Blog Post 2: First Snowfall + The CYOP Community Experience

To start this blog post I will begin with something positive that happened to me: I experienced snow for the first time!!!

At first it was just small flakes that melted almost immediately upon touching the ground, not a lot. However my mom was ECSTATIC. She woke us up early that day and went outside in the backyard to frolick, along with my brother. I don't recall if I joined them but it was nice. It stopped the next day, but a few days later it started snowing even more. Like, enough to where it can actually stay on the ground and not melt. There were a few inches (sorry for being a freak) of snow and it was falling a lot more. I do recall going outside the first time, where my brother made a very tiny snowman with a son. I can't recall what either of their names were. The next day it snowed even more, and my mom and brother went outside to make an actual snowman named Benito Juárez. I think they named him that when I offered two tiny Mexican flags for his eyes... You can see the snowmen as they originally were below:

Then as the days went be, it kept snowing more... and more... and more. My mom's excitment over her first snowfall faded and she just wanted it to end. The thickest the snow got had to be at least half a foot. Once my dad had to go outside and fix Benito and unearth the other two snowmen because they were getting buried in all the snow; you can see how they are now:

Benito got a beret after we went outside the day it stopped snowing. I think he's French now and has a new name. Some snow had also hardened into some ice, which allowed me to carve out some smiley faces that you can see next to the original snowmen. But that's all, really. The snowfall was really pretty to look at from inside. But now it is fading away... and so will the snowmen... very sad, but it needs to happen.

Now, here is a Content Warning for mentions of suicide and general douchebaggery. You can stop reading here if you'd like.

I first discovered what Pizza Tower was in 2019, when I was visiting my grandmother and using her computer to browse YouTube. I saw a video of the game's SAGE 2019 demo and thought the game looked cool; I liked Peppino and Snick a lot, and the music was outstanding to me. I checked out some other Pizza Tower stuff afterwards, including a joke wiki that's now dead, but then my interest in the game faded, and I moved onto other stuff. I then hear of Pizza Tower finally releasing in January 2023, so I purchased the game and played it to completion. I really liked the game and everything about it; the music, the characters, the levels, the art, all of it. (Except the racism towards Indigenous people with the Tribe Cheese enemy, but that's not the focus right now.)

After looking at some fan-made art and stuff, I then come across a video on YouTube on my phone one morning... a video about "Golf 2." This was a Pizza Tower level that was a combination of Pizza Tower's GOLF and WAR levels, which peaked my interest. After looking into it a bit more, I learn of a PT mod called "Create Your Own Pizza," or CYOP, which is a level editor mod where you can make and play levels made by other people! Soon I joined the Discord server for Other Tower, the CYOP project that Golf 2 came from. I wasn't very active at first, but over time I became more and more acquainted with the other active people there. I did have some good times in the voice channels in that server with other people, some of which I became friends with and still talk to now. I helped playtest some of their CYOP projects, and I even streamed the first 3 seasons of SpongeBob across 3 days to the server!

However, there were some people in the Other Tower server that just irritated me to be around. I didn't know what it was at the time, but other people also didn't really like them, so the dislike just rubbed off on me. I don't want to say any names to protect their privacy; even if they were annoying to me, they're still people. Unfortunately I did not think this at the time I was first talking with them. The dislike I inherited from others eventually grew into blind hatred; I would attack these people many times whenever they appeared in a conversation--or were even just mentioned. There were so many instances where I violently berated and insulted these people, calling them horrid things and wishing the worst things upon them. Just being a dick to them simply because they were annoying. Others would call me out for my bullshit often; sometimes I would play it off and justify my actions, other times I would apologize for what I did and swear to change my ways. But I never changed. I kept harassing these people. Kept telling them I wanted to kill them. Because I had faced no real consequences for my actions. I was only lectured by others and never truly punished. God, I hate myself from a few months ago.

