I came back to clear up a few things:
- I did not quit over the proposed conversion to a business. I have known about that for quite a while and very much approve.
- I am not quitting minecraft or Forgecraft just FTB and streaming.
Basically I need a break. I tried taking a short break but I kept getting involved in responsibilities and duty and not actually lowering my stress level. Its been around a year since I started with FTB and streaming. In all that time I haven't taken any time off. Even when I went to PAX East I was still checking the forums moderating and troubleshooting. I had 1 week off where I was ill (not very relaxing) .
When I started streaming I enjoyed it. It was fun to have people to talk to. I loved learning new mods and trying new things. And I loved being able to have debates about politics religion etc.I joined FTB at Slow's request as a Global Moderator. I was good at being the pitbull on the team. I was unbiased and never took personal feelings into consideration. When I joined Forgecraft I was always up for testing anything, putting things together in new ways. I never tried to break mods I was just playing. As time went on I took over the wiki and found a great team to make content. It stalled a few times but it kept slowly moving forward and I enjoyed writing articles to share what I had learned about various mods. I made friends with people and I had fun. In fact between March and June I was the happiest I have been in my life. I had created a modpack I liked, and had friends to talk to and jobs for FTB that I enjoyed. In June I received a lot of bad news. Not about me, but life just kept hitting me with things. I did my best to remain cheerful and pulled away from friends to keep them from worrying to much.. I threw myself even more into FTB. About the same time frame streaming started to not be fun. I felt like I had to be cheerful when I felt anything but. And I stopped streaming. Even when I tried to stream it was hard. Once I started working on the FTB modpacks it got even worse. If I showed up anywhere people wanted to demand answers from me. And while I like helping people there's a point at which its too much. Sometimes I just wanted to be with my friends but I couldn't because if people heard me talking they started demanding answers and ETA's. I'd constantly get messaged on IRC, the forums, and email, even youtube... where I don't even have any content.
People had been attacking me in DW's video comments ever since I started appearing on them. I got to the point where I could just ignore them most of the time by just not reading the comments. But as my stream got larger people started attacking me on twitch. And they didn't stay with just my channel, they would attack me in any channel I talked in. I got death and rape threats almost every day, plus the regular hate mail. Everything from my voice, to my conversational topics to my intelligence was constantly under attack. And very few people could separate me and my personality and personal opinions from FTB. It was like if I said anything I had to be incredibly diplomatic or people would attack me because I was FTB staff and the community felt I couldn't have an opinion of my own that disagreed or differed from FTB's. And people who don't even know me suddenly seemed to think they had a right to meddle in my life and comment on my friendships. Even to the point of pestering my friends.
I love making modpacks, I love adjusting configs and testing mods. But the amount of time needed for me to test every combination of mods across 3 modpacks meant I had to spend 14-20 hours a day doing nothing but testing. No making the massive builds I loved. No fiddling with bee and tree breeding. Just testing and more testing. I didn't even have time to play on Forgecraft for fun.
I never wanted to be famous/infamous. It makes me unhappy when people tell me they lose viewers if I go live. I do not believe people should weigh in on my friendships. Who I like and dislike should have no importance to anyone but me and maybe the people involved. I don't make friends with people because they make a mod, or are a famous streamer or youtuber etc. I make friends because I like them as people and they like me as a person not some imaginary conjuration based on a few comments or rants etc. I want to be free to not have my every statement or relationship judged by random people I have never met. There are people I don't get along with or that actively irritate me, that doesn't make them bad people it just means our personalities don't mesh well. And it doesn't make me a bad person for admitting I don't get along with them or find them irritating. There was a point where very few people knew who I was. Even now very few people really know what I did other then stream and be a moderator. I prefer it that way. I prefer being in the background. I like the shadows. I like being free to make decisions and statements without everyone jumping to judge me for them. I like having friends that don't make demands on me and don't care if I am an absolute nobody.
Right now I need a break. I need to recharge my energy. I need to try and relax. Maybe I'll move or go on a trip. Do something just for me. I just don't have the energy to deal with the constant hate and poison being thrown at me. Even if I could have taken that the instant the community started meddling in my friendships and caused damage it went too far. My friends will always matter more to me then anything. Between the meddling and the hate I have no energy left. Plus I have been using FTB as an excuse to avoid dealing with real life issues. As long as I am an active member of FTB I will keep using it as excuse to avoid dealing with things and making decisions I need to make. I don't know what I will be doing next. I do know I won't be back unless or until I can find a way to deal with the negativity thats been thrown my way so much. I just can't do that while I am stressed. So I need a vacation.. anyone got a tropical island they aren't using?
