I lurk maybe once a month or so, so I've been unaware of this topic to this moment, so I suppose I'll share my unsolicited autobiography.
For context ahead of time, I grew up in a homeschooled conservative Christian household. I've had some serious social disorders going on for my entire life, hence why my parents pulled me out of public school systems during early elementary years.
I played the Blockland demo throughout 2008 (I would've been 12 years old) and my younger brother and I decided to buy the full version probably towards the end of that year (it was during v10 if I recall correctly). We shared a BLID, making sure to change usernames before going online. Within about a year, my parents banned me from playing the game indefinitely because I was giving creepy notes to a girl at our church and my parents were notified. In hindsight, I think I just had a crush on her and did not have the social development to think anything other than being a total edgelord is cool. My early days of Blockland were usually spent freebuilding by myself, or playing City and FamilyRP servers.
In my absence, I had more social issues, including having a horrific incident that probably would've landed any other kid in juvie or extended therapy. In hindsight, I kind of blame my parents for not taking the responsibility of teaching me many of the important hard lessons of growing up and maturing as an individual. It's the classic Christian conservative situation of, "If I hide my child from the world and never have difficult conversations, he will grow up to be the perfectly sane, God-fearing man that I want him to be."
But enough of that.
In 2012, I returned to Blockland again. This time, I signed up on the forums pretty quickly as well, and immediately made a fool of myself and was permanently banned within a couple days for going on obnoxious religious tirades and just overall being as much of a prick as possible. It was at that point that Night Fox/Foxscotch became my sworn mortal enemy for being....*cringe*....an atheist. Growing up feeling like atheists were my sworn enemy bent on ruining my life didn't work well with what little social life I had.
I continued playing Blockland online pretty regularly though. I would get banned from servers on occasion for being a religion freak, but I started to realize that being an insufferable twat to people was really making life suck. After a few years of playing with people from many different backgrounds and beliefs, I began to relax and realize that people don't have to be exactly like me to be my friends. I eventually made this current forum account after some time away from here and really only started getting involved on the forums in any meaningful way just before Steam release if I recall right.
At that point, I just wanted to be popular. I vaguely entertained the idea of trying to become a modder because I love cars, and wanted the freedom of making my own cars instead of spamming the requests board. I knew modders also frequently received quite a bit of popularity. I got started on making car models in SketchUp and Milkshape but realized I was too much of a perfectionist to ever be happy with my creations and never learned how to code either, so the modder idea got scrapped.
It was at this point that I just went all in jumping off the deep end into the cesspool of the "Blockland Social Scene". But overall, I think I came away more positively than negative. I did receive some creepy conduct from Emo Freak/Tenshi at one point, but I didn't bite. I was also an admin for both Tezuni and Zapk, so for a teenager wanting popularity, notoriety, and a button giving me the authority to ban people I didn't like gave me my fix and desire to be with an in-crowd, no matter what certain reputations those servers had.
As far as the forums though, I remained pretty much off the radar or even completely aloof to any of the real problems going on in the moment they were happening. I was a socially delinquent stuffposter and had some serious fun embracing that. Electrk more or less became my role model and I remember feeling so giddy and powerful when our incessant stuffposting got the Age of Time boards archived. The April Fools stuffposting event also holds a fond place in memory.
As I moved closer to adulthood, my maturity was also coming up. I started Blocklander Of The Year and ran that in a rather professional manner free of manipulation and that's what most people remember me from. I realized that being a stuffhead doesn't give the same lasting impression as just being a friendly amicable person.
I believe 2015 was the last year I hosted Blocklander of the Year and I remember it was rough, because I had graduated high school and started my first job in real life behind the scenes and trying to stay on top of Blockland projects (and drama) was very taxing. I actually began forming a social life at work as well and had to learn quickly to be socially acceptable as a frontline worker at a busy restaurant interacting with guests. 2016 was my first girlfriend and getting kicked out of my conservative household for being a rebellious teenager adult man with a social life keeping me out late. Ultimately, that's when my life actually started, and I figured most of the other Blockland users met the same fate.
Today, I've held multiple jobs. I drive semi trucks for a living. I've been married AND divorced. I'm a homeowner. I have some semblance of a social life, but I've lost that desire to "be popular". Coming back here on occasion to view the old shell of a past life is a bittersweet feeling. Nothing makes me sadder than seeing how so many of you were hurt in irreversible ways. This place was honestly a pretty instrumental part in my social development and secretly interacting with the real world under my parents' noses. Somehow I made it out without lasting damage. Seeing so many of these names that we once revered as cool people and how they were preying on us is disgusting.
I don't have close ties with people here anymore. There's a few in my Snapchat and I am in a couple Discord servers with some of the old pals, but I'm still not particularly good with checking up on people or socializing in that way. Know that I've had some fun times with many of you guys and I love seeing some of the old names here. I wish you guys all the best. If the going is getting tough out there, please reach out, whether that means talking to a therapist or even ranting on a listening ear. If you ever needed a sign or a good word today, you matter and everything is going to be okay.
Cheers fellas
unless you are/were a groomer or someone in a position of power who turned a blind eye on a groomer, then please turn yourself in, or you know, don't be an Earth inhabitant anymore