is something to be scorned – I’ve been around and I’ve seen some shit.

Really, some (not all of you, mind you), need to realize that you’re interacting with someone who has feelings and try to not be so hurtful or mean. Or is the sense of anonymity empowering you to act like an asshole with little consequence so intoxicating that you willingly become an actual barbarian?

Blind Liking

I was never the type to earn golden stars in kindergarten. Or in elementary school. Or in middle school. Or in high school. Or in college.

But some of you do seem intent on giving me ALL of the golden stars. It just so happens that means these individuals decide to just start liking my content without actually reading it. Maybe some of you are champion readers. Skimming is necessary in life. I get it.

Be that as it may, I’m less inclined to think you’re paying attention to what I’m saying if you’re liking five of my posts within 10 seconds.

Oh, I know what’s going on, don’t worry. But I’m not going to bother to call you out on it since it’s genuinely not worth my time. After all, you feel the same way about reading other people’s content, don’t you?

Sketchy Collabs

I’m a failure when it comes to collabs considering how often I’ve made plans to start up a collab with someone only to disappear. These days I’m not being told I’m worthless for being unemployed or for having long hair so I might have a better mentality, but for now that remains uncertain. Maybe one day I’ll be ready for collabs again.

With that being said, it seems like there are some real motherfuckers who try to make sure they benefit the most from collabs. They insist on having the first top five because more people will be interested in the first half, they insist on controlling what the other person adds to their blog post, and they fail to properly link to the other person’s blog. Those kind of dingleberries are ACTUALLY around and it’ll be for the best if you don’t associate with them. They can go share their own content on reddit if they’re so desperate for attention.

Pathetic Plagiarism

People steal posts. People take screencaps. People have no sense of guilt — or common sense, it seems, since these criminals don’t seem to realize they’re going to get caught.

Plus they gain nothing. What’s the point of passing off someone’s work as your own?? It’s meaningless and just makes me never want to associate with you. Honestly, just piss off. And maybe go piss on yourself while you’re at it.

Forsaking Community

Maybe us anibloggers really aren’t united as a community. We all have different tastes. Some of us like certain individuals and dislike others. Perhaps there are some irreconcilable differences between one another.

Be that as it may, there are some individuals who like to pretend they care about the aniblogging community only for them to only care about themselves once they grab a little bit of clout writing for notable anime sites or obtain a considerable audience on YouTube. Well, wait, maybe they also only care for the people in their own circlejerk cliques. Never mind, I totally misspoke~ You’re definitely not self-serving since you’re not just caring about yourself~

Who am I kidding? The fuck out of here with that kind of hypocrisy. You sold out. Frankly, we don’t care if you had stuck around since we know your true colours now. Beat it.

And there you have it. I wish I could apologize for my locker room language but I won’t.

Sorry for making you read this.

61 thoughts on “The Seedy Sides of Aniblogging”

  1. I think it’s going to seem like I’ve blind liked your blog when you check your notifications 😢😥😥
    And the Collaborations one hit me directly haha.
    I’m so sorry about that!!

    It’s so annoying that these things happened to nii-san. And nothing wrong with venting frustration, no need for apologies!

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  2. I’ve been lucky that I haven’t received TOO many negative comments, I have my site set so whenever I receive a new comment I have to ‘approve’ it before it goes onto the post. So if I get anything really nasty I just delete it, a few times I’ve gone and composed massive replies and decided not to engage – why waste time on them? I’m very picky with who I do collabs with as its the worst feeling when they don’t go well / fall through, so much time and effort is put into a collab and it’s pretty disrespectful when the other person doesn’t pull their weight.

    One thing that REALLY irks me is when someone follows you and then unfollows you after you follow back. This isn’t so much an issue with WordPress but more social media sharing sites. I had this happen to me recently on Twitter when a big gaming website (30k twitter followers) followed me, I followed back, an hour later they unfollow me – WTF?

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    1. First things first: I gotta apologize for the delayed response. It’s been hard to make for blogging recently…

      I’m glad to hear that you’ve had very little bad or mean-spirited comments. The approval system should also help with that. And yeaaaah I hard agree with your stance on collabs. Hopefully none of that has happened to you. It was a pleasure doing one with you!

      I personally just block those websites on twitter when they follow me. Such behaviour is so dumb! Sorry to hear about that.

