Nep2n
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Sep 6, 2017
Fred's always seemed a pretty opportunistic, predatory, manipulative, and overly paranoid guy. The face he puts on in public with podcasts and Let's Endures stands in direct opposition to his demeanor when he decides to slide into your DMs about something you may or may not have said, or when you've had the interesting experience of being in a call with him. Doing streams in the midst of all this, banning people for talking about it from chat, and not addressing it is also a direct about-face to his moral high ground of, "we're always so transparent," and anyone unfazed by that action alone (not to mention the content of the leaks themselves) is merely deluding themselves at this point.
And to a degree, I can understand that. The SoK community is a place to "be a part of something," with a side bonus of laughing at a failing-at-life manchild riding his entire life into a smoldering crater. In a way, a lot of that community is there not only for the chance at chatting with like-minded people, but also to point and laugh at someone they likely see themselves as better than. Even I can cop to some of that. That environment also leads to a lot of members who can be easily manipulated, and I think the content of the leaks speaks directly to how someone like Fred could thrive there, using those people until they are of no use, then blackballing them out the moment they become disruptive or are no longer useful.
The bottom line is that Fred knows how to play the game, but at the same time, if you go behind enough peoples' backs to do them dirty, eventually it's going to come back around. Fred isn't banking on the small number of folks such as myself who see this as a reason to completely disassociate from the group and find better uses of our time. He's banking on the 800 others that attend their streams. The ones that won't hear this stuff if he sees fit to try and keep it shoved under the rug. When everyone around you is expendable and you've got a decent enough following, you can keep yourself in business for a while. That really appears to be his mentality now.
I guess all I can really say in the end is that while it's taken time, the things present in the leaks, various community members accounts of toxicity in the community, and the way it's being handled on various social media and Discord/Skype channels is something that's slowly spread throughout the SoK community over time. It's not a sentiment you hear a lot of people talking about openly right now, but it feels like the floodgates may be letting more out than Fred's going to be comfortable with trying to keep cleaned up. He's only going to get more and more paranoid from here, and anyone in that community, be it the inner-circle or outer fringe, is gonna be clamped down on quite a bit more. Not likely by Fred himself, but moreso the lackeys we've seen over the last few days.
Of course, you can take all this as you will. I've no interest in throwing my identity out there because I don't really want to deal with this kind of stuff any more, including lackey DMs I'll probably still see at some point. I've been tired for a while, and this seemed an appropriate place for me to put my feelings on my own dealings with that community out there for my own peace and to say, "You're are on the right track."
Delete this if you feel the need. I feel better at least.
And to a degree, I can understand that. The SoK community is a place to "be a part of something," with a side bonus of laughing at a failing-at-life manchild riding his entire life into a smoldering crater. In a way, a lot of that community is there not only for the chance at chatting with like-minded people, but also to point and laugh at someone they likely see themselves as better than. Even I can cop to some of that. That environment also leads to a lot of members who can be easily manipulated, and I think the content of the leaks speaks directly to how someone like Fred could thrive there, using those people until they are of no use, then blackballing them out the moment they become disruptive or are no longer useful.
The bottom line is that Fred knows how to play the game, but at the same time, if you go behind enough peoples' backs to do them dirty, eventually it's going to come back around. Fred isn't banking on the small number of folks such as myself who see this as a reason to completely disassociate from the group and find better uses of our time. He's banking on the 800 others that attend their streams. The ones that won't hear this stuff if he sees fit to try and keep it shoved under the rug. When everyone around you is expendable and you've got a decent enough following, you can keep yourself in business for a while. That really appears to be his mentality now.
I guess all I can really say in the end is that while it's taken time, the things present in the leaks, various community members accounts of toxicity in the community, and the way it's being handled on various social media and Discord/Skype channels is something that's slowly spread throughout the SoK community over time. It's not a sentiment you hear a lot of people talking about openly right now, but it feels like the floodgates may be letting more out than Fred's going to be comfortable with trying to keep cleaned up. He's only going to get more and more paranoid from here, and anyone in that community, be it the inner-circle or outer fringe, is gonna be clamped down on quite a bit more. Not likely by Fred himself, but moreso the lackeys we've seen over the last few days.
Of course, you can take all this as you will. I've no interest in throwing my identity out there because I don't really want to deal with this kind of stuff any more, including lackey DMs I'll probably still see at some point. I've been tired for a while, and this seemed an appropriate place for me to put my feelings on my own dealings with that community out there for my own peace and to say, "You're are on the right track."
Delete this if you feel the need. I feel better at least.
