Great as always and I'm sure the LARP community appreciates it.
I quit Facebook some time ago and left Instagram a few weeks ago and put simply, I'm happier for it. I had this fear that I'd miss out on something that didn't happen.
In fact, it's good to get away from the endless stream of bullshit fed to me by an algorithm designed to either force me to engage or make me feel bad because my life isn't some idyllic dream. It's full of anxiety, imperfections and that's what life is, along with the special moments that combine to define us.
One other small note - do you think the people like Dobbyn who say neo-Marxism ever read Das Kapital or have a shred of knowledge regarding what Marxism-Leninism actually is? They'd be surprised to learn about what genuine social democracy is and the problems that neoliberalism is causing and the fact that neo-Marxism today is mostly a buzzword to get people going more than anything else.
Yet again, another good read. Thanks David. Interestingly I also recently deactivated all my social media accounts - something which I never thought I would do. I had reached a point where I could no longer deal with the utter rubbish spewing from various friends and "news" outlets. How had my life taken a path where I would spend all my spare moments scrolling through (largely) advertising, covid misinformation and the odd photograph of a friend doing something enjoyable in their weekend. I realised I was wasting my life so I switched off. And three days later I am a lighter, happier person. I read a book if I am after some downtime and if I want to catch up with a friend and hear what they have been up to I contact them directly! I feel ridiculous as I write this, how I got so sucked into the social media hole and marinated there for so many years.
This shit is so fucking exhausting. Just the constant stream of it. It never ends. Too much information. Too much controversy. Just... Too much.
The constant dueling of opinions, competing angles to a story, "facts" at odds with each other.
It's so hard to know what to believe these days. Webworm has become one of my safe spots online. There are a select few creators who I can "trust" with my time. People who provide clarity and manage to condense the madness in to palatable formats, whether it's a video, or an article, or a podcast.
Kudos for the apology. Further proof that you’re the bee’s knees. It’s not easy admitting when you’re wrong or when you’ve done wrong.
I’ve walked away from social media. I still have my accounts, but I login maybe once a month to check to see if I have any messages.
I decided to do so because I noticed every time I was on social media, I felt low and I was comparing myself to others in a negative light. I looked through my old posts from and didn’t like what I saw. A lot of my posts were made to seem like my life was better than others.
Very toxic and it’s not how I feel normally.
So I deleted a bunch of snarky posts from social media and deleted the apps from my phone. It took a couple of weeks in which I felt kind of lonely, and then I got over it. Now I don’t have the FOMO or anxiety that I used to have. I do this thing called text messaging to keep up to date with friends instead of relying on social media to tell me what they’re up to. To keep up to date on events happening around me, I subscribe to newsletters from organizations that I follow.
If anyone is thinking of leaving social media, do it. You’ll have a weird withdrawal period, like one does with any addiction, but you’ll feel so much mellower in the long run and your relationships will improve.
You’re so refreshing with your humility and willingness to apologise. AND you collect figures!! You just keep getting better and better :)
You have such a varied and neurodivergent fan base, i really wish other online platforms felt as awesome as webworm. And now I’m going to have to actively figure out how to get into the Dungeons and Dragons world because it sounds like somewhere I may in fact belong.
Thanks for owning it DF and yes, like you, I was VERY happy to see DD's follow up email about getting vaxed and supporting it for all! I also saw a pic of Tame Iti doing the same - and if anyone has reason to mistrust government processes, he does. And there he was, getting jabbed. In among all the constant drivel of shite there are little pearls of hope - which keeps me sane I think. And also a FB user. I pick and choose what I click on now, being very aware of the click bait algorithms in action, and anything I DON'T like I query and block. It is changing my newsfeed, slowly but surely. I am not sure if that is why but it is good. PS: I totally like you to bits and I don't like people who send you shit emails like that. YGG.
Thank you for writing this piece, David. It takes a person of integrity to admit they’re wrong, and to genuinely apologize for the harm they’ve done with their words. You’ve done this eloquently and with empathy.
And you’re right about social media being a cesspool. I’ve considered deleting everything, but I’ve made some great friends on it. To me, walking away from social media would be like abandoning them. Instead, I’ve turned off my notifications and that’s helped a great deal.
Thank you for your humility and your willingness to listen, and learn, and make good. I wasn't one of the affected communities this time and so my alarm bells didn't ring - which is a thing for myself to reflect on in light of the responses you got. Thank you for sharing and publishing them.
Your integrity shows through here in the best way - you screwed up in an emotive post, you listened to what people had to say, you publicly uplifted their voices and apologised unreservedly. Thank you. It means to me that when things inevitably go wrong, you're a safe person to pull up and speak to honestly, that's precious.
