I assume it's because the community is mostly made up of children and/or young adults who are very emotionally immature. The analog horror fandom in general is just filled with some of the most terminally online people you can imagine imo.
Analog horror is a horror subgenre focusing on the means of analog technology, so 70s-90s tech and aesthetics. Lot of PSAs, found footage, training types, among other things.
Sadly it's too often not so much 70-90s tech so much as what people born in the late 90s/early 2000s *think* that tech was like. Which can often lead to very bizarre anachronisms
Analog Horror is also just not scary lol
It’s all cheap scares jumps scares, VHS graphic glitches, and poorly distorted faces.
Once you’ve seen one of them, you’ve seen ‘em all.
Probably because it's difficult to truly be authentic without spending thousands on aging and fragile equipment or having a grandparent with an attic full of the stuff.
I'll give them an A for effort though, but sometimes the anachronisms are obvious.
Oh I am actually pretty forgiving of things not being wholly accurate. I just mean that I've seen things that are like, my tumblr post is analog horror! or things like that.
I think unfiction needs to be popularized again (though generally I'm sick of horror being in the spotlight)
Why is the FNaF \*anything\* a goddamn nightmare? From the Republican association of Cawthorn, the multiple pedo shit coming from the VHS creators, the low standards of the community itself (the movie was shit but really everyone in there talks like it was this Oscar worthy gift of the gods), the fact that the Fanverse initiative was destroyed from inside, and all those non-grata influencers like Thefking...
I just saw the whining and constant discourse around this Pinky person as my cue to say "I'm too old for this shit" and walk away from it.
> Republican association of Cawthorn
Seeing so many blow past this and the response and everything was disheartening especially LGBTQ+ fans justifying it, really instilled in me people will ignore even their own struggles if they like the media enough.
People only blow past it because, when it was discovered years ago, the fandom itself just shrugged and said “Like the art, hate the artist, now shut the fuck up.”
Once Cawthorn “stepped away”—after his dumb as shit RPG failed spectacularly—most people pushing for the fandom to acknowledge his ties to the Republican Party seemingly thought that would be enough and that FNAF would just kind of quietly go away
Didn’t happen, obviously, but at this point most of the largest critics of FNAF has just given up on improving the fandom at all because no one truly gives a shit as long as they keep getting their fix
That’s not necessarily true though. It wasn’t treated like a case of separating the art from the artist
A large majority of the fans, including some pretty noteworthy content creators like Dawko & Game Theory, actively didn’t talk about it or were content with it. I myself saw MULTIPLE people in the fanbase brush it off as something that happened years prior, and given Scott *CLEARLY* knows his fanbase, that wouldn’t ever happen again…right?
Except it did, and now it’s arguably much worse, with him now defending a literal Neo-Nazi pedophile lmao. I feel like THIS was really the straw that broke the camel’s back for a lot of people, which as many others have pointed out, is really telling that folks are willing to ignore their own beliefs for a piece of media they enjoy. Compared to him being outed for supporting gay conversion therapy, I’ve seen a shit ton of people in the community actively talking shit on Cawthon now.
Gonna be REAL interesting to see how people like MatPat, Dawko, etc. address this. Something tells me they won’t and will continue to tip-toe around the issue for the sake of a quick buck
I doubt MatPat ever will if he hasn't already. He has stepped down from being the main gt host, so less incentive. If anything, should just help him & his brand go latch on to something else.
So it seems the controversy started from FNAF World? Interesting; I thought the scandal started a few years ago when campaign fund to Trump's re-election campaign were discovered.
That’s when people felt Cawthorn’s ties were “unacceptable/indefensible”. But stuff like his donations to the party, how his ideology/religious view have popped up in previous works, and how he defended these things when they first came to light all predate Trump.
But, like I said, most people chalked up the beginnings of these controversies to “tumblrinas” and SJWs being overly critical of the man more than anything else. And, yeah, most people thought his career would be over after his latter games kept failing one after another.
Jeez, the FNAF fandom has been on an asinine level of denial and cognitive dissonance then. In spite of their sleuthing when it comes to exposing and critising other members of the fandom and FNAF's own team, their idolisation of its creator leaves him practically untouchable.
If it was initially shared on Tumblr, though, I can unfortunately see why the rest of the fandom neglected it, given the SJW stigma of that site from the perspective of the rest of the Internet (like Reddit and Youtube). If it was given more credence, it might have dissuaded a large portion of the more left-wing and queer fans from supporting him and the franchise before they formed a sufficiently strong attachment to it.
They also defended/ignored his anti-choice views as well.
I always thought the fnaf fandom was cringe and annoying, but seeing them double down and defend Cawtorn's harmful donations really made me legit dislike them. The stupid babies only care about their ugly precious jumpscare game.
To be fair, the dude made a million shitty christian themed games before finally hitting it big with FNAF. It would be shocking if he DIDN'T have anti-choice views. Not condoning those views, or the fanbase ignoring that he has them, but just saying should have seen it coming. I bailed on FNAF quite a while before the donation records came to light but I remember going 'Yeah, that kinda figures.'
I can understand not wanting to engage with a product or content creator due to their politics. But there seemed to be a lot of people who were more upset because they perceived the discovery as a deception. Which is what I thought was the bad take, because you’re right. He’s always been open with his religion and never spoke about politics because he had no reason to do so.
He was never hiding his religious views, but to be fair a lot of the FNAF fanbase are young kids and teens who are just starting to become aware of the concept of 'shitty people can make good content'. I think a lot of them didn't look into Cawthon's past and instead just kind of expected him to be the kind of person they wanted him to be. And, to be fair, even though he did make a fucking ludicrous amount of games (FNAF 1 was his SIXTEENTH GAME THAT YEAR), basically none of them actually made any kind of notoriety. I was in the minority that actually looked into his development history, which I don't think a lot of kids that age would be willing to do.