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  4. YESSSSSSSSSSS!!! REMY UNHINGED!!! I’m catching up on your posts after having not really been doing the aniblogging thing for a while, and this was a fun one for me to start with, lol. I promise I’m not blind liking, cuz I’m about to go read three other posts from you, too 😉 hahaha

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    1. IT’S NOT A SIDE OF ME THAT SHOULD BE SEEN OFTEN!

      No worries, Jenn ;___; I’m still so behind myself. Thanksgiving is going to be useful for catching up.

      I believe you! I hope I can return the favour as soon as possible :c

      Thanks for reading my silly content.

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  5. Every community is not perfect and all of what you have addressed here is true. I’ve had experience with before but I honestly can just shake it off, focusing over it does no one any good. When you make a point remy you know how to make a point good on you for this post. 🤣🤨

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  6. Interesting – sorry to hear about all this crap. I’ve always resisted the idea of starting my own blog anyway simply because I know I’d struggle to produce content on a regular basis – not for lack of ideas, but for lack of time and because of my pathological perfectionism when it comes to writing (I’d be the Stanley Kubrick of bloggers, taking 4 months to finish writing every post because I’d keep going back and editing them like 15,000 times) – but hearing about stunts like these definitely doesn’t encourage me to change my mind.

    Oh, and a belated welcome back, btw! I was starting to get a little worried when even your twitter feed went dark last month.

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    1. Ahhh. There are some bloggers who do put in a lot of time and effort into their blog posts to the point that their flow of content is noticeably slower, but I understand where you’re coming from. And aww sorry to hear my post didn’t help. That wasn’t my intention! 😦

      Yeah, I get distracted sometimes and stray away from blogging, but I always end up coming back. Thank you, though! It really was quite a long hiatus.

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  8. I have mad skills with reading fast (teacher training haha) I can understand the frustration of the collab’s I have yet to do one and I honestly don’t know if anyone would want to do one with an erratic poster like me haha.
    I hope these experiences are a small percent of your experience.

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  9. Honestly, my one true fear is a collaboration falling through like that which is why I’m so scared to reach out and ask to do them. >..< It seems since I'm such a young blog I've avoided most of these, but it's good to point out the short comings. I hope that things look up to you!!

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      1. I won’t stay away from, but I’ll certainly be a bit careful in my considerations in the future! (If I ever get the nerve to ask someone!)

        You’re most welcome! ❤

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  12. “being told I’m worthless for being unemployed or for having long hair”

    That was the story of much of my young adult life.

    Plagarism – Is such a plague that even high school teachers are running software to find if their student is plagiarizing by scanning the internet for exactly copied passages.

    I’ve never gotten any negative comments. Of course I am such a small fish nobody would waste their time. If I did, I’d probably be so happy that I got any comments at all I’d still hit like. Maybe even make that comment its own post.

    I don’t worry about likes. If I get 8 or 9 likes it is a fantastic victory. A certain percentage will be folks who just read the blurb in the reader. But that share will be constant when taken over many blog posts and many many likes. (You forgot to mention the “fishing” likes. People who like you as a way to get you to look at their hair replacement site or their erectile dysfunction cure.)

    They way I see it, it is all marketing. You need to make that reader blurb as interesting as possible to entice the reader to go deeper, much like the blurb on the back of a book jacket. There is a reason why some posts get half as many likes as others and most of it is either the quality of the blurb for those who see it in WP Reader or the search engine optimization for people who don’t currently follow you.

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  13. Having experienced all of these at some point or another, I really enjoyed reading this and I’m glad someone was bold enough to address all of these issues, especially in such a funny way.

    Bad comments are something I rarely get, but I’ve had my fair share of nasty comments in the past, some of which resulted in huge, argumentative comment chains. Naturally, these people only commented when they wanted to argue, and would never engage with any of my posts if it wasn’t something they would be able to disagree with me on or use as a means to start a fight. Thankfully most of these people, if not all of them, don’t follow me any more which is probably for the better.

    The last one in particular is also something that’s bothered me an awful lot for the longest time. I understand that some people are fortunate enough to get their “big break”, be it writing for Crunchyroll, getting big on YouTube or “getting in” with the big leagues and their circle in the Anime community. But they started here. We let them be a part of our community and we were there, reading their stuff, commenting on it and sharing it to what little followers we have when they had just as little, sometimes even less. I get that people “move on”, but it’s always left a bad taste in my mouth, especially when they continue to promote their new shit and expect all of us to check it out, pretending they care about the community they started in, when they don’t give a shit.

    Anyway, to avoid this becoming a rant…

    Good post! This amused me. As you already know.

