This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/serillymc on 2024-03-10 17:49:20.

Before any of this starts, I need to lay out some context.

The Hell is a MCYT?

MCYT, for the unaware, is an acronym that stands for "Minecraft YouTubers", though in actuality it tends to refer to any online video creator regardless of platform who makes Minecraft content. Contrary to popular belief, MCYT isn't a new term - it was coined sometime in the early 2010s to refer to Team Crafted and its adjacent creators, with the earliest uses I could find going back to 2014.

I won't go into the entire history of the MCYT community as it isn't particularly relevant, though there are some things worth noting. First is that older MCYT fandoms were a lot closer to typical fandoms than the "standoms" of today, likely due to Twitter being less popular at the time.

Second is that in the mid-2010s, MCYT went into almost radio silence as Minecraft content simply wasn't popular anymore. While some people like Hermitcraft stayed afloat just fine, Minecraft content wouldn't really reach its past levels of popularity again until the creation of SMPLive in 2019, which is the topic of today's post.

What is SMPLive?

SMPLive was a SMP (survival multiplayer) server created by CallMeCarson (though in reality, it was cscoop's idea) in 2019, with the gimmick being that when online on the server, players must be streaming their perspective. The server popularized livestreamed SMPs as a genre and is a good portion of the reason why Dream SMP and now QSMP exists. The server was comedy-focused, though had a notable amount of roleplay elements with events such as a cult war against "Spawn City" (the hub city of the server) and various court cases, and streamers would often play up characters for the audience. The best way I could describe it would be like a Minecraft sitcom.

SMPLive gained an unexpected audience with teenage girls, who formed a fan community on Twitter known as "SMPtwt", which was a stan Twitter group dedicated to the members of the server. SMPtwt would get themselves into a lot of controversies, but most of them aren't relevant to the topic at hand. There was also a notable following on Tumblr, known as SMPblr, which mainly seems to trace its origins back to 2018 Mineblr and Hermitblr (the Hermitcraft fandom on Tumblr) and tended to have very different views than SMPtwt (which will become relevant later on).

One side note regarding Hermitblr that is a topic for another post, but should at least be mentioned, is that a group of Hermitblr members actually harassed Hermitcraft member ZombieCleo off Tumblr for saying that if you have a problem with shipping, you should just block shippers instead of posting hate. This would set a precedent for MCYT fandom prioritizing their own moral beliefs over the wants of the people they claim to be fans of, which alongside the effects of SMPRonpa's aftermath, still affects the fandom to this day.

Survival of the Fittest

In late 2019, a young fan on Wattpad would begin publishing their Danganronpa AU fanfiction known as "SMPRonpa: Survival of the Fittest". Unbeknownst to them, this fic would gain a lot of popularity on SMPtwt, with fans livetweeting about updates and creators even noticing.

That's right! Despite what would go down later, most content creators who acknowledged SMPRonpa did so positively - joking about it and discussing it with fans, chatting with the author, etc. One creator, ToxxxicSupport, would even defend it, saying it's "purely based on entertainment just like a horror movie would be - no one would ever want us to actually get hurt".

SMPblr, on the other hand, was vehemently opposed to the fic, and well, fanfiction in general, honestly, regardless of content - anything they considered "stan shit". These are beliefs they would claim to be based in the desire to not make content creators uncomfortable, though like with early Hermitblr's shipping war, a lot of it was based more in their own ideas of what's morally okay in fandom rather than anything a content creator had said themselves.

Regardless, the fic would be completed in December 2019, but what was to follow would permanently affect how the MCYT fandom would treat fanworks.

And before I forget to mention it, the freezer thing in the title is a joke related to a death in the fanfic that's been heavily memed even long after the fanfic was deleted - in which Slimecicle is hit over the head with a guitar and stuffed in a freezer. It's constantly poked fun at by fans and Charlie himself for its absurdity. Here's a funny clip of Sneegsnag joking about it.

Let's Address Fan Culture

On December 11, 2019, CallMeCarson would go live with a starting soon screen that simply contained the message:

this is gonna be a serious stream addressing some bullshit fan culture that has creeped my friends and I out. If you're coming here for laughs I'm sorry but occasionally I have to address more serious topics. I recommend going to schlatt's stream if you came here for fun or you are just an average viewer who doesn't care. he is playing Rabbids Go Home

(This would go on to be a widely mocked copypasta among both fans and other content creators.)

In this stream, Carson would go on to disavow various elements of "fan culture" that he claimed made him and his friends uncomfortable. While several topics were discussed, the most relevant to today's topic is that he would single out and discuss SMPRonpa by name.

This would lead to a wave of harassment and threats towards its teenage author, who was not expecting this to happen. They would follow their promise to delete the fanfic if someone mentioned being uncomfortable, and the fanfic was gone. In 2021 they would return to make this comment about the harassment they faced. (TW: mentions of death threats and suicidal thoughts)

The "serious stream" would also lead to the creation of the blog smp-boundaries which is now somewhat infamous for being outdated and sometimes including unsourced and misleading information, but was weaponized in many a fan discourse argument.

Lost to Time

And for 3 years, it was gone. Completely lost to time, with only snippets transcribed from screenshots that floated around what remained of SMPtwt and the controversy left to prove it ever existed. And a lot of people thought, given it was published on Wattpad (which makes it significantly difficult to download works) and the timeframe, that it would never resurface.

A lot of people would search. It became sort of the white whale of lost media related to MCYT - everyone wanted to read it, out of morbid curiosity or genuine interest.

It's probably also worth noting that in 2021, CallMeCarson would be exposed for sexual misconduct with fans and completely disavowed by his former friends and co-workers. Some of these friends and co-workers would also speak about their own experiences with Carson, with Schlatt saying he had lied to him about seeking therapy when Schlatt just wanted to see him improve, and his former roommate Noah Hugbox recounting Carson's rude treatment of him and their other two roommates Cscoop and Traves in an interview (something that would be corroborated in Schlatt's video, where he mentions hearing horror stories from Carson's roommates).

Years went past, and the fic continued to remain lost, but it became sort of an urban legend, a warning fans would tell each other. During the height of Among Us and Squid Game's popularity, you'd hear people mention SMPRonpa as a "what not to do".

Additionally, with no way to verify the fic's content, rumors would spread making it out to be a lot worse than it is. While SMPRonpa, in actuality, was a violent (but not notably graphic) fanfiction based on a video game, with time it became this boogeyman of a fic to avoid becoming the next iteration of, a gory mess about killing content creators and their families in real life. (Note: No content creator families are involved in SMPRonpa at all, besides one very short flashback with no violence.)

The Triumphant Return

On January 5, 2024 - ironically, the same day 3 years ago that CallMeCarson would be exposed - I was sent a copy of SMPRonpa by an anonymous individual. A full copy.

I knew it was real - everything lined up perfectly with the many screenshots I had collected over the years. We finally had our white whale.

And so, I published the copy, with a note asking the reader to not seek out the author, who had - on and wanted nothing to do with the fic any...

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/1bbeukt/minecraft_youtube_harassment_lost_media_and/