Once upon a time I made guest comics for a web comic. It was all fun, people enjoyed it, and for being around only 16 I had a good amount of success with it. Making it to nearly 72+ comics over the course of 2-3 years. However I proceeded to make a comment on something I'd noticed.

More and more people were shunning, insulting, and driving off people starting new comics, just as I had started mine. Their reasoning? They weren't as good as people like those who were already on. No help offered. No criticism. Just "lol fuk u stoopid font" and lots of insults following, tearing their thread down. I made a comment. We should stop insulting them and start helping them.

The following 10 pages were all flame war with people calling me to kill myself, posting how to commit suicide GIFs and images, and one person, at the finale, posted an actual image of someone post shotgun headshot. It resulted in a good 6-7 people being banned, as well as a new moderator being hired onto the team to control such outbursts in the future. The thread was cleaned up and things returned to normal.

Myself? I was pretty badly hurt. Being young at the time I took a lot personally I wouldn't have otherwise, and wound up quitting the creative scene all together. I had anxious ticks over similar situations, and couldn't get myself to be creative for the longest time. Eventually, while the web comic still lives on, the forum and guest comics have all but died out.

Lessons were learnt. Both that I should be as civil as I can online, you never know who is on the other side of the keyboard or what they're about...and that people can be really...REALLY nasty.