Origin
The “Hate and Shame” copypasta is a video uploaded by Yandere Dev in response to the many criticisms towards him. The video was deleted due to the request of the video’s illustrator but the reupload is still on Youtube. In the video, Yandere Dev was addressing the many hateful messages, memes, criticisms and discussions about the development of Yandere Simulator and his online life.
Imagine yourself in the following situation. This is you. And this — is every single message you've ever posted to the Internet over the course of your entire life. Every forum post, every tweet, etc. Most of these messages are pretty harmless. However, a few of them make you look bad. Some of those messages might be something dumb you said when you were younger and less mature. Some of those messages might be something rude you said when you were in a bad mood. And some of those messages might only look bad without context. These embarrassing messages make up less than 1% of everything you've ever said or done over the course of your life, and none of those messages accurately represent who you really are. However... Imagine that someone decides to take all of these embarrassing moments from your past, put them into a list, and show this list to his friends. Then, he claims that this list represents you. His friends believe him, and develop a twisted mental image of you. They perceive you as a caricature of who you really are with all of your flaws greatly exaggerated. Unfortunately for you, their hobby is ridiculing and shaming people, and they've decided that you would be a fun target. And so, they start stalking you. They follow you everywhere you go, taking pictures of you, recording videos of you... and digging through your trash to look for anything embarrassing you might have thrown away. Sometimes they even try to directly provoke you, because they think it's funny if they get a reaction out of you. You might try to speak with them and explain that they have the wrong idea about you. You might try to explain that they're developing a false image of you who are. However, when you try to do this, they'll just laugh at you. You see, they don't care at all about getting to know the real you; they want to maintain their twisted perception of you, because they're having a lot of fun ridiculing and shaming this image of you that exists in their minds. Even if you make it perfectly clear that you are 100% willing to answer any questions they have, they simply won't ever contact you to get your side of the story. They're not interested in any information that might debunk the narrative they want to believe in. They've placed you into a category - and once you're in that category, they're convinced that you belong there forever. They're also convinced that you don't deserve any empathy or compassion whatsoever, and that the only thing you deserve is mockery and humiliation. If you try to explain that they've miscategorized you and that you're not any of the things that they think you are, you're only going to be ridiuled further. You might try to prove that they're wrong about you by remaining on your best behavior for as long as possible...but it won't help. Anytime you ever say anything, no matter how harmless, they will interpret what you've said in the most negative manner possible. They'll even stretch the truth as far as they possibly can, so they can continue believing that you are the monster they want you to be. For example, let's say you announce that you're going on a diet. But once a month, you allow yourself to have a single piece of candy. They will stalk you and take pictures of you on the one day when you're eating a candy bar, make a collage of those pictures, and then claim that you're a fat pig who is constantly eating candy. Even though the pictures are real, the conclusion they are trying to reach is false. Let's say that you announce you're going to stop eating junk food. But in a selfie you posted to Twitter, there's a candy wrapper in the background! They'll conclude that you’ve been eating candy — but if they simply spoke to you, they'd learn that you frequently have guests over at your house, and that you keep some snacks around in case your guests get hungry. Everything they believe about you could be debunked if they simply spoke to you and asked for an explanation — but they have no interest doing that. No matter what your profession is, they will convince themselves that you're bad at it. If you're an artist, they'll claim that you're bad at painting. If you're a chef, they'll claim that you're bad at cooking. And if you're a programmer, they'll claim that you're bad at writing code. Of course, you can explain why you chose to use acrylic paint instead of oil paint, or why you chose to use margarine instead of butter, or why you chose to use if-else instead of switch case... but they won't ever bother to ask you. They're not interested in hearing your side of the story, they're only interested in having a narrative that facilitates shame and ridicule. You might say to yourself: "Oh, who cares if there's a bunch of weirdos who gossip about me? Who cares if they believe a bunch of nonsense that isn't true? Whatever, I am going to just ignore it!" Well, it would be really nice if the story ended there, but... it doesn't. They don't just want to talk trash about you; they want everyone else to talk trash about you, too. And so, they will invade other websites. Tumblr, Reddit, YouTube, they'll make blog posts, forum threads, and videos about you, painting a nasty, ugly picture of you, depicting you as an exaggerated caricature of who you really are. And they will try their absolute best to convince people that you are a monster who deserves shame and punishment. Unfortunately, there will be people who will fall for it and start to believe everything they hear about you, no matter how ridiculous or outlandish it is. After enough people have been convinced that you're an awful, terrible person who deserves to be ridiculed and scorned, you will begin to receive harassment. Prank calls, weird things being mailed to your house, getting spammed with pictures of animal abuse and bestiality, being stalked in real life. They’ll try and get your social media accounts banned, they’ll even call the police and try to convince them to send the SWAT team to your house, they’ll do everything they can think of to make your life a living hell. Some people will even impersonate you and behave badly in your name to try and harm your reputation even more. If you ever attempt to defend yourself or clear up