Shoezarus's problems with the scratch community i remixed this so more people could listen to the truth actually listen to the whole thing there are some long pauses
credit to @shoezarus r.i.p @mrshoe written version: Scratch. Scratch never changes. Hello, everyone. As you know, I’ve criticized Scratch in the past for oversensitivity and general immaturity. But what exactly is wrong with Scratch’s community? Today, Mrshoe finds out. First, we must understand what Self-Actualization means. The psychologist Abraham Maslow wrote about it when he placed it at the top of his hierarchy of needs- he believed that humans sought first physical safety, then long-term safety, followed by the needs for love and self-esteem, and finally Self-Actualization. Self-Actualization is the desire for self-fulfillment; the need to reach one’s full potential. However, the idea is that one can never be perfect, and so one’s true potential can never be reached. The Scratch community, and many other internet communities, are ignorant to this. While I can understand Scratch being a site where young programmers can learn and socialize, I’ve found that the community has grown complacent with the limited output that Scratch offers. Many people in the community have a warped idea of self-improvement. They only seek to improve within the confines of the community- to them, the projects in the featured section are the epitome of programming, art, or animation. Budding programmers are not instilled with a desire to improve- they gain a desire to reach the level of their mentors, not knowing what opportunities lie outside the website. Their mentors, as well, were once like them, and they continue to provide faulty or trivial knowledge that makes them more popular while continuing the cycle of complacency. I do not wish to provide specific examples- out of charity- but this attitude can be seen in numerous art projects and discussions. Please, just read some Andrew Loomis. Please. See, Scratch has very limited capability. It wasn’t meant to be a serious programming language. Scratch cannot be used to make something as complicated as the average indie game without lagging intensely, because Scratch uses a lot of processing power just interpreting its snap-together logic. And that’s not even counting all the other inconvenient little things, such as the small screen size, or the fact that objects cannot actually move outside the screen. The snap-together assembly is also incredibly limiting in a logical sense, when compared to a literary programming language like Java or Python. It makes complex logic pathetically bulky and difficult to manipulate. To the average person, this makes Scratch unappealing as a programming language, but to the average Scratcher, this makes everything made with it even more amazing. They don’t want to get good at programming, they want to get good at Scratch. And while it is admittedly impressive to see an experienced programmer do something inventive with Scratch, much better results can be achieved by simply not using it. To seal this attitude of mediocrity, the Scratch team has implemented an ingenious set of Community Guidelines that Baphomet himself would approve of. The request for respect and friendliness, by itself, is a completely unobjectionable practice. It is a site for children, after all. However, the way it is enforced only discourages criticism, and further concretes the community’s negative attitude towards Self-Actualization. I understand that the same Community Guidelines also encourage constructive remarks, but what is actually does it quite different. What has happened is- quite simply- that no one has the heart to criticize one another. Likewise, no one has the heart to take any criticism. The attitude of niceness and low standards has invaded every crevice of this site, and any remark strong enough to pierce the veil is deleted with extreme prejudice. So there you have it. Scratch is not a site for budding programmers, it is a hugbox for ignorant children who don’t want to grow up. To all who are watching- Learn to improve, and I mean REALLY improve. Find what you want to do, and get the advice of experts, not tweens that only draw cats and cat-based life forms. That goes for you too, ironic memers. The “Illuminati confirmed” meme is a CIA plant. This is Mrshoe, signing out.