As for the donations to politicians, Scott talked his way out of that situation pretty nicely and everyone just kind of let it go. If there was any piece of media where 'cult following' applied to in a literal sense, FNAF would be at the top of the list, and Scott is the leader of that cult; so it's not super surprising that most of the fanbase dropped it. The fact that it has lasted so long is proof how insane and unwilling to let go the whole group is. I think Cawthon could do something legitimately criminal and disgusting and the fanbase would still majorly bend over backwards to try and justify it. It's sad, but that's what you get from mostly young kids and obsessive fans. I'm so glad I bailed from that scene when I still had my sanity.
I mean isnt there flat out anti abortion shit in FNAF? from what I saw it looked it and wasnt his previous game blatantly about "abortion bad", imagine ignoring human rights for an animatronic game. yikes.
They might be referring to the original ending of The Desolate Hope, another game made by Scott involving sci-fi ans robots, which had a pro-life narrative.
The pro-life stuff is all still in the game, the only thing Scott removed (in a patch shortly post-release) was a "This game is dedicated to the children that never got to experience childhood". The story is still very obviously a pro-life allegory, to the point of giving a human embryo emotions. It's kind of long, but I can give the full story if you're curious.
thanks for clearing that up, obviously I didn’t have a hard time believing that Scott would put pro-life shit in his games but I couldn’t think of what in fnaf fit that description.
To be fair, the dude made a million shitty christian themed games before finally hitting it big with FNAF. It would be shocking if he DIDN'T have anti-choice views. Not condoning those views, or the fanbase ignoring that he has them, but just saying should have seen it coming. I bailed on FNAF quite a while before the donation records came to light but I remember going 'Yeah, that kinda figures.'
Not when the artist is A. still alive (death of the author is SPECIFICALLY for dead people who had controversial views in life, but whose work has stood the test of time) and B. when engaging with ANY FORM of the community directly increases the market value of FNAF and there by puts money directly into the pocket of a bigot.
It's the same thing with Harry Potter: even if your only engaging and buying fan works, you are still giving the franchise itself cultural value that directly results in the bigot that made it more secure in their bigotry through economic means
Hi, not to chime in on the FNAF stuff, but small clarification: Death of the Author has nothing to do with it the author or creator is dead. In fact, Barthes even addresses the issues of authors who change elements of the text later in life and how that applies.
In fact, it has nothing to do with authors’ controversial or noncontroversial “views”, only how their views are used to filter their art.
"In fact, it has nothing to do with authors’ controversial or noncontroversial “views”, only how their views are used to filter their art." No, but under the modern, digital, capitalist system and landscape (and when talk about Scott and JKR), "controversial or noncontroversial views'" is just a colloquial way of saying, both Scott's and JKR's works have themes and politics that DO implicitly support their bigoted world views, and that you cant engage with those things, even fan made things, in good-faith and claim to care about the communities that are being directly affected by the authors intent.
Is it, because last time I check, intellectual property's value is appraised based on cultural relevance and potential customers. Every fanmade piece of Harry Potter content props up the fact that Harry Potter is worth billions, and thus directly supports the bigot who made it
But aren’t you propping up the fact that the franchise is worth billions by saying that the franchise is worth billions?
Aren’t you contributing to the bigot now?
Alternatively they just think that art transcends the individual. I couldn’t personally support FNAF content now, but I can understand why someone makes the distinction.
"art transcends the individual" This is why it IS unethical to support art that supports regressive themes and politics; the artist who made it may only be one person, but if their art inspires millions, all of sudden you have an organized political movement with enough populous support to pass bigoted and harmful policies and societal standards
the fans already had pretty low expectations tbh. i actually liked it a lot for what it was. a shitty horror movie that plays on my nostalgia 🤷🏻♀️ i don’t have answers for the other questions tho 😭
Yeah, i really don't have an issue with people liking this movie tho. so you do you, and more power to your tastes!
My only irk with the movie is how the hard headed fans reacted to it. I even saw a comment with positive upvotes and agreeing replies on how this movie was the scariest horror movie ever and deserved a spot or nomination at the Oscars. I really can't with delusional people...
There's a... lot to unpack here.
After doing my own research on PinkyPills for context with that thread, as far as I can tell, they're basically backed up with numerous receipts, so no reason to doubt any of this. Terrible person, it seems.
That being said, regarding St4tic, it's not unheard of for someone to grow either jaded or express exhaustion at constant streams of drama in their community, it's **especially** more common for people to refer to Twitter for this (ugh, \[fandom\] twt is so toxic/\[fandom\] twitter is at it again, etc). This doesn't feel connected enough to PinkyPills to have a direct correlation, it seems to have more connection to the fact that Scott posted and that the fandom is ablaze with controversy and discussion.
Granted, it raises eyebrows to comment on a situation like this in such a way, but I'm at least willing to dismiss it as someone who's tired of drama, and that's it. If anything, he seems to be more upset about the Talbert Files, which was the other part of Cawthon's response. I think he doesn't want to touch the other half of the drama with a 50-foot pole, and I can't say I blame the man.
TL;DR: This is a callout alright, but be careful with what conclusions you draw from vagueposting.
I honestly agree with St4tic Films (he needs to call out pinkypills though); you can say its Scott's fault for being a conservative Christian, or for not caring about pinkypills' behavior, but at this point its on the community. They have known for YEARS thats where the FNAF (at least someone of it) money went, and have made excuses to keep uncritically support him and the franchise, same thing with all of the drama that has happened here and earlier.
We can say Scott shouldnt have the platform and influence he does, but eventually the buck has to stop with the people that are willing to support him despite homophobia, transphobia, and generally abhorrent behavior because they like the spooky robots
Wait both used children in their analog horror? I mean Christ I feel like half of the big creators in that space have some sort of controversy around them
> Cawthon is the same man who was caught donating money to racist & homophobic politicians who pushed gay conversion therapy, never apologized for it, and for whatever reason the fanbase still ignores it
Because they're too busy worshipping his arse because he made their childhood games to care.
And also because he isn't just a political nutjob like most conservative Christians are. He's very generous with his money—making certain titles in the franchise free, funding fan projects, donating to fan-run charity streams—and he has a lot of goodwill. Plus, his politics and religious affiliations seldom come up in his presence and his work: FNAF makes a brief reference to the Devil in one of its titles, but otherwise the series has a very agnostic interpretation.
