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Chatterbox: Down to Earth
This is in
This is in response to a couple of threads I've been following:
The CB was different in multiple ways, and I think it's mostly changed because of Crowd Sorcery.
Firstly, new people came in far more slowly. I can't remember what the rate was, but I do remember that it was far slower than the current rate. A big part of this has to do with how the CB is advertised in Cricket- after a couple intial months of large banners with announcements, the CB address and a small description was put in the lower left hand corner of the letters pages. Chatterbox quotes did not have a separate column, that was only for lines from the letters and the occasional email. I think this is the main source of change - a ton of people came on to the CB for Crowd Sorcery, and now that it's more obviously displayed, more people take more notice and thus more new people come to the CB. These readers seem to be younger.
The old CB: there were less people and the average age was higher. There were far less recently active threads because of this. RP posts tended to be wayyyy longer - I know that my average post on the Dragon RP was about 1,000 words and that several of mine clocked in at over 2,000. In general, time between replies were longer, and alter egos did not exist outside of a couple SIs. (There are a couple notable exceptions to this, but those were actually fully formed alter egos writing as different people). We knew each other better as a result of smaller numbers, and it was easier to keep track of each other because new people arrived less frequently. Random things were far less common, and when they were, they were confined to threads (perhaps mentioned outside of them, but they didn't spill over). There was stuff like the Jelly Bean Debate (which I know very little about) and the Great Lemming War (which I gracefully surrendered) but all in all, it was a lot calmer. I hesitate to use the word mature because I feel that it doesn't have the correct connotations, but I've done four hours of chem hw today and my brain is failing me. The old CB felt more mature- there was a structure in there, somewhere, even if some of us did sometimes leave the capslock on and held the exclamation point key down more than was necessary, not everything was covered in it. I think we read all of the current active threads, even if we didn't participate in them. We were more careful in how we interacted with each other.
The new CB is a lot more active and a lot harder to keep track of, espcially if - like me - you're just checking in a couple times a week and not being very active. I really don't know that many of you, and I find it hard to keep track of who you are and assign a concrete identity to you in my mind. So many of you have joined so quickly.
And: I do miss the old CB. I miss the people, I miss the Dragon RP and I miss how integral SC was to my identity. I miss knowing exactly who everyone was. I miss a couple specific people a lot even though there are several that I've been able to keep in contact with. I miss Tiffany W. and Red, I miss TNO dropping words like "saccharine", I miss that one Hunger Games RP where my character lasted until the very end and was stabbed in an undramatic fashion. I miss people whose names I've forgotten.
But missing something does not mean I want it back.
13 year old me is not the same as 16 year old me- I am not the same person I was as an eighth grader. I do not have the same interests. I am not who I thought I was when I joined the CB - I've learned a lot of things about myself.
The old CB is not the new CB. The Chatterbox is you- it is what you do and what you say, it is how you interact with your fellow CBers. It is your writing; it is your creativity; it is your opinions on the newest book series and your favorite type of dragon. Yes, quite a few of us old CBers do come on, but a lot of us have moved on to other places and/or are no longer participating in the same way we used to. The Warrior Era before me passed, and so, I think, our time has passed too. Don't try to be us: you are your own crowd, with your own thinking and your own personalities. If you would like to go easy on the caps and exclamation points and randomness, that's fine.
The Chatterbox is what you make it; one way is not better than another.
submitted by SC
(February 19, 2015 - 11:30 pm)
(February 19, 2015 - 11:30 pm)
@katia: Everything you said about recreating the old CB and especially about making newcomers feel bad (and lol I actually did have Invisible in mind, and I remember liking that)
@CayketheCook: I actually figured out that it was you :)
@Red: Good to see you. And yeah, that's how you know it's SC: 800 word block of text.
(February 20, 2015 - 11:23 pm)
@SC: What a wonderful post. I agree, but I think with effort we can bring back the old CB. Not all of it, but a lot.
@Red: I saw this very very long post, and (sadly) not many people have long posts anymore, so I scrolled down to see who it was. When I did, I gave a little jump in my seat and whispered, "Red!" I am so happy to see you again. I know you won't be here often anymore, but it's absolutely wonderful to hear from you.
(February 21, 2015 - 3:08 pm)
@Katia
I know! All the posts used to be longer. I want to post longer comments/threads, but recently it has been painful because I broke my stupid finger a couple months ago.
(February 21, 2015 - 5:22 pm)
@SC: That is sooo wierd because while I was writing that I had this really strange feeling that you already knew it was me, only I didn't remember telling you. Just to ask, how'd you know?
