yes, i drew that button myself.
its probably not obvious from what i have written on this website, but i can be a nosy little bitch sometimes.
i LOVE pointless drama. like, 'random slapfights that have no real repercussions' level of pointless.
so, i am so happy to say that i am technically a small part of a pointless drama! one localized on this very website! hooray!!
im not actually sure how widespread it was, so for a quick introduction:
"Federiefederi" was a website directory hosted on neocities, being created sometime around late 2023[*] and officially launching a little bit afterward. their branding focused around there being two 'siblings' hosting the website, but i dont think it was ever confirmed where there were ACTUALLY 2 people or if it was just one person with a persona. imo, it was probably the latter.
..they also self imploded around april 14-16 2024.
(quick aside- you're going to have to take my honor on most of these dates and summarizations of events. unfortunately, a few months after everything happened, the archives of the website were completely wiped, and you can no longer access it from the wayback machine.. i believe this only happens when the web host directly asks to. which, THANKS FEDERI. I WAS STILL USING THAT AS AN ACTUAL WEBSITE DIRECTORY. ASSHOLE)
federi's whole slogan was specifically uncovering and advertising websites with much smaller view counts. like, under 100k. twas an honorable goal. and it actually was pretty successful! for a couple of months, everything ran smoothly. federi kept the website sections (divided by view count) generally up to date, and would sometimes 'spotlight' specific websites in their own little section in the bottom right of the directory. iirc there were around 5 or 10 of these done, changing every week or so.. with me included. for some reason. federi really liked my guestboard i guess lol.
i cannot recall an exact role call amount (and i cant really check anymore) but it most likely was over a thousand at its peak. maybe. take that with a grain of salt.
however... this was not meant to last, apparently.
in April of 2024, federi announced that they were going to try something.
you see, federi had one[*] policy to be included in their directory: you had to follow them, and federi would follow you. thats all!
but in this announcement, they declared that... they would be unfollowing everybody. apparently, they had figured out the math[*] that was behind how websites got on the "front page" (the 'special sauce' category, i believe?) and it was based around the follower/following counts. thus, if they unfollowed everybody... it would push them to the very top of the page.
they announced this plan on their website comments, and said that they would be enacting it in a few days.
people were not happy about this.
this caused an immediate split in their follower count- while some didn't care that much about it, many others thought this was a step too far, and that federi was just 'chasing numbers' by going back on their one* requirement in order to get higher in the front page... causing a chain reaction of people requesting their button be removed and leaving the project. if you were following federi during this time your feed was unusable. it was nothing but their profile comments. entertaining if you had nothing else to do and followed no other websites (ahem. me) but probably very, very annoying if you were intending on using the feed for its intended purpose.
"okay," you must be asking "this is all well and good, but how are you involved?? other than, yknow, being on the directory". im glad you asked!
turns out, federi had a bias towards me. a teeeeensy bit of favoritism. i could not tell you why.
iirc, i only interacted with them directly 3 times- all through their website comments, not personally. one of those interactions was me making an animated button for the website, yes. but it wasn't a personal favor or anything. my genuine reason for that is because i got reminded of how i used to make buttons/banners for people on pokefarm q back in 2018, and i was like 'damn i should do that again'. i like doing random gifts like that.
it could be that i suppose? but still, i did not know federi personally. i didn't talk with them. i only commented to point out i was in the wrong view category.
so, federi declares their plan. unfollowing everybody to boost their website to the front page. personally, i wasn't against it (i saw and understood the thought process behind it..), so i was like "okay, cool :)".
the days tick by. federi is still following me. "hm!" i think "thats odd. maybe they're rolling it out slowly."
i decide to click on federi's profile. how many people do they have left to unfollow? i wonder. i look at their follower number.
one.
i am the only person they are still following.
??????????????? what????????
i could not, for the life of me, figure out why. my guess is that in order for the math to properly kick in, you need to follow at least 1 person. and, because they already had such a favoritism towards me, they decided id be spared from their killing spree (/j). its almost kind of a honor!
but, well, the math did work. after unfollowing everyone (except me lol) they jumped up to number 5-6 on the list, successfully getting onto the front page... but at what cost?
their reputation was going down the drain. federi wasn't doing a.. particularly good job at dampening the outrage. they got really mad at people being 'off topic'[*] in their comments, so they outright Declared that Anybody Doing That would get BLOCKED. in a very peeved way. personally this was just shooting themselves in the foot because it made them seem like a buzzkill lol.
also a little aside but one thing i Did archive was this one interaction between federi and another 'big website', feelingmachine. just because of how baffled i was with it.
who the fuck talks like this. both of you are acting like children.
eventually federi closed their comments (which, in my opinion, they should've done A LOT EARLIER) and a few days later... their website disappeared.
apparently someone reported them to the neocities website operators for doing a follow4follow scheme? which, yeah, i guess so- gaming the system with good intentions, but gaming it nonetheless...
..and thus, the curtains closed on federiefederi, and they were no more! all connected socials of theirs also went offline, and it has stayed that way since.
finally, the funniest bit of involvement i personally had to this whole thing: a few days after federi went offline, a few people came into my comment section and asked if I was federi's main.
which is. well the evidence they gave is spotty at best. our artstyles arent similar at all other than a generalized 'cutesy' aesthetic (ive literally never used crayon lineart in my life??), i didnt even know they made that reply until this comment and i had to comb through the wayback machine to find it (which i eventually did), i was not infact the only person they spotlighted (i was the second, actually. there were 5-6 people i remember also getting that treatment)..
and, to top it all off, my strongest bit of evidence: if i had the coding skills, mental fortitude, and general enthusiasm needed to make and run a project like federiefederi for Multiple months successfully....... i would not be making federiefederi, id be off fucking around making an unfiction horror project with minimal advertising. not in a million years would i want to run a SOCIAL WEBSITE DIRECTORY.??!?!! have you seen my behavior? i genuinely hate interacting with people for prolonged stretches of time. its so funny in a cosmic sort of way.
"are you federi?" GOD i hope not. i abandoned a comic once because i got 20 comments on one update and it caused such an overwhelmed reaction that i genuinely couldnt go on comicfury, Period, without seeing the notifications and freaking the fuck out. its been like nearly a year since then and i still havent looked at any of those comments. if i had to run something like federiefederi i would break down within the week. also i wouldnt put my own website on the list. i want this website to stay underground. its not even that good lol.
genuinely i would not have any sort of link between the two if i was the owner anyway. because im a paranoid freak. there are projects that i plan on eventually making that i have not said a single peep over publically because im afraid that if the project is made, and hits the slim possibility of blowing up in popularity, people will be able to track down those posts and find my main, therefore giving me large amounts of unwanted attention. have i mentioned i hate large amounts of attention yethffikljdgshjsdnzkgfh (electricuted via charged fence)
(all completely tongue&cheek towards these two btw. i dont take it personally at all. its just genuinely hilarious considering who i am as a person.)
anyways, thanks for reading this. if you want to see a less flowery worded reading of this situation, there was another website who catalogued the stuff going on with federi.
i am not mentioned there by name but i DO show up in the imbedded screenshots (although with my v1 landing page) as Federi's Last Follower. oh, what a badge of honor! :P