Thank you David. Thank you for being receptive to reasonable ideas and other perspectives to the point that you've allowed them to inform your own perspective. That's a rare thing in general and even rarer given what a cesspool social media has become. I'm constantly disappointed by the fact that we punish people so severely for making a mistake, that so few people (particularly public figures) will ever face up to being wrong about something. It's always about doubling down and spinning something to make it look like you meant to do it; so I suppose it's no wonder that misinformation is so rampant.
There are a lot of folks in the NZ LARPing community and in adjacent communities (including tabletop roleplaying games and improv enthusiasts) who have been very appreciative to read this (though they're not webworm subscribers so they can't say as much here). Like every hobby that exists, what we do is a little weird from the outside. But we're all just looking for a little bit of escapism, good company, to feel safe, to feel valued and to find a creative outlet to give our lives some extra joy and colour. Things that we can be passionate about to take our minds off of the hardships of trying to make it through what are ultimately, some pretty tough times.
When events of the world take terrifying turns, we turn to our friends, to our family and to the communities that we have built to reassure us and to get us through. Although nothing makes me angrier than hearing harmful conspiracy theories parroted around, I also feel deeply sorry for all the lonely and isolated people that haven't found themselves with adequate support structures to provide them with the reassurance they need to not be sucked in by misinformation.
I deactivated my Facebook account for a week very recently. I enjoyed the clarity for a bit but found myself evaluating what I got out of Facebook and getting really angry.
This is my second attempt at a Facebook. I deleted my original one a few years ago and happily lived life as a Facebook-less pariah for a year. The thing I hated most was that I constantly had to tell people that I wasn't on Facebook which seemed self-important and twattish but was really to let them know I couldn't communicate on there (my kids' kindy communicated exclusively via Facebook group for example).
I started a new Facebook when I moved to a region where I knew no one. I was ruthless in how I curated it. No news sites, no vague acquaintances, I don't "like" a single page, I figured out a way to manipulate the algorithm and completely avoid ads (not a single one). My feed is groups that contribute positively to my life and people I know.
It was the people I know who were the problem. Friends and family that I love irl but were increasingly affecting my mental health by subjecting me to information I know to be false and driven by bad actors. It was also crushingly clear that they were expressly or implicitly ignoring the voices of people like me who are immunocompromised and willing to sacrifice us for their individual "freedom".
How dare the people I actually know take the space I go to connect with people I don't know with the same niche interests, neurodiversity, and health issues as me away from me! These spaces are incredibly important to me and have made my life infinitely richer. So I came back to Facebook and I deleted, or hid absolutely anyone who upset me. If it's "just Facebook" as they always cry when I push back at hurtful things they post surely they won't mind right? Right? 😕
In my experience, LARPers are a pretty wholesome group of folks. It was a nice peice on them.
As an American, I've spent my whole life hearing, "Give me liberty or give me death", "A man who trades liberty for safety deserves neither", "Don't tread on me", etc. And perhaps it comes from having a US-centric viewpoint, but it's surprising to me to hear that other places have people putting Freedom on a pedestal in that same way, defining it as "I should be able to do anything I want, without any inconvenience, reflection, or personal responsibility" (note, I am not against freedom, I just think it's being used as a buzzword platitude to incense the right. Whatever happened to, "With great power comes great responsibility?" Freedom is a kind of power. These people want freedom absent any responsibility.)
That always felt like a deeply American way of thinking. And of course, many of the people who have taken up that position with regards to masks and vaccines have no problem trying to restrict the freedoms of those whose lifestyles they disagree with.
If it is any comfort to LARPers, when I read the original piece I took it as a way of describing the fantasy role play element of the *cough* court alone and not reflecting the lunacy of the anti-vaxxers back on to LARPers. I know a couple of LARPers and they are really lovely people. We all do things which help us escape the hamster wheel and find meaning, LARP is no different.
This is a really great piece. Thanks David for being so honest! I’ve been kind of out of the loop with Webworm so it’s nice to get caught up.
I had the impulse a few weeks ago to deactivate my Facebook (with the exception of messenger) for a week which was a good call. Too much bs as I scrolled through my feed and from people I consider intelligent which is frustrating to say the least. I’m glad I deactivated it, even just for a short time since I reactivated my account it for school related reasons.
Also, LARPing sounds like a really cool hobby and something I wish I’d gotten into earlier in my youth! I was allowed to do theatre but not LARPing given its association with D&D which was prohibited in my conservative evangelical Christian household growing up. It sounds like so much fun though, especially from this person’s perspective. World-building is such a cool concept - better yet when you can imagine your own worlds in a likeminded and safe community. I feel as though the vision of building a better world for everyone gets hazier as more misinformation is spread. Isn’t this what we all want for each other?
I liked you and now I like you more 🤗
Great as always and I'm sure the LARP community appreciates it.
