PODCAST: Toxicity in the RWBY Fandom (Ft. Twiins iink) 

It's easy to tell the two of you apart since your sister has a grumpy cat tone to her voice which is perfect for dry humor. Critter sounds much more bouncy and light

wow allison is really quiet this episode

I enjoyed this podcast. I agreed with many of the points. And after about a year of watching both of your channels, I can honestly say that I am 99% sure this isn't just the same person having an elaborate and well written conversation with themself.

Luv ur videos i think it real cool that so many rwbytubers are trying to fix the fandom and put awareness out there.

You two made me realize that it's harder to express positives on a subject than negatives because we don't know how to elaborate on the positives of a series. It can be done, it just takes practice.

I can tell who critter is by her gremlin giggle she'll do in her videos, I love it

Heat the tea boys and girls

I honestly love your videos, they are so entertaning and the way you talk really grabs my attention

19:00 some people (trolls) actively like to cause issues like this. It IS their hobby. There are a lot of 4chan users who will intentionally join fandom forums to cause internal strife. It happened with my little pony, I'm sure it's happening here too.

5:10 It kinda sucks, but the reality is that the majority of fandoms will have a bad side, whether it might be a large or small amount of people, I feel like there will be a bad side. I feel like fans in general might have a bad side to them as well. (No I am not saying that all fans of a franchise are bad/bad people)

Interesting

Hi

You can tell how much Critter cares about someone by the level of affection in her voice when she tells them to shut up.

"You'll figure it out" "You'll figure it out" Oh no

I'm really glad you guys talked about this, every community has toxicity but RWBY seems to have such a loud group. When Twiins had to just say "Okay, no more RWBY content because people can't *not* be dicks about my opinions" I was really sad. Like I understood, and stayed to support the rest of her content, but the fact that she even had to stop talking about a show she enjoys enough to keep as her pfp made me so disappointed in the fandom

"You can't bully someone into sharing your opinion." Love that quote! Will be using it from now on!

I think a massive problem is when passion becomes an identity. I've seen fans that dedicate their entire online presence and personality to the show and CRWBY and when they hear criticism, they feel personally attacked. It reminds me of how insanely dedicated (though to a more extreme extent) Star Wars fans are.

Volume 8: Character assassinates Ironwood *Alarm goes off* Critter: What's that alarm? Twiins: It's the 'Roosterteeth did a fuckie wuckie' alarm, oh shit get down-

Awww you guys are among my faves too and yay for Nora stanning! XD Already made my thoughts relatively known in the collab vid, but I really do hope the recent discussions help shine a light how so many of us need to remember that an opinion is not worth lashing out over. Like you guys said, we all like the show in our own way otherwise we wouldn't be involved in the community, we just need to better respect each other as people, even in indifference.

I’m glad you guys and other rwby tubers are speaking out against the toxicity, because if left unchecked it can absolutely drive people away, I used to love discussing the last of us, but after 2 came out it’s been a toxic mess that I definitely had to leave for my own mental health, despite its problems I love rwby and discussing it, so hopefully we can do better

"Audacity is free." I know she was talking about the program but that's a fucking quote.

About halfway through now and this is all truth. I appreciate y'all trying to discuss this, cuz good lord it needs to be addressed. (also power to the Nora stans)

"to keep the community pure" is the weirdest cultish sounding thing i've heard in a while goddamn

They're too sensitive when it comes to criticisms or not liking their favorite ship it's that simple. Any type of criticism towards the show they take it too personal like a threat towards them. I thought the Naruto and Harry Potter fandom are toxic but this one, it takes the cake. They resolve with insulting and harassing critics or anyone that uses common sense because let's be real RWBY's writing is bad and it keeps getting worse with each volume. V7 and 8 were so bad, I ended up hating Team RWBY after 8. I'm glad they chose to release v9 next year because it will give them time to make the volume good and not rushed. Though I doubt the writing will get better if the writers haven't learned their lesson back then, they're not going to learn now.