@Red: YOU ARE BACK!!!!!! You have NO idea how much I have wanted to meet you. I am soooo glad you dropped by!! How's Ruby? If you guys ever start another ski lodge count me in automatically!! (I must be really excited because I do not usually use so many exclamation points.) You two are literally the celebrities of the CB. People are always talking about you. People like me. You should see how many quotes by T.O.N. I put on a certain thread. =) Anyways, glad you posted! Please try to drop in now and then, we all miss you.
(February 21, 2015 - 10:05 pm)
It was the combination of shortened words and correct punctuation. You used it on some other thread later, and so I guessed.
(February 22, 2015 - 1:20 pm)
Well said., SC. I think you put to words what I've been feeling for a long time. And hi, SC! It is so good to see your face again. The same goes for you, Red.
(February 21, 2015 - 6:25 pm)
Okay. This will be a jumble of words, because they're just my thoughts.
I'm am so upset. I don't like this cb... Right now. I just wanna leave and wait until it's better.
Where are all my rps? Why are there so many people? I liked it when it was less... Crowded.
Maybe I shouldn't have joined cb. I wouldn't have to go on crying about how upset I am right now. I want to scream. I want to cry into someone's shoulder. Someone help me.
I want it to be back to normal... I don't like it. I'm not having... Fun. Cb is just not entertaining anymore... But I can't leave.
Someone, anyone, help cb. I can't stand seeing all my favorite rps go down because of some alter ego screaming into everyone's ears.
And now I sound a bit rude. Welcome to my thoughts.
All I see on cb is this: Surveys, stuff like ski-lodges, alter-egos, and a small rp or two.
What is happening? I'm so sad right now. There is so much pressure under my eyes, but I don't want a tear to fall.
Why, you may ask, am I so determined for cb to have so much rps? To be normal? To be less... Crowded? Because it was fun back then. I'm not... Enjoying this. It's not fun anymore.
I really hope the admins post this. I know is slightly rude, to... To pretty much everyone. But these are my thoughts.
And I need to get them out.
Real fast.
:'(
We're sorry you're unhappy right now, Danie, and hope you'll find the threads that are to your liking. You're free to post on the RPs, just as others are free to submit their own comments. CB will always be changing, I think.
Admin
(February 21, 2015 - 10:29 pm)
*awkwardly pats shoulder
I get it.
(February 22, 2015 - 7:29 am)
Meh. Now reading this over, I'm thinking I sound like a brat. Welcome to my thoughts.
Anywho, Admin, it's okay. I'm pretty sure I can deal with a little bit of... bleh, sometimes. My brain just likes to feel sorry for itself.
(February 22, 2015 - 1:46 pm)
I know what you mean, Danie. If you leave, do you think you could give me some way to contact you?
I think here's what we need to do:
We shouldn't copy others. That means we don't need Red/Ruby rip-off alter egos going bonkers or new ski lodges going up everywhere. If you really want to, that's fine. But everyone conforming to something many can't do well means that there isn't very much quality content. Instead we should do our best to make quality work in our OWN style. If it's loud and noisy, that's great, because it is YOU trying to do YOUR own work and not you trying to do someone else's forte.
That was probably really hard to understand. I'm basically agreeing with SC, but saying that Alter Egos and Ski Lodges are genrally not You but You Trying To Be Someone Else. So why don't You be You instead of trying to be someone else?
Still complicated. Maybe I should stop trying to explain it and just post this.
(February 22, 2015 - 3:02 pm)
Hear, hear! I remember I used to just sit and read RP after RP, I only joined a few, but it was so awesome to see how much people wrote, and the stories we made together. We're making different stories now, shorter stories, maybe stories that are harder to keep track of because of all the people, but they're still stories. The CB has changed, and there's nothing we can do about that, because we're different people in a different time. But this is still the CB and we can still make RPs and be ourselves and try to write things that we'll be proud of later, when the CB has changed yet again and we'll look back at this time as the Era Of Mulitudinous Personas. Or something like that...
For a little while when the CB was first flooded with new people, I tried to catch up with it, to write more often and write quicker, shorter replies. I stopped thinking up interesting Ages and Locations, and stopped reading and rereading my posts to make them as perfectly worded as possible. And I somehow stopped liking the CB as much because of that. Thank you for making me think about it, SC, and realize that it doesn't matter whether all the things I reply to might be on the second page, or go slower, or anything else. What matters is that we are the CB, oldies and newbies and in-betweeners all, and only we can settle our disagreements and write our words.
(February 22, 2015 - 1:39 pm)
Danie, those were my EXACT thoughts right after Everinne left!! Then, after reading all those wonderful soothing posts by everyone else, I realized we COULD start over. =)
You can join the CBIC, a group that is led by me and is trying to restore the peace of the Chatterbox. To learn more, go here:
http://www.cricketmagkids.com/chatterbox/downtoearth/node/157592
(February 23, 2015 - 11:57 am)
I still agree with SC that it doesn't necessarily need to be fixed, just more organized and more embraced.