Things only started to change when I was highlighted in a video exposing me for all the terrible shit I did. This video contained so many messages of me violently dehumanizing and degrading people for the irredeemable crime of being bothersome. It made my friends realize that I was a shitty person, so they kicked me from my friend group. Only then I had finally faced consequences for my actions. I finally realized that... doing bad things was bad! Shocker! So I took a one-month break from Discord to actually change; something I promised to do countless times before but would never act on it. I announced this to people I deemed close friends. During the break, I started some therapy which did help me, though I think I just needed a detox from the CYOP space. After returning, my friends welcomed me back with open arms--I'm always grateful for them for doing that. Things were fine for a bit, but then... I got banned from the Other Tower server.

I was initially shocked by this. I contacted the server mods about it, and it was confirmed the ban was because of my shitty actions from the past few months. I understood and respected their decision despite me panicking a little. I then realized that me being banned from Other Tower was actually a really good thing; always being around people I disliked was damaging my mental health and causing me to lash out at them all the time. The only reason I really was engaged in CYOP spheres was me being a playtester for Other Tower; with me banned, I didn't really have anything worth doing in the CYOP community. Plus, I still had the good friends I made in the CYOP community, and you can talk to friends about multiple topics! No way! So I made the decision to leave every CYOP-related server I was in (the ones I didn't get banned from a month earlier, that is), and I passed ownership of a CYOP-related project I made onto one of my friends who was willing to manage it. I still talk to my friends I made during my time there, and my general mood improved over time. I let go of any grudges I had over most people I targeted before I left CYOP; a lot of them were based on stupidity or a misunderstanding.

It's now been 3 months since I left CYOP. And in that time I realized that my blind hatred didn't just suddenly appear. There was a single major factor of why I had a terrible CYOP experience: There's so much pointless drama.

Throughout most of my time in CYOP, I would always hear about the most petty drama between people for the stupidest reasons. Slight disagreements over benign topics would start witch hunts, rivalries, name-calling, bans from popular servers like the AFOM and Other Tower servers. I hear a friend of mine be targeted repeatedly for shit they didn't do, so often that they've contemplated suicide several times. So many people in the CYOP community are just assholes. I'm not even mentioning all the actual groomers and manipulators that have been exposed in and out of CYOP. Think about this: three Pizza Tower-related servers have had to shut down after reaching large member counts because moderating the servers was taxing on the mods' mental health. (The original Pizza Tower Discord, the ScoutDigo mod server, and the ScoutDigo Community Edition server.) Three servers shut down. Over one community. A community of lowlifes and losers who don't know basic human decency and decide to act like chimps because they never learned about consequences. And because I would hear about these cocksuckers all the time, I became one of them. The only difference between me and those tar pits is that I actually recognized my mistakes and worked to improve them when I realized it was ruining my life. I know for a fact that a vast majority of these jackasses who start shit will never change who they are. I've experienced many of those obnoxious people myself, and I have heard about them a few times since I left. And while I won't say who they are, I will say this.

To the people I've hurt for no good reason, I still feel remorse for what I did. I'm thankful that you've forgiven me and still see me as a redeemable person. I may not always like you, though I still hope you find success in whatever you do.

However, to the people who choose to start pointless drama, who attack others for selfish reasons, who act like obtuse jerks to people just to seem superior to others for a fleeting moment: You are human animals. You perpetuate the problems that plague our world. You are below an object in terms of respect deserved and should only feel shame and agony for your actions. If there isn't a bullet in your hollow skull from the crushing loneliness that those childish cries for attention never satiated, I know it's only a matter of time before you shoot one in there. You will only feel relentless anger and unrestrainted loathing for yourself for tumbling down this path of self-isolation that so many people tried to steer you away from yet you refused to listen because your fragile ego would never let your ears function.

You know exactly who you are.

You are a repulsive horde of freaks and you will never, ever change.

Burn in hell.

The next blog post will be more positive than this one.. lol :)