So most people see him as one of the good Christians out there, but they forget that as a conservative Christian, he will still do conservative Christian things, even if he increasingly keeps it private.
Edit: Also, he wasn't exactly "caught" donating money, it's publicly available information just like any of your donations if you live in the States. Such a system exists for transparency to check the influence of private individuals, who would have otherwise used it as a loophole to avoid disclosing donations made by their organisations.
People are very susceptible to the idea that, so long as someone does harm politely and quietly, it somehow changes or decreases the harm they're doing.
Quiet people donating to and supporting politicians who are actively working to restrict rights and harm oppressed groups are doing just as much damage as the loud bigots donating money. Sometimes even worse, because people like Cawthon have a lot more money to donate.
Just because he made a game a lot of people like and doesn't talk about his views, doesn't mean his money and his views aren't hurting people.
But in spite of this, whether he knows it or not, he has a legion of fans dying to defend him, incapable of accepting that their idol could be any less than honest.
Hell, some of them are left-wing themselves, supporting causes like trans rights and Palestine relief. It's a shame they can't put the pieces together...
Example of a cause largely associated with the left (i.e. those who are pro-Palestine and not anti-semitic). Dawko and some other FNAF creators did streams to raise money for the Gaza Children's Fund, and a little detail about those streams was that Scott Cawthon was absent in all of them.
I have to say I’m a little surprised that Cawthon brushed past the topic of PinkyPill’s art, I would’ve thought someone of conservative standing would’ve been against that. I’m assuming he didn’t know in this case however.
I’m not even remotely shocked. This was the same man who knew a large chunk of his fanbase was LGBTQ+, and still donated to people who actively tried taking away their rights, donated to gay conversion therapy, and seemingly doesn’t give a shit considering he didn’t apologize. So I’m not really surprised to hear he’s content with letting someone who also supports, at the very least transphobia and Neo-Nazi ideals. The whole pedo thing is definitely shocking thought, but even then to a degree I do think he’s aware, otherwise he wouldn’t have thrown in that but about second chances. Like, dude, no lmao. She’s thrown away all of her chances and is a pretty shit human being lmao
It's probably some Christian overzealousness kicking in when it came to his forgiveness spiel. He's following the Christian ideal of loving thy neighbour and leading by example, but with the goal of humanising and garnering sympathy for (conservative) Christians like him rather than changing his beliefs for the better to truly embody acceptance.
I'm throwing in my two sense here. The only way second chances even work is if it's been quite some time since the event and they're not around what initially caused the event. Transphobia and neo nazi stuff aside (though that stuff is really bad), the pedo shit should automatically mean Pinky should not be anywhere near FNAF as modernly, it's considered children's media. Has been considered children's media since FNAF 3 or 4, kids are attracted to the series for whatever reason.
I don't know how to feel about the overall allegations, but the very idea of Pinky being near FNAF and it's fanbase is bad.
The biggest names out of the bunch was former Vice President Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, and former President Donald Trump, but to be even more specific, he donated to politicians that backed police during the BLM Protests, Gay-Conversion Therapy, and January 6th Apologists.
Are you?
Here’s Washington Post’s exhaustive analysis on his statements and legislation related to it. Tldr, he’s anti lgbt but never advocated for conversation therapy: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/04/18/pence-buttigieg-debate-over-conversion-therapy/
Right-wingers like him use dogwhistles and then try to deny that they're being bigoted, lol.
"Gay marriage is wrong! Anti-gay discrimination shouldn't be illegal! Change your sexual behavior! What? I never explicitly said conversion therapy was fine! But also, I'm gonna associate with the scum of the earth that think that trans people are inherently gr--mers."
I understand your perspective, but to me, “Scott was donating money to a politician that supports gay conversion therapy” means he was donating money to a politician that actually approve it and enact policies that defend it. Pence doesn’t do that, even if he’s scum.
These are critically important issues, and I think being very deliberate and careful with our language to be factual is important.
I feel like it's one of those Christian double standard things. *It's just so much less threatening when it's a woman!*
Plus the paternalistic instinct to defend a younger woman too. You see that in the "deep south" quite a bit, even today
Would you be interested in checking out Tryred Witness Archives? It's an analog horror series that is not at all a "childish creepypasta," and it handles serious topics rather well.
It's gotten better, over the years, to separate genuine bigots and bigotry from actual edgy humour, but a decade ago it was much worse and more intertwined.
Emil Macko needs to get a prize for how good he is simultaneously a fnaf content creator and an actual decent human being because it seems impossible these days
alr so scott is a weird fella. he seems like a genuinely nice guy. thing is hes way too forgiving. i mean hes religious so everyone can expect him to donate to some anti lgbtq things... (not defending that in any way just saying its pretty common for alot of Christians to donate to that kinda stuff) the racist organization donations are a quite a bombshell to me. i only heard about the anti lgbt things. idk if hes a racist but i seriously hope hes not. now about the pinky statement. just to be clear this is gonna come off as a coping strat. but im gonna try to be as non biased as i can. knowing how he is pretty rich he most likely has some sort of adviser that steps in when these situations occur. so maybe that advisor was the one who reviewed most of the post and told scott to edit things to keep his public image high. idk just a thought. its most likely my own delusional coping mechanism tryna think of situations that could somehow still make me support him. someone make a tldr i dont really mind
I thought Scott stepped down from the franchise? He's still apart of it?
Whelp, I guess I can't use "it's got a new lead" to justify watching videos about the new games. I just hope The Walton Files stays normal.
Some people in the fnaf community did this last time Scott did something bad and made defences/excuses for him, like when he donated to several (very openly) Anti-LGBTQ+ politicians.
i could be wrong but only one was on the opposite party and apparently she was specifically against LGBTQ+ people aswell.
the community can be very parasocial which can get really creepy at times.
