Hey, folks. I don't usually hang out on social media, I don't promote my bots on any platforms, and I only talk to other creators IRL. Most of the time I just leave comments under my own characters - like thinking out loud, you know? For me it's just a little hobby: make a character, watch how people interact with them, feel good if someone likes it. I genuinely don't care if a bot finds success or not. But what's happening right now is some kind of madness that deserves its own post.

I don't understand the new "anti-botting" system. Seriously, I'm not chasing numbers, but the stats for my character during "trending" days are just a headache. I released a new bot and found it on pages 50-70. Pages 50-70! Who even goes past page 10? I personally never do. And I'm sure most users don't either.

Meanwhile, I see the same usernames in trending day after day. People who are clearly botting sit on the first pages, while small creators with 100–500 followers are somewhere in the ass-end of nowhere. The system seems to treat any user action as suspicious. Small creators post characters, wait for a miracle, and get this instead.

Take my character Corey, for example. I accidentally deleted him, then re-released him. There wasn't much activity - I chalked it up to the fact that the character had already been out before. Like, whoever wanted to play with him already did, no big deal. But with the new bot, the same thing happened - the trending stats are just fucked. I can't even track where my bot is! I have to spend 20+ minutes just to find it in trending.

And then I go to the news tab and see: "To maintain the integrity of the trending feed and keep Janitor fair for all creators, we are deploying some additional protections to make trending rankings harder to manipulate." So to make it fair for everyone, you've made it so that honest small creators can't break through anywhere? While the ones botting are still on the first pages? I don't get it. Explain it to me, dumbass that I am, why it's supposed to work like this, and why according to the site's design, this is the "right" way.

Why is trending just the same usernames? Where are the small accounts? Why are they on pages 40-60? Does the site have some kind of favoritism? Or am I missing something? How are you supposed to find an audience if you don't hang out in communities and don't plan to? Why does anything past page 2 of trending turn into some incomprehensible mishmash of authors with different activity levels? I don't want to self-promote and spend time befriending everyone just so someone notices me - I've got enough shit to deal with in real life. I just want to post a bot and have people see it and play with it, without scrolling through the Janitor site until the traffic jam on Sukhumvit clears up. Is that too much to ask?

You'll say: "Hey, Cody, but there's a 'Creators' tab!" Yeah. There is. And it says: "Based on who the people you follow also follow — surfacing smaller creators. Updated daily." Let's look at that text again, specifically "surfacing smaller creators." Does anyone actually see authors there with fewer than 10-60k followers? I personally don't. Does it update daily? Again, for me - no. Which is why I see the same usernames from the same authors there as on the first pages of trending. Just fucking great.

If anyone knows what's going on - leave a comment. I'll leave them open here, but I'll turn them off again on future bots. This site makes me think more and more about looking for alternative platforms.

P.S. More than 50 people followed me overnight. What's happening? I haven't been visible anywhere. Is this related to the new system? Or are they bots? Explain, because I don't understand anything anymore and I'm winding myself up.