People should learn that it is ok to like things regardless of their quality. Even if something is badly written or rushed or ill-considered it doesn't matter as long as YOU like it. In my opinion, having the ability to like something others can't is a very valuable skill. When someone points out the flaws in your favorite movie, game, or book they aren't doing it out of spite, they're just trying to be critical. Many RWBY fans take criticism very personally when they probably shouldn't. They take the show so dear to their hearts that when someone says something negative about it or criticizes it they feel like it's some kind of attack on them. You might like Sonic 06 or Rise of Skywalker, but you shouldn't get unreasonably upset when someone points out that they are flawed pieces of media. However when someone specifically makes fun of you for having a quote on quote "'shit taste"' then you have all the reason in the world to be upset.

Fantastic podcast! The only thing I want to note is the reason many fans find Ironwood's portrayal ableist. You hear critics say Ironwood losing his arm is akin to him losing his humanity because Kerry literally said that during the Volume 7 episode 11 commentary at the end of the Ironwood vs. Watts fight. From the transcript: Kerry: Ironwood now losing.. another part of his humanity. Get it? Paula: (Chuckles). Kerry: Oh man. I was.. I lost it. Miles: (Laughs).

43:00 Nora stans rise up! Also I do think videos about aspects you feel positive can be as interesting as negative ones if you're still going at it in a critical manner, analysing why you like a character so much or why a scene/moment worked so well.

For some reason there is stigma in society around caring for anything. When you show emotion about something it means you CARE about it, and that's fine! This works for both positive and negative emotions

I find it easy to tell you two apart, and you both never fail to make me laugh along with you whenever you guys do so. Also, I'm stealing "fucky-wucky" because that's comedic gold. A+ stuff!

0:14 I don't doubt that you're both beautiful, but I just think it's funny that by calling her twin sister beautiful, Critter is complimenting herself

The biggest problem for me is that most people can't separate fiction from reality. Like, I had multiple people call me a "boot-licker" just because I liked Ironwood and was justifiably saddened by the recent writing choices, and underlying (unintentional) ableist messages. And this was AFTER I outright said how Blake and Yang are my favorite ship, how I cosplayed as Yang before, and that I have a Penny sticker on my laptop. But NO. According to die-hard RWBY fans, I'm just a f*cist loving military obsessed sexist man (I'm a lesbian but ok) who's in love with a fictional character. Like, NO??? That's not how this works!!! People are allowed to like certain characters and then respectively criticize the way said character was written. This is why I left the Fandom. I used to LOVE this show and stand up to those who bashed it. But then Volume 8 happened, and dear God, I hated it. I started to slip into the HateDom, but that was incredibly toxic as well. BOTH sides of the fandom (RWDE and otherwise) are so unbearable, along with the show at this point, that I had to leave both behind. And I hate to say that to something that used to be one of my favorite shows. I'll still hardcore stan Bumblebee till the day I die, and rant about #IronwoodDeservedBetter whenever I get the chance, but honestly? It's exhausting and I think we're all better off without it. Just be respectful y'all. ✌️

On the point of fandom tribalism, Leon of Renegade Cut has done a 4 part series of videos on the DCEU movies and fandom tribalism. He mentions the critical success of Wonder Woman compared with previous DC films and how a portion of the DC fandom became increasingly defensive about said previous movies, insisting WW somehow “proved” Man of Steel was a good movie retroactively. For anyone interested.

I will say, you guys did a great job with that video you all made with the RWBYtubers. I guarantee it will make an impact on the community and for the better.