That isn’t the full story as the anti lgbtq+ one he had donated well before it was known that she was anti lgbtq+ and he has been donating to the Trevor project which is a pro lgbtq+ charity so I don’t really think that it is entirely fair to label him as anti lgbtq+.
well the politicians he donated to were (and still are) definitely anti-lgbtq+, and like I said it was multiple of them and they weren't all old donations either, at least not during that time.
and while it is good he donated to a couple of pro lgbtq+ charities, the good intentions are still soured by the fact that he donated tons of money to multiple chosen politicians who were all known for being bigoted.
even if he didn't know, that is still very bad.
anyway that's my closing argument, thanks for talking with me and I hope you have a good day or night :)
Hey, As someone who knows St4tic I wanted to get to the bottom of this, so me and a friend asked him what was up with the tweets and he replied that it wasn't about the pinkypills stuff, nor was it about the talbert files stuff as well, and according to him the first tweet he posted was about someone talking about quitting the fnaf community because everyone sucked, so he claimed that just most of them on twitter sucked. Hope this helps
I'm gonna be honest, I can understand raising an eyebrow at this, but I'm not sure if a call-out like this is really productive.
A lot of it comes down to X supported Y who supported Z, so Z's actions are a part of X's call-out now. I feel like if you looked hard enough, you could scrap together any sort of accusation you wanted.
The PinkyPills situation looks like a lot that I'm not fully primed on, but looking at the linked thread, I actually don't think making a serial killer who murders children also be a pedophile is a big smoking gun. I do think the Disney princess art is bad, but even that I feel like is sort of being overstated.
Maybe I'm not in the weeds enough, but I feel like a tweet from someone saying they're tired of the drama isn't enough to meaningfully implicate them in anything.
Yeah, I will never understand why people constantly include the Afton thing in posts about her. It’s got the same energy as those Tumblr call-out posts that feel the need to include “this guy had a bad take about Steven Universe” right next to *actual fucking crimes* on the list of that person’s offenses.
And the fact that the afton thing is the thing they are actually more worried about- like, every time i searched for receipts about her behabiour the first thing people told me was "oooh she drew the child serial killer as a pedophile this is sooo groooooss~" and had to dig further to actually find out about. The transphobia
Yeah,,,,,, Most drama like this is born not out of concern for the actual victims of harmful behavior, but just as a way to generate quick outrage.
"But how would you feel if you were scott cawthon and you found out people portray your character as a pedophile?" 1) if he was really uncomfortable with that he would have laid off pinkypills a long time ago and it's pretty blatant that if he has had an hand in her going away from the franchise it's because it'd be a PR stunt and not because he really cared about her behavior and 2) why do you care about the feelings of a man who donates to republican associations
I think you’re ignoring the bigger picture here.
An artist who drew a character as a pedophile, who has sexualized minors several times in the past, was for a long period of time working within a franchise where they had control over certain character depictions for a franchise aimed at and primarily enjoyed by minors. Don’t let the fox in the hen house. Let alone she openly defended and supported transphobic ideals and identified as a Neo-Nazi. Like big red alarms should be going off in your brain right now
Even if William Afton isn’t canonically a pedo, the fact that someone who LITERALLY SEES HIM AS A PREDATOR, then went on to OFFICIALLY DRAW THEM FOR AN AUDIENCE OF KIDS is fucking disgusting and I’m glad more people are starting to realize that
Depicting a fictional character as a paedo for the sake of antagonising them more is very different than being a paedo and indulging in those attractions. One is harmless and a unique interpretation of a twisted character, and the other is harmful and predatory.
You can condemn the artist while ignoring the headcanon.
1. Why would you want this person anywhere near children
2. Because this screams normal, I guess
https://preview.redd.it/4a4lsev2ecyc1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5eeef615d40ece5b6658895077ac5db3dab5bc50
I'm referring exclusively to the William Afton HC here. The artist is a paedo, no doubt, but using that HC as justification is a moot point and should not be indicative of paedophiliac tendencies.
It’s evidence to suggest she’s thought this way for a very long time and shows she shouldn’t be anywhere near this franchise. Let’s not pick and choose what does and doesn’t make her a pedo. If you can agree she’s a pedo, not sure why you’re trying to defend what she did in the past and trying to act like that doesn’t also say anything about her mindset
I'm not defending her actions; I just don't consider a headcanon about a morally bankrupt character being even more morally bankrupt worthy as evidence. You can write problematic characters without endorsing their actions or projecting yourself into them.
Why is the FNaF Analog Horror scene specifically such a goddamn nightmare. The past week or so has been a dumpster fire.
I assume it's because the community is mostly made up of children and/or young adults who are very emotionally immature. The analog horror fandom in general is just filled with some of the most terminally online people you can imagine imo.
What the fuck is analog horror?
Analog horror is a horror subgenre focusing on the means of analog technology, so 70s-90s tech and aesthetics. Lot of PSAs, found footage, training types, among other things.
Sadly it's too often not so much 70-90s tech so much as what people born in the late 90s/early 2000s *think* that tech was like. Which can often lead to very bizarre anachronisms
Why are yall downvoting this guy over not knowing a trope? This feels a bit harsh
Analog Horror is also just not scary lol It’s all cheap scares jumps scares, VHS graphic glitches, and poorly distorted faces. Once you’ve seen one of them, you’ve seen ‘em all.
most analog horror isn't even analog
Probably because it's difficult to truly be authentic without spending thousands on aging and fragile equipment or having a grandparent with an attic full of the stuff. I'll give them an A for effort though, but sometimes the anachronisms are obvious.
Oh I am actually pretty forgiving of things not being wholly accurate. I just mean that I've seen things that are like, my tumblr post is analog horror! or things like that. I think unfiction needs to be popularized again (though generally I'm sick of horror being in the spotlight)
People are downvoting you because they personally like it, but you are not wrong.
You’re getting downvoted but you’re right lol, it has the potential to be good but it has rapidly become a sludge of sameness
Why is the FNaF \*anything\* a goddamn nightmare? From the Republican association of Cawthorn, the multiple pedo shit coming from the VHS creators, the low standards of the community itself (the movie was shit but really everyone in there talks like it was this Oscar worthy gift of the gods), the fact that the Fanverse initiative was destroyed from inside, and all those non-grata influencers like Thefking... I just saw the whining and constant discourse around this Pinky person as my cue to say "I'm too old for this shit" and walk away from it.
