MeatCat's Bulletins
Main post here: https://toyhou.se/39585937.art-commissions-open
This is a follow up to this post I made 4 years ago
I know I don’t use toyhouse a lot anymore, and my following has dwindled since I left the closed species community, so I’m not sure who will be around to read this, but I wanted to talk about how I’m doing almost 4 years later and how that time of my life has affected me.
I joined closed species properly during the start of the pandemic, I had just turned 18 and gotten my first job. Without going into too many personal details I was and still am pretty well off, my family has always been comfortably middle class and thus I was able to spend my money from my job as I pleased. Outside of a few bills to pay here and there it was all fun money.
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say getting into closed species at this impressionable time of my life ruined my relationship with money for a very long time. Up until mid last year I was unable to save up money at all past a few 100 dollars at a time. Though I have no “real proof of this” to me, closed species feel very similar to the predatory nature of mobile games, essentially draining my wallet by way of a thousand small cuts. There was always something new to get, something more expensive with more prestige attached to it, or even the fear I might miss out. Sometimes I would buy things just in case I wanted it later. Consistently I fell for artificial scarcity.
Spending a lot in closed species got me attention, and as someone who struggled to get that elsewhere I kept spending until I had nothing left.
After a lot of therapy and work I am in a better place. Sometimes I still struggle with this spending addiction, but it’s gotten a lot better. By no means am I blaming ANY of the closed species owners or creators for my addiction directly, it isn’t inherently their fault per say. But whether people want to believe it or not the space can be predatory especially for younger people, and I think it’s something the community should be more willing to admit. It’s something I myself as a mod of a pop species profited from too, and I feel very guilty about it to this day.
When I left I made this grand deduction to never do anything closed species related ever again outside of Mignyans, and I did end up sticking to that but mostly by accident. I did try to break my own rule and join a few closed species, though this time without spending money. However I never ended up doing anything with the slots I ended up getting, it all just felt kind of hollow. It gave me a bit of a bad taste in my mouth y’know?
I still hate closed species vent blogs btw, or any tumblr vent blogs with a passion. People become the worst versions of themselves there. Everyone wants to believe they have some moral high ground just because they also see the problems with closed species, but they never actually do anything to help the people struggling, they just make it worse. If this somehow makes it to that hell of a place, you guys have been doing this for over 4 years, do you ever get bored? Isn’t this exhausting? It was exhausting for me just reading that thing everyday….
My last little tidbit is, to the people who used to know me around that time, I’m sorry for being an asshole or immature. There were definitely some working relationships and friendships I ended on the wrong side of at the time. I was brash and more catty than was ever appropriate.
Closed species was the first time I had a lot of attention and even then it really wasn’t that much in the grand scheme of things. I really let it go to my head I think. I thought I knew better than people who I should have been listening to, my moral grand standing led me to doing manipulative and shitty things I shouldn’t have done under the guise that it was for the “greater good’. I promised to be better and until I removed myself from everything I never really actually strived to be better.
To the people I hurt you don’t have to forgive me, just know I know it was wrong of me and I’m sorry.
I have a really good group of friends now, people who check me on my bad behavior. I have learned so much from all of them and am genuinely the happiest I have ever been. Life has been on the up and up for me, I hope you all are doing the same.
For those looking to leave closed species because you feel you too might be addicted to it I really suggest pet sites as a fun alternative. I got into Flight Rising properly around the time I quit and a lot of the positive feelings around exclusivity and getting rare “characters” can be found there. The best part is that getting in game currency isn’t capped monthly and there's significantly less incentive to spend real money to speed up the process of getting the “character” you want.
For artists like me who really loved the character template closed species provided, fandom ocs are a good alternative. Iterators from Rain World were my favorite way to do it. The “rules” of iterator ocs are very similar to that of closed species so it felt very close to home. Though admittedly this one is funner if your friends are into the same thing as you and you’re all making ocs. It ends up feeling more similar to that closed species community vibe that I missed for so long.
At the end of the day if you don’t feel like closed species are negatively affecting you don’t feel bad for participating in them. Don’t feel bad for making them. There is something I deeply miss about the closed species community where I sometimes fantasize about going back to those times. I hope the space grows into a better, healthier one.
Also RIP Impims, you would have loved Kpop demon hunters idk lolol
Hi everyone, as you may have noticed I left impim staff earlier today and I’d like to talk about it a bit. Just to get it off my chest yknow. This will be super informal and just to get my thoughts on to paper so maybe it can help someone else.