So I’m new to the RWBY community as well as both of your channels/content and I had no idea you were twin sisters until this video This whole time I thought you were just two completely different people that sound similar that were in the same community I’m laughing so hard right now 😂😂😂

Before I watched RWBY I said I wasn't interested because I was spoiled to Pyrrha's death. The response from the FNDM was to threaten and harass me for days claiming I was a monster for not watching it and that I couldn't have an opinion if I didn't watch it. Not a great way to convince people to watch the show. But eventually I did watch it and watched everything that was out at the time (Vol 4 was the newest season at the time) and said what I liked and didn't like. Then the fans spammed me with more hate and threatening messages and tried to brigade against me for criticizing anything in it. I was told to not watch it if I was going to be a hater. Don't watch it? You're a monster. Do watch it and have any criticisms? You're a monster. Don't watch it if you don't like it. You just can't win with those people.

Dang, Allison’s mic was muted the whole time.

At current time of watching critter has made about $2 💃🏻💀

It was Salem's plan all along -- to turn the fans against each other! -- *TL;DR* I'm new to the RWBY fandom. I didn't like your Volume 8 discussion at first, but I'm grateful for what you had to say. Also, thanks for warning me about the fandom plus recommending somewhere to find positive show reviews! -- Longer version: -- On a more serious note, I'm utterly new to the RWBY fandom. I finished my first view of the whole series last week-end, and the moment I finished Volume 8, I asked RU-vid what other folks were saying. RWBY was great, I loved it to bits, so what did other fans say?? -- All it showed me were the negative reviews, and each bad criticism discouraged the hell out of me. In fact, your season 8 review left the worst taste in my mouth, but that's not the point. -- I spent a couple days considering everyone's feedback: yours, hbomberguy's, a couple others. Since I'm a writer -- I'm revising my latest YA fantasy novel hoping to query literary agents one day -- negative comments mean a lot to me. They hurt, but I need them to improve my work. Bad reviews illuminate where I need to improve. In fact, a lot of the RWBY criticism suggested how I'll watch out for certain poor story decisions. -- The interesting thing is how many more of your videos since then pulled me in. After your Volume 8 review, for some reason, I wanted to hear more of what you had to say. I don't appreciate some of the things you've described. I disagree with a few of your comments here and there, except Radical Ed is the best character. But every new video and podcast episode shows how much more of a person you are than your reviews. I'm thankful for how comprehensive you are plus how much you have to say. -- On the other hand, I'm sorry to hear this is how aggressive the fandom's become. I'm not on reddit, so I'm not familiar with the discourse over there. I also haven't seen any RWBY media until this past September, when I began Volume 1. And so far, RU-vid hasn't recommended any positive reviews for the show. Thanks for the recommendations, though. I'm gonna checked out Murder of Birds later. -- Peace.

Your point about youtube money is actually super funny to me because I remember having rwby editors trying to cancel me for making money out of content that isn't mine. They all acted like I was a billionaire and I was DRAINING and STEALING money directly from Roosterteeth's company or the company owning the songs, like I was some sort of super pirate who found the tip to hack multi billions companies. Fact is, like you said, you need to reach a certain point to get the money you earned (70€ in my case), the first time I reached it was after 8 months because only 1/15 of my videos can get the monetization. And once I got this amazing reward I worked for 8 months, I need to give 50% to my government, also they added a new youtube rules taking 24% more of what I earned with youtube. So to those crying about me being a billionaire, I'm sorry for getting 18,2€ every 2 to 4 months for the content I'm making on my free time, really I mean it (no). Commissions are a different thing, still have to pay 50% to my gov so still the same \o/ This fandom just really needs to grow up and know that, yes, the person you're raging about on twitter is a human being and have feelings (in general). Also that one heated reaction about an episode and that one preference about a character or a ship is a bit more deep than just hating or blindly loving the said thing. That's what being human is, people who don't know the reasons of someone else to like or dislike something shouldn't be labeled as anything before having a discussion, an explanation, just something ? I just wish to see this fandom actually getting mature in that sense and just thinking before speaking. And people should try to discuss with their "enemy" just once or twice for a change to know what they really mean and to understand why they love or hate something. I'm personally glad I did this with someone in this fandom who was my said "enemy"and he became someone I could die for now. So I think talking is a good solution instead of just... idk... raging I guess ? As always, sorry for the grammar o/ and keep up the good work Critter & Twiins :)

