I found a music page where everyone was asking questions, some super niche and some general, some venting etc and I was replying to a lot of the posts, everyone seemed engaged, so then I thought okay lemme ask a question!

So I wrote out 8 paragraphs of genuine thoughts/feelings about music fandom and asked whether or not anyone had experience with non-music related subcultures and spaces, if the level of ignorance was the same, or if there’s more education/nuance with fans of other professions/industries etc.

The post instantly got an automated ban, and the robot message said to ask a mod, so I said Hey can I please post this question?

4 hours later, he replied saying “no, looks like low effort engagement bait and we’d be better off if you never posted in here at all, hope that helps!”

Wtf???? How tf is 8 paragraphs low effort?! how is it engagement bait for me to express MY frustrations and try to bounce ideas and ask questions to find some kinda sense of community!

Just cold, callous and nasty as hell on a power trip to make me feel like shit!!!! It’s not fair

Over time as I used TSB, trying to tell guests that the sub is a post-anything type sub which doesn't have sensitivity to "relevance" of the sub's implied topic, like 95% of subreddits would, in addition to recommending it as the detour for posts which would be off-topic of other subs I moderate, and yet, other Redditors still continue to not understand the philosophy of TSB offering them relief from the challenge of adhering to the culture of other subs beyond just their official (technical or otherwise) rules.

I also notice that other subs I have been a mod of have even started to exceed TSB's subscriber count. /r/RetroNickelodeon exeeded TSB's subscriber count over a year ago, and recently, even /r/CableTV_Memories has also exceeded the subscriber count as well, but now Reddit has entered an era when subscriber count isn't explicitly disclosed publicly.

There were also other subs I was a former mod of, which have also exceeded TSB's subscriber count unexpectedly, such as /r/2000sNostalgia, and even the /r/Madonna sub which is about a celebrity has also exceeded TSB's subscriber count shortly before I resigned being a mod of that sub.

During the times when I used to be a mod of some subs, I used to put /r/TruckStopBathroom on the sidebar of other subs to recommend, but this wasn't for personal "advertising" or "spam" purposes like many other Redditors would assume, but I wanted subscribers to feel comfortable knowing the silver lining of their duty to stay "on-topic" on one sub, by offering a detour to keep them encouraged with posting anything in general on Reddit.

Over time I used to root for TSB to reach 100k subscribers, but I kind of gave up on that dream when Reddit stopped explicitly disclosing subscriber count in it's subreddits. What's also amazing, is that TSB has existed for nearly 8 years now, almost a decade.

I also try to explain how the idea for TSB was influenced by the Angry Video Game Nerd's utterance of that phrase in the Lester The Unlikely episode, and yet, 90% of AVGN fans don't seem to resonate with that phrase, and often dismiss my mentions of TSB when giving input about AVGN episodes. And the amazing thing is, TSB also exceeded the subscriber count of /r/AVGN, and even /r/TheCinemassacre, which is about Cinemassacre, the production label behind AVGN. I also had this dream of seeing James Rolfe (aka "AVGN") mention the TSB sub in a future YouTube video of his, but unfortunately he hasn't gotten around to doing that. You would think he would acknowledge the impact his sense of humor had on his fans, wouldn't you?

I used to be a former mod of /r/AVGN until I had some dispute with one of it's other mods, who I also had be a mod of /r/TruckStopBathroom for a while in the past.

Well, I gotta say, TSB is basically the most underrated subreddit for ones with 20k subscribers or more, and I'm proud to be a contributor of it, it's versatility, this is why I added lots of post flairs to give guests an idea of how versatile the sub really is.

thanks for reading.