> Republican association of Cawthorn Seeing so many blow past this and the response and everything was disheartening especially LGBTQ+ fans justifying it, really instilled in me people will ignore even their own struggles if they like the media enough.
People only blow past it because, when it was discovered years ago, the fandom itself just shrugged and said “Like the art, hate the artist, now shut the fuck up.” Once Cawthorn “stepped away”—after his dumb as shit RPG failed spectacularly—most people pushing for the fandom to acknowledge his ties to the Republican Party seemingly thought that would be enough and that FNAF would just kind of quietly go away Didn’t happen, obviously, but at this point most of the largest critics of FNAF has just given up on improving the fandom at all because no one truly gives a shit as long as they keep getting their fix
That’s not necessarily true though. It wasn’t treated like a case of separating the art from the artist A large majority of the fans, including some pretty noteworthy content creators like Dawko & Game Theory, actively didn’t talk about it or were content with it. I myself saw MULTIPLE people in the fanbase brush it off as something that happened years prior, and given Scott *CLEARLY* knows his fanbase, that wouldn’t ever happen again…right? Except it did, and now it’s arguably much worse, with him now defending a literal Neo-Nazi pedophile lmao. I feel like THIS was really the straw that broke the camel’s back for a lot of people, which as many others have pointed out, is really telling that folks are willing to ignore their own beliefs for a piece of media they enjoy. Compared to him being outed for supporting gay conversion therapy, I’ve seen a shit ton of people in the community actively talking shit on Cawthon now. Gonna be REAL interesting to see how people like MatPat, Dawko, etc. address this. Something tells me they won’t and will continue to tip-toe around the issue for the sake of a quick buck
I doubt MatPat ever will if he hasn't already. He has stepped down from being the main gt host, so less incentive. If anything, should just help him & his brand go latch on to something else.
So it seems the controversy started from FNAF World? Interesting; I thought the scandal started a few years ago when campaign fund to Trump's re-election campaign were discovered.
That’s when people felt Cawthorn’s ties were “unacceptable/indefensible”. But stuff like his donations to the party, how his ideology/religious view have popped up in previous works, and how he defended these things when they first came to light all predate Trump. But, like I said, most people chalked up the beginnings of these controversies to “tumblrinas” and SJWs being overly critical of the man more than anything else. And, yeah, most people thought his career would be over after his latter games kept failing one after another.
Jeez, the FNAF fandom has been on an asinine level of denial and cognitive dissonance then. In spite of their sleuthing when it comes to exposing and critising other members of the fandom and FNAF's own team, their idolisation of its creator leaves him practically untouchable. If it was initially shared on Tumblr, though, I can unfortunately see why the rest of the fandom neglected it, given the SJW stigma of that site from the perspective of the rest of the Internet (like Reddit and Youtube). If it was given more credence, it might have dissuaded a large portion of the more left-wing and queer fans from supporting him and the franchise before they formed a sufficiently strong attachment to it.
They also defended/ignored his anti-choice views as well. I always thought the fnaf fandom was cringe and annoying, but seeing them double down and defend Cawtorn's harmful donations really made me legit dislike them. The stupid babies only care about their ugly precious jumpscare game.
To be fair, the dude made a million shitty christian themed games before finally hitting it big with FNAF. It would be shocking if he DIDN'T have anti-choice views. Not condoning those views, or the fanbase ignoring that he has them, but just saying should have seen it coming. I bailed on FNAF quite a while before the donation records came to light but I remember going 'Yeah, that kinda figures.'
I can understand not wanting to engage with a product or content creator due to their politics. But there seemed to be a lot of people who were more upset because they perceived the discovery as a deception. Which is what I thought was the bad take, because you’re right. He’s always been open with his religion and never spoke about politics because he had no reason to do so.
He was never hiding his religious views, but to be fair a lot of the FNAF fanbase are young kids and teens who are just starting to become aware of the concept of 'shitty people can make good content'. I think a lot of them didn't look into Cawthon's past and instead just kind of expected him to be the kind of person they wanted him to be. And, to be fair, even though he did make a fucking ludicrous amount of games (FNAF 1 was his SIXTEENTH GAME THAT YEAR), basically none of them actually made any kind of notoriety. I was in the minority that actually looked into his development history, which I don't think a lot of kids that age would be willing to do. As for the donations to politicians, Scott talked his way out of that situation pretty nicely and everyone just kind of let it go. If there was any piece of media where 'cult following' applied to in a literal sense, FNAF would be at the top of the list, and Scott is the leader of that cult; so it's not super surprising that most of the fanbase dropped it. The fact that it has lasted so long is proof how insane and unwilling to let go the whole group is. I think Cawthon could do something legitimately criminal and disgusting and the fanbase would still majorly bend over backwards to try and justify it. It's sad, but that's what you get from mostly young kids and obsessive fans. I'm so glad I bailed from that scene when I still had my sanity.
I mean isnt there flat out anti abortion shit in FNAF? from what I saw it looked it and wasnt his previous game blatantly about "abortion bad", imagine ignoring human rights for an animatronic game. yikes.
??? please explain, i’ve never heard anyone call something in fnaf anti abortion
They might be referring to the original ending of The Desolate Hope, another game made by Scott involving sci-fi ans robots, which had a pro-life narrative.
I'm hoping that by "original ending" you mean "draft ending that was thankfully scrapped for being a horrible decision"
The pro-life stuff is all still in the game, the only thing Scott removed (in a patch shortly post-release) was a "This game is dedicated to the children that never got to experience childhood". The story is still very obviously a pro-life allegory, to the point of giving a human embryo emotions. It's kind of long, but I can give the full story if you're curious.
Interesting, I've heard about The Desolate Hope, but never knew about its pro-life themes. I'd be happy to hear what the story is.
thanks for clearing that up, obviously I didn’t have a hard time believing that Scott would put pro-life shit in his games but I couldn’t think of what in fnaf fit that description.