misunderstandings, you will be laughed at. If you ever express anger at the people who are tormenting you, you will be laughed at. If you ever try to put a stop to the smear campaign against you, you will be laughed at. No matter WHAT you do, they will always invent some new reason to keep ridiculing you and harassing you. Well, if we're going to keep talking about these people, we need a name for them. We can't call them "trolls", because many of them aren't interested in provoking you directly. We can't call them "liars", because they actually believe all of the ridiculous things they say about you, and when they try to paint a twisted picture of you using cherry-picked information and out-of-context screenshots, they are technically using words you've actually said. And we can't call them "critics" because they aren't judging you, they are judging a twisted image of you that only exists inside their imaginations. So, what do we call them? Well, during World War 2, there was a series of workplace safety posters that featured little creatures called gremlins. Gremlins were depicted sabotaging aircraft and machinery. Because these people are sabotaging your life, we'll call them gremlins for short. Now, think back to the first sentence of this video: "Imagine yourself in the following situation." Have you been imagining how you would feel, if you were in this girl's position? How do you think you would handle it? You might say, "I would handle it with dignity and grace! I wouldn't let them get to me! I'd prove them all wrong!" Well, that's how everyone imagines they would handle a difficult situation, but in reality, it’s not that simple. If you are treated like garbage for an extended period of time, it's going to affect your mood. You're going to become stressed out. You're going to become frustrated. You're going to become depressed. Over time, your original personality will melt away, and be replaced with an angry and bitter attitude. Anger will cloud your judgment. Sometimes you’ll be rude to people. Sometimes you'll lose your temper. Sometimes you'll get caught up in drama. You might find yourself saying nasty things that normally you would never say. This will make the gremlins very happy, because it provides them with new material to gossip about, and convinces them that their beliefs are valid. It's ironic, because if it wasn’t for their constant harassment, your mental health never would have deteriorated in the first place. It's very easy to explain how a gremlin thinks. Their goal is to say abusive things about other people. But first, they require justification so they can feel like their target deserves it. Whenever you do anything, they will view you through a warped lens that twists you into an exaggerated caricature of who you really are. They will ignore facts, logic, reality, truth, and counter-evidence in favor of perceiving you the way they wish to see you. They way they portray you will lead others to harass you, which will affect the way you behave, which will provide them with more reasons to ridicule you. It becomes a self-sustaining cycle. Does this scenario sound like hell yet? Well, it's about to get even worse. Let's say that you're working on a big project. I mean, a seriously ambitious project. I really can't overstate how huge the scope of this project is. It's going to take you multiple years to finish, simply because that's how large and complex this project is. There are hundreds of thousands of people watching you, because they want to see your project succeed. But, right in the middle of your project, a bunch of gremlins decide that you are going to be their next target. After multiple years of being tormented and harassed in a variety of ways, you'll become severely depressed. You won't be able to find the motivation to keep working as much as you did before. Your productivity will plummet. This will make the gremlins very happy, because now they can accuse you of being lazy, or incompetent, or a scam artist, or whatever other fantasies they invent. It's ironic, because if it wasn’t for their smear campaign, your productivity never would have declined in the first place. Your supporters won't understand why you're not as productive as you used to be, and they will begin to doubt you. They will look for an explanation, discover the gremlin propaganda, and fall for it. Slowly, your former supporters will start to turn into gremlins. Let's say you're working on a project that relies heavily on receiving feedback from people. So, you interact with your fans all the time to get their feedback. You have thousands of interactions, and most of them are pleasant — but maybe 1% of them are negative. The gremlins could compile a collage of just the times when you had negative interactions, and try to depict you as someone who can't take criticism. If enough people are tricked into believing this gremlin propaganda,people will stop providing you with feedback and criticism, and your project will suffer. This is just one of the many ways the gremlins can indirectly sabotage your project, even if they never speak to you directly. Tabloid magazines are small newspapers filled with gossip about celebrities. The stories in tabloid magazines are often false, and the headlines are designed to be as sensational and outrageous as possible in order to grab peoples' interest. It's like clickbait from before the Internet existed. Celebrities usually ignore tabloids and don't bother to respond to the ridiculous claims inside of them. Tabloids are widely considered to trashy entertainment for a low-brow audience. Unfortunately, there is a YouTube equivalent of tabloid magazines. Channels that are dedicated to ridiculing and shaming other people. These YouTubers make money by degrading, debasing, and defaming others. Eventually, these YouTubers will hear what the gremlins are saying about you, and then, they will start making videos about you. It doesn't benefit them to portray you with accuracy and honesty, it benefits them to exaggerate your flaws and depict you as a cartoonish caricature of who you really are, because that will be more entertaining, and will result in more clicks and views, maximizing their ad revenue. If they really were interested in the truth, then they would contact you directly and ask you for your side of the story. However, none of them will ever do this. Lengthy character assassination videos smearing your reputation will flood the Internet, spreading the gremlin propaganda to hundreds of thousands of people. This will lead to further harassment, but more importantly, it will