(February 25, 2015 - 12:11 am)
This is going to be a lot of replies so it might be three miles long.
@Admins: It's great to see you guys again too! Keep up the great work.
@Ellie: Hiya, Ellie! Still playing the game of Life? I didn't know you had a sister. It's nice to see we were both remembered well. It'll be very hard for me to post but I might drop in at random times to put forth my two or three or fifteen cents. I'm glad you enjoyed this summer very much and I'm glad we could do something to make it even better for you. Here's to making good memories in the future as well!
@S.E.: Glad to see you're still alive and kicking (the bucket, that is)! I guess youi've gotten busy, huh? Well, it's a natural part of growing older. Drop in sometime if you have the chance.
@Winter: Hey, Winter! Nice to meet you. I... hahaha, I don't remember you at all. What was our conversation about? If you refresh my memory, I'll probably remember you better. It's been a long time since I've been here and I must be growing old and senile. See this foot-long white bird and deranged cackling? You whippersnappers are too hard to keep track of for me. Have you read the older ski lodge mysteries? The quality decreases as age decreases (well, duh, writing style changes and grows) but you can see some good jokes and the birth of some running gags. Go far enough back and you can see Ruby trying to write like a girl. *always has an old person voice* Celebrities, really? I know we made a large impact (like the meteor that snuffed out the dinos) but I had no idea how large. This is pretty cool. I wonder how different the place would have been if I/both of us had never come here.
Any friend of Corina's is a friend of mine. I haven't heard from her lately; how's she doing? Math gets more fun the higher you go. Ruby writes a lot of bad math jokes into what he writes, so read over some of the pages when you've graduated from high school and groan at their stupidity. Which one is Pride and Prejudice? All the old romancey classics are the same thing in my head. "Nelly, I am Heathcliff." is Wuthering Heights, right? So Pride and Prejudice is... Mr. Darcy?
@Savvy: Ah, and here's the mysterious sister! Nice to meet you! Or rather: Nice to meet you!!! *absorbs the cries of the adoring crowd like a pop star* Nah, I'm 15 not 14. All the stuff I wrote when I was 14 was pretty bad, but so is the stuff I'm writing now so who cares?
@Winter again: No biggie. I misread stuff a lot too.
@St. Owl: Ruby is coming up with, like, three thousand million puns about your name but I'm not typing them here because they make my fingers bleed in agony and we might be able to use them later.
I am the maturest. So mature. Maturity. (The fact that I'll be sixteen in less than five months is scaring me. Can I be twelve again? Life wasn't so bad as a twelve-year-old.)
Nice to meet you as well! I love seeing all these new faces. I'd ask if all those things you heard about me were good, but all you'd have to to disprove that is start reading some (any) of the old pages.
@SC: You've given me your ability to write too much! For shame!
@Katie: Yay, Katie! *highfives all around* Great seeing you again! I won't be able to post much in the future (maybe not at all) but I'll try to pop in once or twice.
@Cayke: Not back in the sense of posting often or possibly at all, but I will try to make an effort to come on. I wanted to meet you too. Meeting new people is the very best thing in the entire world, so I'm glad we've met now! Ruby is uh.... uh... uh... grumpy.... yeah. That's one way to put it. He's busy is all and somewhat more than we used to be. It's nothing big. Hmm? And you didn't have any quotes by me on that thread? I'm so sad!
@True: True! I always seem to miss you on the Chatzy. I'll try to drop in a little earlier and actually see you someday.
@Danie: Sorry to hear things aren't working out the way you wanted them to. RPs generally don't last long although there have been a few notable exceptions (the godly Dragon RP, that mess of a superhero RP). Sometimes I've been kind of annoyed about the way the CB was and I wanted to change it. And it's easy. Change doesn't fall into your lap. You have to be the change you want to see in the world. So if you want to have a lot of RPs? Let's get writing. Start as many RPs as you want. Write some really good, original characters and great storylines. Find people on the threads who are as serious as you are and agree to make a pact to sustain the RP. Do your part and encourage others to do yours. Don't punish those who cannot keep up or occasionally fall behind. It's tough to be a kid because you think nobody sees you and there's no change you can make to the world. It's awesome because we're all kids here. Everyone's got a voice and we can all be seen. There's a secret, Danie, that people don't like to tell you: You can do anything you want to if you make it happen. Wish for it, hope for it, and above all, work for it. People say, "Well, if no one else cooperates, there's nothing you can do." This is a big load of lies. Destroy it. Get rid of it. Remove it. Ruby and I have been told, time after time, "You can't do this because I don't want to help or cooperate." You know what we say? "Watch me." When you strive and toil to make things the way you want them to be, others are going to lift their heads and follow you. So don't ever give up. This website is a shifting, organic place to play and create. You're the leader of this place now, Danie. You've got the power in your hands to unleash anything you want to. So do it. Don't settle for second best. Make this place the place you want to be in and hanve fun as much as you can.