(1:14:46 and 1:28:36) ok but I really feel the need to vent about this very specific topic. The book was being called ableist because it implied Neo, a adult villain who has made her main purpose in life to kill a teenager, had DID. It goes back to Joker's talk that you never see non villain characters having this mental conditions, and RWBY in particular loves this trope considering the majority of it's disability representation are villains. As of right now the Hero-Villain ratio is 1 for 6, 3 for 6 if you decide to add two eldery side characters the show is clearly disinterested in using anymore. You put it perfectly when you said that RWBY tries to tackle big topics and it's important to analyse where it falters and succeeds in its execution. I had never noticed how bad the White Fang arc got until I watched some videos about it. While I don't think RWBY has handled this heavy concepts well, I'm glad it has given us a reason to learn how to do them better.

1:32:10 Blake and Yang are now the ‘In Case of Emergency Break Glass’ ship.

Possible spoilers as this conversation happens near the end and has a Possible spoiler in it too so fair warning. If neo is selectively mute, and they are going to have her talk, it feels like they are going to try for what transformers prime did with Soundwave. Cos that was an awesome moment and made alot of fans go " ah ah! He said the thing he said in the G1 movie!". But atleast they set up that he was mute by choice early on. I feel it could work with Neo but I just don't trust the writers enough to pull it off, and it will likely be done to pull 8n viewers or increase view numbers like you guys said.

Hi you wonderful creatures!! Thanks for the video! I really like listening you two (three) when i draw.

Discussing RWBY has become as unfun and toxic as politics.

When the Karen stuff was brought up around 57 minutes in - I went exactly through that twice! First it was a lot of popular subreddits like the revenge ones, malicious compliance, and entitled people; and even tho the eventual comeuppance were cathartic, the very fact that so much awfulness was happening to people was just beginning to weigh on me, especially since some of these stories had no revenge at all. So I pulled away. Some months later I got into a channel that covered neckbeard stories and after awhile had to pull back from that too because it was beginning to fuel paranoia and anger too. I feel like there's some psychology lesson in there somewhere - how we get drawn to bombastic tales of the worst of the worst to point of wearing ourselves down by continuously seeking it out - but I'm not really sure what the explanation could be.

There's a misconception of proving people wrong... objectively things can be proven wrong... and discussions can be fruitful to understand each other despite not agreeing with each other... That being said, I feel the biggest issue with fanbases is that they are disrespectful or even shun people who can be critical about a show whether that person is correct or not.

Kadhija, a commentator I enjoy that handles difficult topics , will usually end their videos with "...and remember that you can always change your mind. Because you can." I love that quote from them because usually we are headstrong in our opinions because sometimes we equate changing our opinions to being wrong.

0:34 Already did. Twiin’s has a lower pitch to her voice. It would be indistinguishable though if Critter lowered her pitch as well.

Im still wondering if Twiins will start making RWBY videos again, I can understand 100% if she doesnt want to just something I'm curious about.

1:08:36 Uzaki Khan, the legendary reactor. He got so exited when Ace was releveled to be Rodger's son his door fell on him.

1:15:00 nah it was legit. Straight up quote from the Volume 7 commentary was that you're meant to read Ironwood sacrificing his arm as him losing his humanity.

You guys make me chuckle sometimes 😂

I mean the fandom is exactly like the show... It could be better, but they both write off all criticism as toxic. Can you almost blame the team for that?

"You're allowed to be human" *Sighs in penny*

Personally, I've kinda gave up on the show, the writing really just couldn't be keep it together for me and the fandom was just super questionable with their behavior. But I do watch Critter and Twiins, since I just enjoy their content a lot. But this is A1, day 1, good shit! It was so cool to see the RWBYTubers come together and speak on the topic, and I'm glad their was a sense of direction established for the fandom to follow. Now, whether people within the fandom be a decent person or not, is up to them of course. But hey, at least it picks out the rotten eggs from the carton, much easier! Great stuff all around, keep up the great content!