cause your supporters to turn against you. Your friends will stop hanging out with you. You'll stop receiving fanmail and start receiving hatemail. The people who were financially supporting your project will withdraw their donations. The people you relied on for assistance will abandon you. Your remaining fans will also be attacked and harassed until they stop supporting you. Although celebrities don't even bother to respond to tabloid magazines, you don't have that luxury. Everything is falling apart for you. You are being stalked and harassed every day, everything you've worked hard to build is crumbling, and the people you rely on are abandoning you. This isn't a matter of "mean words on the internet hurting your feelings". Your reputation is being torn to shreds because of misinformation. This is not only jeopardizing your project, but also the rest of your career, and by extension, the rest of your life. This isn't something you can just ignore. Staying silent is not an option. You have no choice but to speak directly to your audience and address everything that's been happening to you. You have no choice but to speak directly to your audience and address everything that's been happening to you. But... What if the act of speaking about your experiences... Actually makes things worse? Some people enjoy gossip and drama, but other people think it's trashy to spend your time ridiculing and shaming people. A certain portion of your audience will have no interest in rumors, drama, or trashy videos. If that portion of your audience is the majority, then things will turn out okay. But if that portion of your audience is the minority, then you're in trouble. You have no clue how much of your audience has been exposed to the drama. Maybe it's 90%. Maybe it's 50%. Or, maybe it's only 10%. If you speak to your audience about what's been happening to you, you will be exposing 100% of them to the drama. A lot of them will become curious and go looking for gremlin propaganda to learn what it's all about. Some of them will dismiss what they find, but others will swallow the gremlin propaganda without a second thought, and stop supporting you. So, just the act of talking about it could make your situation far worse than it already is. Or, maybe the worst outcome will only happen if you DON'T address the rumors and lies. Maybe you SHOULD tell your audience what's going on. It's impossible to know the right course of action, because there's no way to know how much of your audience is the type of person who can be swayed by tabloid-style content. There's also another factor to consider. Gremlins crave attention more than anything else, so the moment you publicly acknowledge them, they will experience orgasmic pleasure, and they will increase their activity in an attempt to make you keep acknowledging them. In other words, simply mentioning them could add fuel to the fire and make your situation worse. Also, if you publicly acknowledge the drama, you will keep the drama fresh, which will probably result in more tabloid-style videos from people who want to capitalize on what's happening to you. And, finally, there's one last thing you need to consider. It's possible that attempting to clear your name might be a complete waste of time because the people who hate you will simply refuse to listen to anything you say. It's not fun to admit when you're wrong, but it IS fun to ride a hate bandwagon and use abusive language. They don't want to lose the ability to ridicule you and shame you, because they're having way too much fun doing it. So, they will convince themselves that anything you say in your defense is a lie. In other words, there is absolutely nothing you could ever do that would make them change their minds about you. For all of these reasons, it might be a huge mistake to even acknowledge the drama. But, you're at your limit. It's impossible for you to be productive or make progress on your project when you feel like you don't have a future anymore. You need to talk with your audience and explain what kind of situation you're in. It might sound something like this: "I'm the target of a smear campaign, and I'm receiving daily harassment because of misinformation and lies. Everything I've built is in jeopardy because there are people who are spreading a false narrative and portraying me as someone I'm not. Is this really how my project dies? Is it really this easy for Internet gossip to destroy years of work? I need to know if there's a reason to keep going. I need to know I'm already doomed, or if I should keep pushing forward. I need to know how many people out there will turn on someone because of Internet slander. When you hear rumors and gossip, do you roll your eyes and ignore it, or do you actually take it seriously and let it twist your opinions? The people who are attacking me are not a credible source of information. They grasp at straws and stretch the truth to depict me as something I'm not. They allow themselves to be tricked by impersonators. They judge me for things I said over a decade ago. They take my statements out of context. They make up outlandish theories and pretend that their theories are facts. Half the time, they don't even know what they're talking about and just make stuff up. I need to know what I should do next. Should I spend my time debunking Internet rumors that nobody should be gullible enough to believe in the first place? Should I spend my time working on my project? Or am I already so screwed that I should just give up and disappear?" Let's go back to that sentence from the beginning of the video: "Imagine yourself in the following situation." Targeted to be shamed and ridiculed by a bunch of gremlins because you did some cringey things when you were younger. Provoked and tormented every day until your personality melts away, replaced with anger and bitterness. Accused of being lazy or incompetent because you are depressed and demotivated thanks to all the harassment. How would you feel if you were in this situation? That's not a rhetorical question, I genuinely want to hear your answer. How would you feel if you were in this situation? How would you feel if you were in this situation? How much of this do you think you could take? How long do you think you could last until you've had enough? At what point would you consider abandoning your project because it's not worth the abuse you're receiving? By now...you've probably realized who this video is really about. By now, you've probably realized who this video is really about. Tell me. What am I supposed to do in this situation?