I quit Facebook some time ago and left Instagram a few weeks ago and put simply, I'm happier for it. I had this fear that I'd miss out on something that didn't happen.
In fact, it's good to get away from the endless stream of bullshit fed to me by an algorithm designed to either force me to engage or make me feel bad because my life isn't some idyllic dream. It's full of anxiety, imperfections and that's what life is, along with the special moments that combine to define us.
One other small note - do you think the people like Dobbyn who say neo-Marxism ever read Das Kapital or have a shred of knowledge regarding what Marxism-Leninism actually is? They'd be surprised to learn about what genuine social democracy is and the problems that neoliberalism is causing and the fact that neo-Marxism today is mostly a buzzword to get people going more than anything else.
5:43am rant while lying in bed waking up done :D
Yet again, another good read. Thanks David. Interestingly I also recently deactivated all my social media accounts - something which I never thought I would do. I had reached a point where I could no longer deal with the utter rubbish spewing from various friends and "news" outlets. How had my life taken a path where I would spend all my spare moments scrolling through (largely) advertising, covid misinformation and the odd photograph of a friend doing something enjoyable in their weekend. I realised I was wasting my life so I switched off. And three days later I am a lighter, happier person. I read a book if I am after some downtime and if I want to catch up with a friend and hear what they have been up to I contact them directly! I feel ridiculous as I write this, how I got so sucked into the social media hole and marinated there for so many years.
We liked you and we still like you
Once again. Thanks David.
This shit is so fucking exhausting. Just the constant stream of it. It never ends. Too much information. Too much controversy. Just... Too much.
The constant dueling of opinions, competing angles to a story, "facts" at odds with each other.
It's so hard to know what to believe these days. Webworm has become one of my safe spots online. There are a select few creators who I can "trust" with my time. People who provide clarity and manage to condense the madness in to palatable formats, whether it's a video, or an article, or a podcast.
The work you do helps.
So, once again. Thanks David.
Kia kaha.
Kudos for the apology. Further proof that you’re the bee’s knees. It’s not easy admitting when you’re wrong or when you’ve done wrong.
I’ve walked away from social media. I still have my accounts, but I login maybe once a month to check to see if I have any messages.
I decided to do so because I noticed every time I was on social media, I felt low and I was comparing myself to others in a negative light. I looked through my old posts from and didn’t like what I saw. A lot of my posts were made to seem like my life was better than others.
Very toxic and it’s not how I feel normally.
So I deleted a bunch of snarky posts from social media and deleted the apps from my phone. It took a couple of weeks in which I felt kind of lonely, and then I got over it. Now I don’t have the FOMO or anxiety that I used to have. I do this thing called text messaging to keep up to date with friends instead of relying on social media to tell me what they’re up to. To keep up to date on events happening around me, I subscribe to newsletters from organizations that I follow.
If anyone is thinking of leaving social media, do it. You’ll have a weird withdrawal period, like one does with any addiction, but you’ll feel so much mellower in the long run and your relationships will improve.
You’re so refreshing with your humility and willingness to apologise. AND you collect figures!! You just keep getting better and better :)
You have such a varied and neurodivergent fan base, i really wish other online platforms felt as awesome as webworm. And now I’m going to have to actively figure out how to get into the Dungeons and Dragons world because it sounds like somewhere I may in fact belong.
Thanks for owning it DF and yes, like you, I was VERY happy to see DD's follow up email about getting vaxed and supporting it for all! I also saw a pic of Tame Iti doing the same - and if anyone has reason to mistrust government processes, he does. And there he was, getting jabbed. In among all the constant drivel of shite there are little pearls of hope - which keeps me sane I think. And also a FB user. I pick and choose what I click on now, being very aware of the click bait algorithms in action, and anything I DON'T like I query and block. It is changing my newsfeed, slowly but surely. I am not sure if that is why but it is good. PS: I totally like you to bits and I don't like people who send you shit emails like that. YGG.
Thank you for writing this piece, David. It takes a person of integrity to admit they’re wrong, and to genuinely apologize for the harm they’ve done with their words. You’ve done this eloquently and with empathy.
And you’re right about social media being a cesspool. I’ve considered deleting everything, but I’ve made some great friends on it. To me, walking away from social media would be like abandoning them. Instead, I’ve turned off my notifications and that’s helped a great deal.
Thank you for your humility and your willingness to listen, and learn, and make good. I wasn't one of the affected communities this time and so my alarm bells didn't ring - which is a thing for myself to reflect on in light of the responses you got. Thank you for sharing and publishing them.
Your integrity shows through here in the best way - you screwed up in an emotive post, you listened to what people had to say, you publicly uplifted their voices and apologised unreservedly. Thank you. It means to me that when things inevitably go wrong, you're a safe person to pull up and speak to honestly, that's precious.