The only difference I can hear between them is the mic quality

How is the brony fandom going to have less fighting then the rwby fandom

keep in mind, rwby's fandom used to be one of the most inclusive in the v1-v3 days

Fair point, at least Birds won't pull a Hasan and leave his chair for half the video he's reacting to while leaving the webcam recording an EMPTY chair

before I found out you two were sisters I honestly thought you both were the same person lol. Didn't help that you both talk about similar stuff. I think there was probably a moment where I thought you just changed your channel name or something.

Love the whole thing you'll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar so good

You’re lying! You’re clickbaiting us! You’re toxic! You’re opinions are wrong! “You keep saying that word, I don’t think it means what you think it means-“

The thing about RWBY volume8, and why it's the worst, is because the company showed that they DON'T CARE. It's not that they are incapable, it's that they don't care to do better. During volume 4 and 5, there were excuses, the hop in animation engine, or they don't know how to portray a good character, etc. But look no further than the stupid twist in Ironwood's character. They've SHOWN how capable they are in portrayed him as one of the most successful character in the show, the reason ironwood became a stupid maniac is not because they failed, it's because they don't care about Ironwood's character, at all. They didn't think about "what would Ironwood do?", They thinking"What CAN we make Ironwood do in order to make the plot?" Same applies to killing Penny three times, there's absolutely no logic in the hecking process or her death, because they don't care about the greater story or the character themselve, they just munipulate them like puppets, and that's why volume 8 is so, bad. They don't care anymore, to them, the show is just a business project, and the fans are walking cash, that's why there's so many spin offs, and chibi, and new games right after volume 8, to make people keep putting money in.

God I havent even finished all the videos I want to watch and now I have an hour long of more content, what a nice week : >

This has nothing to do with the toxicity, you guys mention that you wish you had something so passionate to be excited about when talking about the one piece guy falling out of his chair. Not saying you guys should be excited or anything but I was watching this podcast in the kitchen and my mom hears it and she said that both of you sound like you have such genuine laughter and care about what you guys talk about. She said you two can get really happy in such topics that she started to laugh when you guys laugh even though she had no idea what you guys were talking about. So even if you guys say you wish you had something to be passionate about, I'm thankful you spread your voices and made me more passionate on topics I normally found very frustrating, in this case rwby. And yes she could tell you two apart

“We sound alike” proceeds to sound like the two different ways Monica’s Rial talks in Tanya the evil ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NRGthndABZE.html

30:51 Objectivity in critique isn't so much about being free of bias, it's about the strength of your references and adherence to set standards. I feel like if you were to come onto EFAP and discuss the subject, it'd be rather enlightening.

something oddly cute about seeing the critter spazzing out in the corner on the title card, needs to cut back on the sugar me thinks

It's shocking how cult-like the RWBY community is: - Dehumanizing anyone unlike you, who sees the world differently than you - A powerful and ignorant "us verse them" mentality born out of the previous point - Obsessive behaviour, to the point where from morning until night they think about the "show" and nothing else - A strangely self-inflicted brainwashing where their "show" is the most perfect and there are no flaws with it, even when confronted with issues most people can notice - Becoming extremely defensive about the "show", which appears to come from a deeply personal and emotional place - Using abusive tactics like the dehumanizing mentioned earlier but also encouraging others to retaliate, doxxing, character assassination, gaslightening and limiting speech to protect the "show"... ...All this...over (in my opinion) a pretty poorly animated and badly written cartoon where a young teenaged girl somehow lifts a giant scythe and slays monsters. ಠ_ಠ Does no one else see how ridiculous this is?