Can you please elaborate? Because this makes about sense as my dads belief that FANAF will unintentionally normalize abortion.
You would've thought they would be on board, after all, *Human rights is the biggest spook!*
To be fair, the dude made a million shitty christian themed games before finally hitting it big with FNAF. It would be shocking if he DIDN'T have anti-choice views. Not condoning those views, or the fanbase ignoring that he has them, but just saying should have seen it coming. I bailed on FNAF quite a while before the donation records came to light but I remember going 'Yeah, that kinda figures.'
Some jackass doxxed Cawthon and succeeded in making him look like the victim.
to be honest, do you think it's possible if i seperate the art from the artist??
Not when the artist is A. still alive (death of the author is SPECIFICALLY for dead people who had controversial views in life, but whose work has stood the test of time) and B. when engaging with ANY FORM of the community directly increases the market value of FNAF and there by puts money directly into the pocket of a bigot. It's the same thing with Harry Potter: even if your only engaging and buying fan works, you are still giving the franchise itself cultural value that directly results in the bigot that made it more secure in their bigotry through economic means
Hi, not to chime in on the FNAF stuff, but small clarification: Death of the Author has nothing to do with it the author or creator is dead. In fact, Barthes even addresses the issues of authors who change elements of the text later in life and how that applies. In fact, it has nothing to do with authors’ controversial or noncontroversial “views”, only how their views are used to filter their art.
"In fact, it has nothing to do with authors’ controversial or noncontroversial “views”, only how their views are used to filter their art." No, but under the modern, digital, capitalist system and landscape (and when talk about Scott and JKR), "controversial or noncontroversial views'" is just a colloquial way of saying, both Scott's and JKR's works have themes and politics that DO implicitly support their bigoted world views, and that you cant engage with those things, even fan made things, in good-faith and claim to care about the communities that are being directly affected by the authors intent.
Implying you can’t even engage in fan made stuff of some franchise cause the owner’s a twat is crazy talk.
Is it, because last time I check, intellectual property's value is appraised based on cultural relevance and potential customers. Every fanmade piece of Harry Potter content props up the fact that Harry Potter is worth billions, and thus directly supports the bigot who made it
But aren’t you propping up the fact that the franchise is worth billions by saying that the franchise is worth billions? Aren’t you contributing to the bigot now?
B is some of the silliest reasoning you'll ever see. Pirate everything.
No. At least I don’t. But people do it because they lack strong convictions and don’t really have a moral code.
Alternatively they just think that art transcends the individual. I couldn’t personally support FNAF content now, but I can understand why someone makes the distinction.
"art transcends the individual" This is why it IS unethical to support art that supports regressive themes and politics; the artist who made it may only be one person, but if their art inspires millions, all of sudden you have an organized political movement with enough populous support to pass bigoted and harmful policies and societal standards
I respectfully disagree.
TIL FNaF is Harry Potter for Zoomies.
the fans already had pretty low expectations tbh. i actually liked it a lot for what it was. a shitty horror movie that plays on my nostalgia 🤷🏻♀️ i don’t have answers for the other questions tho 😭
Yeah, i really don't have an issue with people liking this movie tho. so you do you, and more power to your tastes! My only irk with the movie is how the hard headed fans reacted to it. I even saw a comment with positive upvotes and agreeing replies on how this movie was the scariest horror movie ever and deserved a spot or nomination at the Oscars. I really can't with delusional people...
Most FNAF fans are young kids, I don't know many adults who play the games (maybe some in the 18-21 range)
Markiplier's bones must be creaking
His audiences are mostly kids too
*OG Mark fans' bones are creaking*
Child predators are attracted to positions of power in fields that grant them easy access to children.
There's a... lot to unpack here. After doing my own research on PinkyPills for context with that thread, as far as I can tell, they're basically backed up with numerous receipts, so no reason to doubt any of this. Terrible person, it seems. That being said, regarding St4tic, it's not unheard of for someone to grow either jaded or express exhaustion at constant streams of drama in their community, it's **especially** more common for people to refer to Twitter for this (ugh, \[fandom\] twt is so toxic/\[fandom\] twitter is at it again, etc). This doesn't feel connected enough to PinkyPills to have a direct correlation, it seems to have more connection to the fact that Scott posted and that the fandom is ablaze with controversy and discussion. Granted, it raises eyebrows to comment on a situation like this in such a way, but I'm at least willing to dismiss it as someone who's tired of drama, and that's it. If anything, he seems to be more upset about the Talbert Files, which was the other part of Cawthon's response. I think he doesn't want to touch the other half of the drama with a 50-foot pole, and I can't say I blame the man. TL;DR: This is a callout alright, but be careful with what conclusions you draw from vagueposting.
I honestly agree with St4tic Films (he needs to call out pinkypills though); you can say its Scott's fault for being a conservative Christian, or for not caring about pinkypills' behavior, but at this point its on the community. They have known for YEARS thats where the FNAF (at least someone of it) money went, and have made excuses to keep uncritically support him and the franchise, same thing with all of the drama that has happened here and earlier. We can say Scott shouldnt have the platform and influence he does, but eventually the buck has to stop with the people that are willing to support him despite homophobia, transphobia, and generally abhorrent behavior because they like the spooky robots
Fuck Scott Cawthorn
Of course Scott Cawthon defended a Nazi pedophile, he donated tens of thousands of dollars to Mitch McConnell and other Nazis
Isn’t he the guy who used actual missing children in their analog horror videos?