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    1. Well-deserved rants are always welcome here and you have it down pat, Leth. Sorry to hear you’ve also gone through similar nonsense before. I really do think it’s for the better those disagreeables no longer follow you. And yeah, the last one bothers me a lot, too…

      Thank you! ;__;

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  14. Ah, I’m the scavanger that lives in the shadow of other people’s blogs. I have no social media accounts, so I can’t like anything. I don’t liking in general; once I start I always either feel I like too much or too little, or leave out others, or I’m too moody and in consequence unfair. I can’t imagine liking everything, though. Why?

    I’ve heard occasionally about blog-post plagiarism, but all I’ve heard about is dedicated plagiarist sites that probably need low-effort content to get add revenue. The oddest case I’ve come across is that one blogger found his blog post in a Chinese English text book; he wondered what to do.

    Really, sometimes this whole blogging business sometimes feels like a bottomless source of social anxiety, and that’s maybe part of why I’m lurking in the shadows.

    I’m perhaps the flipside of blind-liking: “invisible liking”. I read (and like) a lot more posts than I reply to.

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    1. I was thinking of you and WingKing when I mentioned blog visitors, but I had nothing to criticize you two for so I was sort of inclusive yet not? My bad!

      I think some people do like excessively which is something I also question. But yeah, I feel like my moodiness gets in the way sometimes. I might opt to be more like you and just comment!

      Oh, it does happen, but I’ve only seen complaints limited to Twitter. Irina seems to get hit by this a lot. Yeah, someone who wanted to disappear from the net had contacted me about my blog post so I could remove an article written by her that I had referenced. Thing is, the site didn’t belong to me and it had just stole my article. She got it removed via a DMCA so it doesn’t exist anymore, though.

      I think you have a point about social anxiety. You’re baring your heart for all to see, in a way.

      Invisible liking is to be preferred in my opinion!

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      1. Don’t worry, I didn’t feel excluded. I just read this post and imagined what it would like to have a blog, and how I would react.

        The social anxiety thing goes deeper than baring your soul, for me. It’s pretty much inevitable that you like some of your regular commenters more than others; that’s just how life is. But there’s then the balancing act between making friends and being a gracious host, and I have no idea how to deal with this. (Also, no experience. It might be a lot easier for me than I imagine.)

        That intellectual property violation stuff must be a pain to deal with once you get reasonably popular. I didn’t even consider the case of getting asked to take down something someone else shared. Some things take you by surprise (pleasant surprises exist, too; for the sake of my sanity, I mustn’t forget this).

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  16. Haha: yeah the blind likes is something that I have definitely experienced quite a number of times 😂 The funny thing is, that it usually happens just after I have commented on a post from the other blogger. It’s almost as if they feel obligated at that moment to do some liking as if I would feel bad if they didn’t 😂😂
    Really though…besided that I haven’t had any negative comments or other kind of bad experiences so far on wordpress. Everyone here is just very friendly, and some people have really become truly close friends. Which only shows how great this community really is. Of course there are bound to be a few people that tend to do it for their own reasons, but…so far it’s been an awesome ride 😊😊

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  17. Fortunately the majority of my experiences with blogging have been positive. While a few collaborations I’ve started planning with people have never really gotten off the ground due to either myself or the other party ending up being too busy, I’ve never had someone actually not linking to my part or being too controlling about content. Mostly collabs have been a great experiencing where the parties involved have mutually agreed about who is posting which part and when and worked to promote each other’s parts.
    I do get a lot of blind likes though, where someone might in the space of about ten minutes like the majority of my posts for the week. It is really unlikely they read any of that content, but I’m not that concerned. While likes are nice, they don’t require me to engage with the person anyway, so I’ll just keep responding to as many comments as I can and focus on the readers who actually want to discuss the content. I also get some people who think I blind like and occasionally call me out on it, which isn’t actually the case given I will not like a post I have not read and I do read quite a number of posts that because I disagree with the manner in which a point has been made that I decide not to like it.
    I think aniblogging, like anything else, does have its good and bad points, and like any community there are people who want to be a part of the community and people who just want something from the community. As I said at the start, fortunately the majority of my experiences have been positive and I’d like to keep it that way. But, if not, I’ll hopefully continue to focus on the people who enjoy my content.

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    1. That’s fair. I’m perhaps a bit disillusioned by people who only say positive things about the aniblogging community. I mean, it’s like 90% good things so it’s very easy to forget the bad. But the bad is there and I wanted to talk about it. It just so happens I’m too blunt in regards to delivery so it came out like this, haha.

