secret faq:
==ARE YOU A MOD OR LIKE WHAT...?==
    I stepped down. I don't have any powers.
==WHY'D YOU LEAVE?==
    Mainly because a lot of my favorite users left, and the community was much smaller and close-knit before. I've always had issues with the site, and it being bought by Cheezburger shifted the site's direction in a way that I honestly think was very bad. I suppose that a lot of newer users have no sense of contrast - no sense of what it was like before. I like to think old KYM was a lot like a "Wikipedia, but with original research", which is an academically great endeavor with lot of interesting things to look at and archive. Instead, now the focus is mainly shifted towards American/English (sometimes Japanese) memes only, with particular focus on those that will get the site lots of views. This is a business model, yea, sure, whatever, but it just saddened me to see something that could've been so great be turned into this. I must have like 20 entries about Chinese phenomena, old email memes, Polish memes, Korean memes - none of these will ever ever get confirmed. Neither will half of Tomberry's entries, or many other foreign entries. Not unless there's another motivated moderator or admin who cares. I certainly don't anymore.
    I "left" a couple times before, but there were a couple of instances in particular that made me lose trust in the site for good. In particular, this incident pissed me off a lot: http://knowyourmeme.com/forums/report-problems/topics/10266-what-happened/page/1
    It gave me a good excuse to leave for good, because all my friends were gone, the site i loved was gone, and moderating wasn't fun anymore.
==ARE YOU COMING BACK?== Probably not in any permanent way. I may submit an entry here and there. I have a love/hate relationship with the website.
==THEN WHY DO YOU KEEP WAFFLING IN BETWEEN NOT BEING HERE AND POSTING LIKE ONCE A YEAR?==
    Because I was one of the really well liked members of the community, even idolized to a certain extent by many people, and so coming back here reminds me of that. I realize that that's not really a good thing, and looking back, I protected a lot of people who I shouldn't have (because they were my friends) and shut down some people too harshly (because they were generally disliked). I think most people think I did a decent job, but I have harsh evaluations of myself because I can read messages I made 4-5 years ago and see that I was not the same person, and that I was not treating the moderator/user role correctly. Well, actually I take that back, I probably did do it okay - if I were a moderator - but I wasn't just a moderator, I (and Blubber- who was less active) was the most powerful moderator on the site, nearly indistinguishable from an admin in terms of power on the website (not real power, but you know what i mean). You can kinda see what I mean by being "beloved." Beloved enough to be trusted with a lot of power, and given a lot of power to moderate the site to make people like me more. Bad cycle.
	Of course, I wasn't the only moderator, no discredit to PimpAbra at the time, but I think I kinda started to take over in a sense... like, if this was political, I was getting momentum faster than anyone else. Yea, I brought it upon myself, but I felt like I was a really good moderator; I was clearly well liked, why not take on more responsibility, right?

==I READ THIS. WHAT NOW?==
    I don't know. I just felt like I had to write it down. Being a very powerful moderator is kinda an interesting experience that I had at an early age (14), so I thought maybe putting down my thoughts might be interesting for someone. In the end, it's just self-therapy.
    It's weird, in some ways I had a lot of friends on this site, but on the other hand, I never let anyone get close to me. I don't think anyone else on this site really knows the incredible frustration I had with dealing with users and the administration nearing the end of my moderatorship. I wanted everyone to get along, and I was able to help hold the community together, but in the end my friends left so it didn't really matter.
    I didn't realize in time that when you have the ability to do everything: ban users, lock threads, basically control the website - and you're the one that everyone immediately looks to (admins are on the chat/forum less than moderators, and I was the only active database moderator), you're no longer on the same level as the people who used to be "friends". No matter what, people look at you differently, and use you for protection or to shut some people down. And you also get a lot of resentment. They're not malicious about it or anything- after all, we were all teenagers just trying to have fun and chill. But yea, as soon as your friend is like, "hey you're a mod, this guy has been doing x y and z, can you ban him?", you're being used in some sense, right?
    I made my decisions to try and preserve the community and try to get everyone to get along. I loved all my friends, I wanted to keep talking to them, I wanted to preserve that. And I was encouraged, you know, "ogw you're actually the greatest mod" or "yea ogw is a really chill mod, I think they're really fair", so I felt like I was liked by these people. But since I closed myself off, that was pretty much the only connection I had with them: That I was a good community leader. Once my friends leave the community, what connection do i have left?
    Out of my friends on KYM, I know Taryn is my friend. I wasn't able to talk to Ashbot and Anako very often, but I think they genuinely liked me. Everyone else, I don't know. I think they're my friends. If I asked them now, they'd probably say they liked me. But does it matter? It's not like we talk anymore.
    If you want friends online, you absolutely can't close yourself off. All online friend circles break eventually.
	And yea, I'm talking a lot about a stupid moderator position, and talking myself up grandiosely like "oh yea i was the biggest moderator", but I'm talking a lot because it ate up a lot of my life. So yeah.