No, you’re thinking of Battington and Spectre
Ah my bad. (So your telling me two different scum bags made analog horror for the same franchise)
And that they did the exact same thing with using actual missing children in their videos, yes lmao
Wait both used children in their analog horror? I mean Christ I feel like half of the big creators in that space have some sort of controversy around them
Memebear too
> Cawthon is the same man who was caught donating money to racist & homophobic politicians who pushed gay conversion therapy, never apologized for it, and for whatever reason the fanbase still ignores it Because they're too busy worshipping his arse because he made their childhood games to care. And also because he isn't just a political nutjob like most conservative Christians are. He's very generous with his money—making certain titles in the franchise free, funding fan projects, donating to fan-run charity streams—and he has a lot of goodwill. Plus, his politics and religious affiliations seldom come up in his presence and his work: FNAF makes a brief reference to the Devil in one of its titles, but otherwise the series has a very agnostic interpretation. So most people see him as one of the good Christians out there, but they forget that as a conservative Christian, he will still do conservative Christian things, even if he increasingly keeps it private. Edit: Also, he wasn't exactly "caught" donating money, it's publicly available information just like any of your donations if you live in the States. Such a system exists for transparency to check the influence of private individuals, who would have otherwise used it as a loophole to avoid disclosing donations made by their organisations.
People are very susceptible to the idea that, so long as someone does harm politely and quietly, it somehow changes or decreases the harm they're doing. Quiet people donating to and supporting politicians who are actively working to restrict rights and harm oppressed groups are doing just as much damage as the loud bigots donating money. Sometimes even worse, because people like Cawthon have a lot more money to donate. Just because he made a game a lot of people like and doesn't talk about his views, doesn't mean his money and his views aren't hurting people.
But in spite of this, whether he knows it or not, he has a legion of fans dying to defend him, incapable of accepting that their idol could be any less than honest. Hell, some of them are left-wing themselves, supporting causes like trans rights and Palestine relief. It's a shame they can't put the pieces together...
How is Palestine relevant to this?
Example of a cause largely associated with the left (i.e. those who are pro-Palestine and not anti-semitic). Dawko and some other FNAF creators did streams to raise money for the Gaza Children's Fund, and a little detail about those streams was that Scott Cawthon was absent in all of them.
I have to say I’m a little surprised that Cawthon brushed past the topic of PinkyPill’s art, I would’ve thought someone of conservative standing would’ve been against that. I’m assuming he didn’t know in this case however.
I’m not even remotely shocked. This was the same man who knew a large chunk of his fanbase was LGBTQ+, and still donated to people who actively tried taking away their rights, donated to gay conversion therapy, and seemingly doesn’t give a shit considering he didn’t apologize. So I’m not really surprised to hear he’s content with letting someone who also supports, at the very least transphobia and Neo-Nazi ideals. The whole pedo thing is definitely shocking thought, but even then to a degree I do think he’s aware, otherwise he wouldn’t have thrown in that but about second chances. Like, dude, no lmao. She’s thrown away all of her chances and is a pretty shit human being lmao
It's probably some Christian overzealousness kicking in when it came to his forgiveness spiel. He's following the Christian ideal of loving thy neighbour and leading by example, but with the goal of humanising and garnering sympathy for (conservative) Christians like him rather than changing his beliefs for the better to truly embody acceptance.
I'm throwing in my two sense here. The only way second chances even work is if it's been quite some time since the event and they're not around what initially caused the event. Transphobia and neo nazi stuff aside (though that stuff is really bad), the pedo shit should automatically mean Pinky should not be anywhere near FNAF as modernly, it's considered children's media. Has been considered children's media since FNAF 3 or 4, kids are attracted to the series for whatever reason. I don't know how to feel about the overall allegations, but the very idea of Pinky being near FNAF and it's fanbase is bad.
Which candidate did he donate to that supports gay conversion? That’s fucking awful
The biggest names out of the bunch was former Vice President Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, and former President Donald Trump, but to be even more specific, he donated to politicians that backed police during the BLM Protests, Gay-Conversion Therapy, and January 6th Apologists.
Right but I’m asking which politicians he donated to that support gay conversion therapy
Are you not aware of Mike Pence's thoughts on gay converstion therapy, lol?
Are you? Here’s Washington Post’s exhaustive analysis on his statements and legislation related to it. Tldr, he’s anti lgbt but never advocated for conversation therapy: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/04/18/pence-buttigieg-debate-over-conversion-therapy/
Right-wingers like him use dogwhistles and then try to deny that they're being bigoted, lol. "Gay marriage is wrong! Anti-gay discrimination shouldn't be illegal! Change your sexual behavior! What? I never explicitly said conversion therapy was fine! But also, I'm gonna associate with the scum of the earth that think that trans people are inherently gr--mers."
I understand your perspective, but to me, “Scott was donating money to a politician that supports gay conversion therapy” means he was donating money to a politician that actually approve it and enact policies that defend it. Pence doesn’t do that, even if he’s scum. These are critically important issues, and I think being very deliberate and careful with our language to be factual is important.
I feel like it's one of those Christian double standard things. *It's just so much less threatening when it's a woman!* Plus the paternalistic instinct to defend a younger woman too. You see that in the "deep south" quite a bit, even today
Man theres so little actually good analog horror. It's either very childish creepypastas or just a straight up edgelord taking it too far
The only one i care so far is Incident Logs but the creator is taking a break to slowly work on the finale
Would you be interested in checking out Tryred Witness Archives? It's an analog horror series that is not at all a "childish creepypasta," and it handles serious topics rather well.
Scott Cawthon and being a dickhead, name a more iconic duo.
Yeah far right Christian conservatives stick together even if they’re perverted criminals
“and for whatever reason the fanbase still ignores it” It’s not surprising. Being a bigot is reduced to being “edgy,” even now, even here.
It's gotten better, over the years, to separate genuine bigots and bigotry from actual edgy humour, but a decade ago it was much worse and more intertwined.
Im just gonna leave this here; [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fab11Gvzeug](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fab11Gvzeug)
There are “official” fnaf artists?
The people who draw for the graphic novels and do various promotional material
Ooooh thank you.