@Indigo: I'm clearly biased here, but I'm going to add to what you've said anyway.
Creativity is da bomb. Really. That's stupid sounding but it's 10 p.m. and I've been awake for 36 hours so I'm going to say whatever I please. Because you know what creativity is? It's the little piece of you that you've had the guts to put on a piece of paper. It's the truth from your perspective. You know those good RP characters you're really proud of, the poetry you love, the storylines you think are super-duper good? That's creativity in its finest form. Because creativity isn't reinventing the wheel. You can take a format that someone else has used and use it again. Another Superhero RP? Cool. Using similar characters? Not cool. Creating a game that involves a sort of elimination system but has little to do with murdering, etc.? Go right ahead. Creating a game (I'm not pointing fingers because I've seen a shocking amount of this) that is more or less a parody of T.O.N.'s ski lodge with a very, very similar format? That's not so great, especially when the author has begged you not to.
Yeah, I get it's hard to come up with original ideas. Yeah, I know it's tough to not want to copy the work of someone when you think "I can do something better just like that." But please, people, you are all very intelligent girls and boys and I think it would be absolutely amazing if you began making art and stories that were really truly yours. You've got awesome stories and ideas locked up in your head. All you need to do is set them free. Nobody's going to laugh and say it's stupid. Everyone is going to think it's really darn cool. Because you've got awesome, amazing, cool, adjectives that I could come up with if I wasn't falling asleep, ideas and trying to be someone else is not going to get you anywhere. I'm me and you're you and I dare you to come up with something new and radical that totally shocks the entire CB and takes it by force. What's it going to be? Round-robin poetry, line by line? A RR that starts at the ending and ends at the beginning? An elimination round duel where a panel of judges kick people "off the island" based on submissions (set a theme for a writing or petry piece and have everyone submit before the deadline)? It's up to you. Take the world by force and show us what you've got.
(By the way, if anyone has done those things before, sorry I've forgotten. If you want to do them and you pull them off well, you've got 100% of the credit.)
And one last thing. I don't think your Alter Egos is based off me at all. I think they're pretty funny, actually. Keep them up. But if you do want to cause something crazy or illogical like that and blame it on schizophrenia (in writing or whatever): Do me a favor and look at the blogs or writings of other people with schizophrenia first. It's not a happy disease. It's terrifying and horrible. Don't bite the hand that feeds and all, but it's not a fate that I would wish on any person ever, no matter what they did. Go ahead and use it in writing if you want to. But please, please know what you're getting into first. Try to get a sense of some of the fear and pain people with schizophrenia have to go through first. My advice for writing about any mental illness is the same: treat it with respect and understand what the people think.
@Cayke again: Your idea to restore some measure of peace is admirable but please be careful with what you're doing. I've seen a lot of the alter ego business and the general romping going on and I think it's great. Kids are having fun and being creative. That's the lifeblood of the CB. Making an environment fun for everyone is the best thing ever, but don't limit people too much. The past is the past and nothing can be ever brought back. Let's evolve the CB into something greater and better but not worry too much about restoring it to its "former glory". I think the more time passes, the better the CB gets naturally. More kids and more outlets for games, imagination, and friendship: what else could you want? So all I'm saying is treat your moderation with moderation.
(February 25, 2015 - 1:42 am)
@Red: I hardly remember it either. *old person voice* Some times, I can't remember where I put me dag-nabit walkin' stick! (BHR, if you are reading this... XD). I just went back and re-read all the Ski Lodges. Now I have Hakuna Motata (I so didn't spell that right). THANKS MEL! Google is evil. And it stalks you. BHR and I had a conversation, and apparently, Melody owns Google, and is trying to teach Lemmings to sing (You really had to be there).
I will never like Math. Bad Math jokes, huh? Well, because he wrote it, it must be funny *laughs*.
Yes! Pride and Prejudice is the one with Mr. Darcy! And Lizzy, and Jane, and Marry, and Kitty, and Lydia.
I have a question: Did Ruby used to write as Sakura C.?
@Danie: I know how you feel. Really I do. I fell the same way. Really. I miss our Chatterbox, where there was only you, Piester and Blast, Pieing Squeak. I miss just being ourselves, having a good time. I miss Snuggles. I miss the people. I would miss you. So please stay on the Chatterbox!
Fluffy says: cbvt. CB TV? Do you think we should make a TV show about the CB?
(March 5, 2015 - 9:57 am)