Thank you David. Thank you for being receptive to reasonable ideas and other perspectives to the point that you've allowed them to inform your own perspective. That's a rare thing in general and even rarer given what a cesspool social media has become. I'm constantly disappointed by the fact that we punish people so severely for making a mistake, that so few people (particularly public figures) will ever face up to being wrong about something. It's always about doubling down and spinning something to make it look like you meant to do it; so I suppose it's no wonder that misinformation is so rampant.
There are a lot of folks in the NZ LARPing community and in adjacent communities (including tabletop roleplaying games and improv enthusiasts) who have been very appreciative to read this (though they're not webworm subscribers so they can't say as much here). Like every hobby that exists, what we do is a little weird from the outside. But we're all just looking for a little bit of escapism, good company, to feel safe, to feel valued and to find a creative outlet to give our lives some extra joy and colour. Things that we can be passionate about to take our minds off of the hardships of trying to make it through what are ultimately, some pretty tough times.
When events of the world take terrifying turns, we turn to our friends, to our family and to the communities that we have built to reassure us and to get us through. Although nothing makes me angrier than hearing harmful conspiracy theories parroted around, I also feel deeply sorry for all the lonely and isolated people that haven't found themselves with adequate support structures to provide them with the reassurance they need to not be sucked in by misinformation.
I deactivated my Facebook account for a week very recently. I enjoyed the clarity for a bit but found myself evaluating what I got out of Facebook and getting really angry.
This is my second attempt at a Facebook. I deleted my original one a few years ago and happily lived life as a Facebook-less pariah for a year. The thing I hated most was that I constantly had to tell people that I wasn't on Facebook which seemed self-important and twattish but was really to let them know I couldn't communicate on there (my kids' kindy communicated exclusively via Facebook group for example).
I started a new Facebook when I moved to a region where I knew no one. I was ruthless in how I curated it. No news sites, no vague acquaintances, I don't "like" a single page, I figured out a way to manipulate the algorithm and completely avoid ads (not a single one). My feed is groups that contribute positively to my life and people I know.
It was the people I know who were the problem. Friends and family that I love irl but were increasingly affecting my mental health by subjecting me to information I know to be false and driven by bad actors. It was also crushingly clear that they were expressly or implicitly ignoring the voices of people like me who are immunocompromised and willing to sacrifice us for their individual "freedom".
How dare the people I actually know take the space I go to connect with people I don't know with the same niche interests, neurodiversity, and health issues as me away from me! These spaces are incredibly important to me and have made my life infinitely richer. So I came back to Facebook and I deleted, or hid absolutely anyone who upset me. If it's "just Facebook" as they always cry when I push back at hurtful things they post surely they won't mind right? Right? 😕
In my experience, LARPers are a pretty wholesome group of folks. It was a nice peice on them.
As an American, I've spent my whole life hearing, "Give me liberty or give me death", "A man who trades liberty for safety deserves neither", "Don't tread on me", etc. And perhaps it comes from having a US-centric viewpoint, but it's surprising to me to hear that other places have people putting Freedom on a pedestal in that same way, defining it as "I should be able to do anything I want, without any inconvenience, reflection, or personal responsibility" (note, I am not against freedom, I just think it's being used as a buzzword platitude to incense the right. Whatever happened to, "With great power comes great responsibility?" Freedom is a kind of power. These people want freedom absent any responsibility.)
That always felt like a deeply American way of thinking. And of course, many of the people who have taken up that position with regards to masks and vaccines have no problem trying to restrict the freedoms of those whose lifestyles they disagree with.
So it goes.
If it is any comfort to LARPers, when I read the original piece I took it as a way of describing the fantasy role play element of the *cough* court alone and not reflecting the lunacy of the anti-vaxxers back on to LARPers. I know a couple of LARPers and they are really lovely people. We all do things which help us escape the hamster wheel and find meaning, LARP is no different.
that shit the Williams family have gone through is so fucked. Todd would be so fucking angry. people suck.
This is a really great piece. Thanks David for being so honest! I’ve been kind of out of the loop with Webworm so it’s nice to get caught up.
I had the impulse a few weeks ago to deactivate my Facebook (with the exception of messenger) for a week which was a good call. Too much bs as I scrolled through my feed and from people I consider intelligent which is frustrating to say the least. I’m glad I deactivated it, even just for a short time since I reactivated my account it for school related reasons.
Also, LARPing sounds like a really cool hobby and something I wish I’d gotten into earlier in my youth! I was allowed to do theatre but not LARPing given its association with D&D which was prohibited in my conservative evangelical Christian household growing up. It sounds like so much fun though, especially from this person’s perspective. World-building is such a cool concept - better yet when you can imagine your own worlds in a likeminded and safe community. I feel as though the vision of building a better world for everyone gets hazier as more misinformation is spread. Isn’t this what we all want for each other?