      Thanks, Karandi.

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  18. My condolences to the fact that you’ve had such experiences. I’ve only had a few of those, but considering that nobody truly profits on WordPress through views and likes, I don’t see enough motivation for people to try so hard for selfish purposes. Obviously, I haven’t experienced all those things you have, but if I ever encounter something as unbearable, I hope I can give people benefit of the doubt. After all, speed-liking is something I do myself sometimes, when I really love a post’s concept but didn’t watch the anime they’re discussing and still want to show support, for example. Still, some of those points are good warnings for me!

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    1. Ah, it’s not too bad, but I’m very appreciative towards your consideration.

      Hmm that’s what I think, too, but some people can surprise you by their conduct. Overall, I think most of the individuals within the aniblogging community should indeed receive the benefit of the doubt, but that one sketchy collab individual is thoroughly unpleasant.

      That’s fair, in regards to the speed liking. You’re just trying to be kind, right?

      Oh, this was more like a rant and an experiment in regards to tone, but I’m glad this proved somewhat helpful for you.

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      1. Haha, rant at us anytime!

        And yeah, I wouldn’t like a post if I haven’t clicked into it to see what it’s about, but if it contains spoilers or things I’m not too interested in, I might skim it and then still like it.

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  19. The Sketchy Collabs part is new to me. I was aware of everything else but I always thought that collabs were out of good intentions and friendships. I guess that’s not always the case! I don’t do many collabs in the first place (only did one with TPAB) so I haven’t experienced that.

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    1. To be fair, that part is solely inspired by one particular cretin.

      I’m glad that the collab you did with TPAB was fun and productive and I guarantee that almost all individuals who seek collabs are not like that particular scumbag!

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  21. I’m glad that I haven’t had to deal with negative comments, so far! (knock on wood)… I’ve had people make comments that they may have MEANT as funny, but came off a little rude. But, I understood the sentiment at least!
    Blind liking is THE WORST though… You should at least READ what you’re liking… Sometimes I just want to put up some completely offensive post that no one could POSSIBLY like and see who pushes that button! 😉😂 It’s the same thing with follows that don’t look at anything you’ve written… Why are you following me when I’m sure you haven’t opened up a single post? Oh, that’s right… You’ll unfollow me in about 20 minutes anyways…😕😂

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  22. The skeevy comment got me, while I haven’t had any on this blog yet, I got some when I was running my kpop blog and it’s infuriated me, if only they had attack my opinion instead of my English skill I would have be okay with it, but nope it’s easier to attack the one who wrote the post than try to say why you disagree with what is it said in the post.

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    1. That’s a low blow by those cretins. I’m sorry you had to go through such an experience repeatedly. You do quality content and it’s their fucking fault that they couldn’t see that.

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  23. i can certainly understand the frustration. i dont really do collabs, so the sketchy collab thing is news to me. i dont really mind the blind liking thing. if you’re not gonna read the post, i’ll take it as at least being something. i personally think i overcorrect when it comes to plagiarism, since i dont even like to copy topics, much less entire posts. *shrug*

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  24. Sadly, a lot of this didn’t just apply to the aniblogging with either. There was a thing recently with IGN stealing a YouTube having review for example.
    All frustrating things though. I hope the venting helped.

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  26. You seem frustrated. I hope it helped to get that out of your system. All of what you describe can be immensely irritating, and a lot of it could be solved by people just being a bit nicer and more tolerant towards one another, even when they disagree.

    I try and steer clear of negative stuff as much as possible because it has an adverse impact on my mental health. I know this, but sometimes I still can’t resist wading into something I feel strongly about even though I know it will only really hurt me. The rest of the time, though, I try and keep things positive. My site is entirely built around the philosophy of “finding the good” in things. It helps me to enjoy the things I’m engaging with more… and it provides a nice safe haven for people who, like me, are fatigued by constant negativity elsewhere online.

    Sorry you felt you had to write this. Like I say, I hope it helped to vent a bit. Take care of yourself!

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    1. That’s fair. There’s already plenty of nonsense online so aniblogging shouldn’t have to be like that at all.
      The cause behind your site is admirable and I think many can stand to learn from the example you set.

      Yeah, I sort of felt like I had to, but it was indeed a little cathartic. Thanks, Pete ;__;

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I-it's not like I want you to leave a comment or anything. B-baka.