It appears the administration at Reddit is taking a page out of Monika’s book. The ferventDoki Doki Literature Club– orDDLC– community is striking back at the site’s administration after the banning of a prominent fan artist. However, under that hardened image is a fandom concerned about the future of its most bustling gathering place.
For those entirely unaware ofDDLC, the game is a free visual novel that made its rounds during September 2017. Bending the rules of what a visual novel is, it is truly one someone should experience for themselves – if you haven’t played it yet,I highly recommend it.
While the community has been content sitting in their own meta corner of Reddit, everything changed when the adminsattackedbanned a popular artist in the anime community, Holofan, which was allegedly a breach of Reddit policies. Within a popular anime community, Holofan posted a PG picture of Kaguya Shinomiya from mangaKaguya-sama: Love is Warin a two-piece swimsuit. The post was removed and Holofan was banned from Reddit for the image.
This isa recent rule change for Reddit admins, specifically cracking down on “suggestive content involving minors orsomeone who appears to be a minor.” This is a fairly widespread net and, as you can imagine, dependant on the personal tastes of the admin viewing the content.
Though this doesn’t directly speak to theDDLCfandom, there are more than a few reasons why the team there is worried. In fact, worried enough that they needed to do an all-hands on deck mod alert:
Holofan and You; or, Admins Don’t Care That Dan Said They’re Eighteenfromr/DDLC
It’s worth noting that this isn’t simply targeting lewd images that approach Rule 34. Those have their own dedicated subreddit and are already banned in theDDLCcommunity that is deliberately SFW. Instead, moderaters are concerned this puts broader PG artwork in jeopardy.
Simply put, theDDLCfandom (like many anime, gaming, etc. communities) thrives on artwork and content creation. However, given that the game is, by all means, a romance title with high-school aged girls (albeit canonically 18+), Reddit’s new policy of deplatforming fan art can mean a ban at any time – especially for the select few that are heavily Team Natsuki, who is comparatively smol and less endowed than the other characters.
On the surface, the fanbase is taking the censorship in stride, lobbing jokes at the uneven policies of admins:
If you draw big busty girls, you won’t get bannedfromr/DDLC
Doki Doki Advertiser Friendly Clubfromr/DDLC
How to draw Natsuki S A F E L Yfromr/DDLC
However, that isn’t to say that there isn’t an air of worry surrounding the situation. Many are concerned not only about their future contribution to theDDLCcommunity, as well as the status of their accounts given their previous submissions:
gulpfromr/DDLC
What has caused the new enforcement policy from the Reddit admins? Whose to say. Many within theDDLCcommunity point to the abundance of hate-instigating communities or groups that are a collection of video of people dying. Though perhapsthe recent Chinese investment in the company by Tencentspeaks to the warmer embrace of censorship and puritanical values. Certainly other gaming companieshave had to make similar concessions.
If not that, it might just be the slowly spreading creep of deplatforming facing tech companies. The move is fairly reminiscent ofValve’s latest acts to pull any gamethat they consider “child exploitation.” Or, similarly, how Sony America is allegedly censoring games and “enforcing puritanism” in demanding theremoval of game modes to fit global standards.
Obviously Reddit can make the rules of their own community – including prohibiting artwork that they find offensive. While it is disheartening, more concerning to everyone within the community is the lack of communication and slapdashed approach, especially when it concerns the future of the aging fandom. Hopefully these questions and concerns are addressed soon, given thatprotest communitiesandChange.org petitionsare rallying against it.
As mentioned above,Doki Doki Literature Club!is available now for free on PC. If you haven’t played it yet and are interested, don’t look at anything online – just go ahead and downloadDDLC.