I put this one Twiin's video but it's worth repeating again. "I don't always agree with my twin sister" ... Twiins iink ... Twins Inc ... You hear that explosion in the background? That was the sound of my mind being blown as I realize what I thought was one youtuber I casually watch with two channels...is actually two different people.

the shippers in the fandom is hell you dont like bubblebee oh you must hate gays like it is hell seeing people say this ship must happen and then shit on another becasue of the characters

I've finally found someone who likes the great divide I am not alone any more

I love both you and Twins content, hearing the good and bad from your reviews because learning both sides is important in my eyes. But as a confession after finally starting to follow your content more it was only a few weeks ago I realized you were sisters. For over a year I couldn’t tell if one had two accounts or it was just a coincidence.

I just have stopped interacting with fandoms in general for a good while, it's just exhausting interacting with ppl in "toxic" fandoms, I just want to enjoy a thing man. I really rwby in one go when a volume ends cuz I'm a massive Monty fan. You guys have some very good opinions and really care :) great podcast

Alway appriciate when ytbrs talk about work stuff it is so insightful, despite the more awful topic. I also alway find a little dissonant the topic of your's/critter's/twiins toxicity as your channels were comfy zones to me just hear more about rwby in positive note. It helped me (well still helps) a lot on hard times and even if Im not into rwby anymore I like hearing your opinions. Sooo thank you :D and have a nice day whoever reads this, this is a curse to be upon you.

Oh my god yes how they label people with -isms to shut down discussion, thus watering down these words and doing a disservice to actual victims of them.

Not trying to imply anything, but season 8 is garbage, and if i dare to say, worse than season 5. Because 8 is straight up offensive to the watchers with its executions, with not a single care for logic, the characters, or the greater story. If season 5 showed how incapable they were, this one showed how much they don't give a damn. The plot went from boring to bad, the characters turned from insensible people who aren't fun to watch, to mindless puppets who can win the fight/ turn evil/ die at any moment with no reason. There are so many problems in writing and directing that is constantly ruining the experience, if you come to rhink of it, none of the events in the story made sense. And the worst thing yet is that they payed no respect for the show or its creator, imagine if it's Phyrra who's revived, got reunited with her friends, and then fucking lied there, begging Jaune to kill her again. The only reason penny was dead is because she's unimportant to the plot, and there's less fans, so they can kill her off once again to bring some " excitement" to the finale. Change my mind, I dare you.

your laugh are how i distinguish you both.

I personally have never come across any toxic RWBY fans before and I hope never to come across any. Hearing about it is enough for me.

Oh boy, time to crank out the popcorn.

It really does annoy me how 70% of the main sub’s posts is just fanart

1:08:45 bro just read one piece, you will become that guy. i dont mean youll become like that guy, i mean you will literally become that specific guy

I always put Ur podcasts on when I go to sleep I'll tell u this u guys are very good at making me fall asleep (compliment) 😅😂

This is a good podcast

I’ve been waiting for this ever since the Reddit went haywire

I've watched RWBY for almost 2 years at this point. I'm really appreciative that I've found a lot of people and youtubers that while accepting that the show isn't perfect and acknowledge the flaws in it, love the show, really care about it, and are open to discussion

Thank you so much for addressing this issue. I was canceled on Twitter a long time ago by the FNDM for being "toxic"... I ended up being stalked and harassed for many months. Now, I lurk in the shadows making fun of the show with others.

Two toxic fandom videos in a week? Damm.

When there's discourse about discourse, you know a community has a problem

We'll the real best character on the Bebop is the creature that lives in the refrigerator

High-key would love you guys to do a podcast on the Avatar series or the disgusting disgrace of a movie.

Time to get my food

Holy beans I didn’t expect to hear Moriah Elizabeth on this channel of all places

I love your content you've tought me so much about poor character development and general story telling thank you rwby really dose show what not to do, that a sincere compliment.

Twin voices

I love Moriah Elizabeth!🤩

This podcast sounds like a neurotic split personality disordered RWBY fan having a conversation with herself and I think that’s neat.

This episode made real the possibility of the twins actually being two women on top of es Chi other I’m a trench coat pretending to be the same person, and I can’t stop laughing about it

1:46 my favorite is Edward

Soo.. when are we going to get that Nora video?