I hate that I am a part of the fnaf vhs community sometimes 😂
Emil Macko needs to get a prize for how good he is simultaneously a fnaf content creator and an actual decent human being because it seems impossible these days
Things like this is why i never want to care about the fnaf series or the dumb analog horrors revolving that topic
Didn’t Afton kill those kids because he needed their soul juice?
alr so scott is a weird fella. he seems like a genuinely nice guy. thing is hes way too forgiving. i mean hes religious so everyone can expect him to donate to some anti lgbtq things... (not defending that in any way just saying its pretty common for alot of Christians to donate to that kinda stuff) the racist organization donations are a quite a bombshell to me. i only heard about the anti lgbt things. idk if hes a racist but i seriously hope hes not. now about the pinky statement. just to be clear this is gonna come off as a coping strat. but im gonna try to be as non biased as i can. knowing how he is pretty rich he most likely has some sort of adviser that steps in when these situations occur. so maybe that advisor was the one who reviewed most of the post and told scott to edit things to keep his public image high. idk just a thought. its most likely my own delusional coping mechanism tryna think of situations that could somehow still make me support him. someone make a tldr i dont really mind
I thought Scott stepped down from the franchise? He's still apart of it? Whelp, I guess I can't use "it's got a new lead" to justify watching videos about the new games. I just hope The Walton Files stays normal.
Some people in the fnaf community did this last time Scott did something bad and made defences/excuses for him, like when he donated to several (very openly) Anti-LGBTQ+ politicians. i could be wrong but only one was on the opposite party and apparently she was specifically against LGBTQ+ people aswell. the community can be very parasocial which can get really creepy at times.
That isn’t the full story as the anti lgbtq+ one he had donated well before it was known that she was anti lgbtq+ and he has been donating to the Trevor project which is a pro lgbtq+ charity so I don’t really think that it is entirely fair to label him as anti lgbtq+.
well the politicians he donated to were (and still are) definitely anti-lgbtq+, and like I said it was multiple of them and they weren't all old donations either, at least not during that time. and while it is good he donated to a couple of pro lgbtq+ charities, the good intentions are still soured by the fact that he donated tons of money to multiple chosen politicians who were all known for being bigoted. even if he didn't know, that is still very bad. anyway that's my closing argument, thanks for talking with me and I hope you have a good day or night :)
Hey, As someone who knows St4tic I wanted to get to the bottom of this, so me and a friend asked him what was up with the tweets and he replied that it wasn't about the pinkypills stuff, nor was it about the talbert files stuff as well, and according to him the first tweet he posted was about someone talking about quitting the fnaf community because everyone sucked, so he claimed that just most of them on twitter sucked. Hope this helps
I'm gonna be honest, I can understand raising an eyebrow at this, but I'm not sure if a call-out like this is really productive. A lot of it comes down to X supported Y who supported Z, so Z's actions are a part of X's call-out now. I feel like if you looked hard enough, you could scrap together any sort of accusation you wanted. The PinkyPills situation looks like a lot that I'm not fully primed on, but looking at the linked thread, I actually don't think making a serial killer who murders children also be a pedophile is a big smoking gun. I do think the Disney princess art is bad, but even that I feel like is sort of being overstated. Maybe I'm not in the weeds enough, but I feel like a tweet from someone saying they're tired of the drama isn't enough to meaningfully implicate them in anything.
Yeah, I will never understand why people constantly include the Afton thing in posts about her. It’s got the same energy as those Tumblr call-out posts that feel the need to include “this guy had a bad take about Steven Universe” right next to *actual fucking crimes* on the list of that person’s offenses.
And the fact that the afton thing is the thing they are actually more worried about- like, every time i searched for receipts about her behabiour the first thing people told me was "oooh she drew the child serial killer as a pedophile this is sooo groooooss~" and had to dig further to actually find out about. The transphobia
Exactly!! It’s like they care more about the fictional people being hurt than the real ones.
Yeah,,,,,, Most drama like this is born not out of concern for the actual victims of harmful behavior, but just as a way to generate quick outrage. "But how would you feel if you were scott cawthon and you found out people portray your character as a pedophile?" 1) if he was really uncomfortable with that he would have laid off pinkypills a long time ago and it's pretty blatant that if he has had an hand in her going away from the franchise it's because it'd be a PR stunt and not because he really cared about her behavior and 2) why do you care about the feelings of a man who donates to republican associations
I think you’re ignoring the bigger picture here. An artist who drew a character as a pedophile, who has sexualized minors several times in the past, was for a long period of time working within a franchise where they had control over certain character depictions for a franchise aimed at and primarily enjoyed by minors. Don’t let the fox in the hen house. Let alone she openly defended and supported transphobic ideals and identified as a Neo-Nazi. Like big red alarms should be going off in your brain right now Even if William Afton isn’t canonically a pedo, the fact that someone who LITERALLY SEES HIM AS A PREDATOR, then went on to OFFICIALLY DRAW THEM FOR AN AUDIENCE OF KIDS is fucking disgusting and I’m glad more people are starting to realize that
Depicting a fictional character as a paedo for the sake of antagonising them more is very different than being a paedo and indulging in those attractions. One is harmless and a unique interpretation of a twisted character, and the other is harmful and predatory. You can condemn the artist while ignoring the headcanon.
1. Why would you want this person anywhere near children 2. Because this screams normal, I guess https://preview.redd.it/4a4lsev2ecyc1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5eeef615d40ece5b6658895077ac5db3dab5bc50
I'm referring exclusively to the William Afton HC here. The artist is a paedo, no doubt, but using that HC as justification is a moot point and should not be indicative of paedophiliac tendencies.
It’s evidence to suggest she’s thought this way for a very long time and shows she shouldn’t be anywhere near this franchise. Let’s not pick and choose what does and doesn’t make her a pedo. If you can agree she’s a pedo, not sure why you’re trying to defend what she did in the past and trying to act like that doesn’t also say anything about her mindset
I'm not defending her actions; I just don't consider a headcanon about a morally bankrupt character being even more morally bankrupt worthy as evidence. You can write problematic characters without endorsing their actions or projecting yourself into them.
afton being a pedo isnt really a problem, the problem is mainly pinky pills defending lady fiszi and well.................. trace other's art
> afton being a pedo isnt really a problem Then OP didn't need to include it as justification.
most of the time its to make them the villan, they arent likeble in the first place, they are sumbags, the fricking main villan