A letter to the community
I'll be completely honest, 10 days ago I just lost faith in
humanity. I really did. I had to take a break from the internet for
the most part. People were cancelling things for being normal and
if you know me, I genuinely am against that kind of behavior no
matter the cause. But it's 2021 and people are fueled by hate and
internet points.
I don't want to go on a big rant but it wasn't just seeing
people cancel random things, it was seeing people supporting
tyranny, censorship, things that are genuinely against people in
general. I suppose this is what happens when political leaders that
base their campaign on hate and hypocrisy ends up winning. People
aren't aware of the things they are saying and how harmful it is
for everyone. They don't realize that hating one race over the
actions of a few is racist but no, let's organize a crusade instead
because for whatever reason, that's not racist. There's a push
towards hating people or hating things that appreciate other
cultures because somehow culture appropriation is wrong but it
isn't. Only in America will it be racist for liking and finding
interest in another culture, it's a strange rationale and one I
100% disagree with.
Thinking about how people are so hateful on Twitter, Reddit
and other social media platforms makes me wonder what all of this
(Jappleng) is for. The entire purpose of Jappleng was to educate
people about Japanese "things" like language & culture and bridge
both Japanese and English communities together. But then I
see that when someone says if you're white, you're automatically a
racist or if you're wearing a kimono and are not Japanese, you're a
racist and it gets tens of thousands of upvotes while my posts
which are promoting Japanese culture get maybe one or two likes at
most, then it leaves me to question, what is it all for?
So yes, I am pretty upset about human behavior right now,
there's too many "woke" people out there acting like hypocritical
idiots and if you attempt to go against their agenda, they'll try
to cancel you and/or search engines / social media will begin to
shadowban you. It's disgusting, appalling and quite frankly I'm
tired of society acting like spoiled children.
I had to take two weeks away from it all because I just had
enough. It was depressing and I had to re-evaluate what I should be
doing with my time. I had already spent an inordinate amount of
time on this project, should I spend more? The answer through
meditation was yes. Jappleng should be a safe haven for those of us
who aren't woke. Whether social networks continue to shadowban this
project and whether or not search engines want to list it or not,
Jappleng should remain firm in its beliefs and continue fighting
for what is right in this world.
To those who think that I, or anyone here is racist, a big
F.U. to you and no matter how much you try to cancel, it will not
work because there's no investors backing it and there's no care on
whether or not it gets banned from social media from your wokeness.
This project is about love, prosperity and appreciation of Japanese
/ cultures in general. I was hoping to evolve this project to
support different cultures through different names one day but I
likely won't ever get that chance. So instead, I'll just focus on
Japan as it has been for the past 14 years.
I'll be back next week to continue work on the new design
which also fixes a ton of bugs and makes the site significantly
more enjoyable. Thank you for listening to my story.