Part 1: Closed species are kind of bad tbh
The short and sweet of it is I don’t want to have anything to do with closed species anymore. They are incredibly time-consuming, draining, and prey on people with spending problems. Closed species have a lot of core problems with them that I simply think will never change and I don’t really want to be a part of that anymore. I’m going to try to break down my process.
First of all, you pay for two things when you join a closed species, exclusivity and the right to partake in a community. The intensity of those needs might be different depending on what species you join but they will always be there. Because of them closed species owners are able to skyrocket the cost of adoptable and MYOs to uncomfortable degrees. Thinking about it logically, some closed species have you paying 100 dollars just for the rights to make a character in a world they made.
These splurges wouldn’t be bad on their own, even if a little ridiculous to some. The problems come with the scummy practices closed species use to make you want more. The most common way to do this is to lock traits behind a steep paywall but there's more to it than that. Most of these traits lock specific themes behind these paywalls. Most time robots or aquatic creatures. So if you have a dream “sparkle bug dog” has a fishtail, you basically forced to cough up 100s of dollars or off-brand. And off-branding comes with its own can of worms.
Off-branding is a good way to get around these horrible paywalls, making characters that are similar enough to the thing you really wanted without paying. Their also a great way to start getting off of the addiction of buying expensive closed species. Except most closed species owners will ban you for that, and publicly post your username on a blacklist. Intern this causes ostracization from groups you may be in with other members of the closed species or worse harassment. I can not think of anything more inhumane than a public closed species backlist only containing off-branders.
Lastly, I want to talk about how closed species cause spending problems. We talked about how they can cause you to spend more but not how they normalized big spending. I’m not sure how they do it specifically, but I know many who will know what I'm talking about. At first 35 dollars on an myo seemed like a lot but soon it wasn’t anymore. The 75 was a cheap adopt, despite 75 dollars being a 3-person outting at a nice restaurant. Then suddenly 200 dollars was a “normal priced adopt” despite it being 100 off from a whole gaming console. And so on and so forth. That’s not healthy, and with most people being in 4-7 closed species at a time, you have at least one auction/ myo sale per week. Meaning at least once a week you are being asked to spend possibly 200 dollars. And sadly there are people who can’t control themselves, and that's who closed species prey on.
All I can say is if you can leave. Whatever that means to you. Whether it's leaving the more expensive closed species you a part of or trying to give yourself a limit on your money, leave while you can. Because closed species aren’t going to last
Part 2: The pressure to not fail
Something I was never prepared for when I became a closed species moderator was what felt like the whole internet’s eyes on me. Some may be unaware but on tumbr there are a ton of closed species anonymous vent blogs. And that's not a bad thing, as stated above theres a lot to vent about.
For a while, impims were off their radar, they were mostly interested in germs, scarfoxes, and chows. But that changed during the telodin situation. Without going into too much detail, imia and the DeviantArt/ Instagram user telodin got into a spat of sorts that wasn’t great on either end. Personally, I wanted to stay out of it as I’m not great with “drama”.
However, during that time, kun decided to leave the server, which was totally fine. They needed a break. But the closed species vent tumblr’s didn’t like that and started to follow him to any server he was still in. Takng screenshots saying “we found you” or “look he’s still here”. All the while calling him names and wishing for his downfall.
It was horrifying.
I wasn’t even directly involved but I could feel dread anytime I posted anything anywhere. Like I was being watched. To see something like that to someone you know… it’s horrible. I couldn’t sleep or eat, I’m not sure why.
Some may say “well if you don’t like it don’t look” but i couldn’t look away. It was like someone was being burned alive in time square, and your so disgusted and scared that you could be next, but the fire keeps your eyes focused on the horrible image. And yes I do know its dramatic, but that’s how it felt.
Part 3: whats next
I figured out pretty quickly that this type of spotlight wouldn’t be healthy for me. So I decided it was time to leave. Im leaving almost all the closed species I’m in, the only one I’m staying in is mignyans because of me and Moxie’s mignyan ocs. I have very strict rules for staying though. No trading, No selling, and No buying adopts, I’ll only be buying myos as needed for my story. Nothing more nothing less.
I appreciate you all being with me and we can still be friends! We don’t need closed species to do that stuff! Though I’ll be leaving I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy my time within the community. I met all my current friends through it and I’m so happy we’re starting this new chapter together. Ty for having me!
If you have any more personal questions feel free to ask in the comments. I didn’t want this to be a drama-filled post but I will go into more detail about things if I'm directly asked!
Also if you want my discord to keep in contact its: MeatCat#1515
Goodbye, everyone! See you sometime!