Once upon a time there was a Town Hall meeting. Seems like the fine folks at Etsy had this bright idea and decided to redefine the definition of "hand made". Shortly before this meeting the Etsy powers that be had also done some sort of tampering with another bright shiny thing and added some stars at the same time they deleted a 2 way street in the feedback overhaul. Many people were caught off guard and began their search for more baskets in an egg kind of way.
Lot's of teams and groups had many discussions and a lot of folks soon decided that Zibbet would be the place they wanted to try and find a new home as it seemed to be the place that had a chance to be the next best thing for buying and selling Handmade Vintage and Supplies.
One of the more vocal sellers leading the surge over to Zibbetville is a fellow vintie.... quite outspoken and very enthusiastic.....Ms. Any Old Time. I had been at Zibbet for awhile and was one of those who had recently just been kind of sitting on the side lines very patiently awaiting the elusive "rebuild".
Any Old Time was so enthusiastic that I have to admit... I once again caught that Zibbet fever and became excited and hopeful and all "Whooo Hoooo-ish" and energized....realizing that this was the moment we at Zibbet had been waiting for. So many sellers flocked to the venue at once that articles were talking about how the site crashed and the Ceo's Jonathan Peacock and Andrew Gray suddenly found themselves in the lime light. There they were... bless their hearts... promising to uphold the integrity of handmade vintage and supplies...and so many newbies were just amazed at how "hands on" these 2 were in the forums.
Flash forward to a couple months down the line.... and eggs were already starting to crack in that Zibbet basket.
The white rabbit had been banished after bringing a bit of BBQ sauce to the party.... Chuck E Byrd had been "helped" in swiftly shutting his shop down after he offered his advise in the forums that the Handmadeology links might be considered to be Black Hat seo in Google speak. Oh and of course we can't forget about the Handmaidens who seemed to have their nose in everyone else's business except their own. You could say this.... you couldn't say that...etc. etc.
Then dare we bring it up again? ( Well might as well because yep..you can't unbury something that has already been dug up)---- the C3 thread came to Zibbet and the forums there have not been the same since then. It was like you couldn't be in the middle or not have an opinion.... suddenly---- if you weren't all in and for them----OMG---- you were now a trouble maker and you were AGAINST them and were supposedly trying to bring the venue down. We were all told to overlook Andrew's mistake of tying his highly controversial political views to the Zibbet venue... and at the same time it was becoming quite clear to a lot of people that whilst Andrew thought it was okay to protect his Freedom of Speech.... he made it VERY clear that they were watching what others were saying in places other than the Zibbet venue and basically that if you said things they deemed unfavorable to Zibbet in your own spaces that they would not be overlooked.
And by "watching" a lot of people might also refer to this as "stalking".... it was getting to be really creepy how this one little "PRIVATE" group seemed to be following people around.... and contacting them through messages and just over all nutzzzzz that they kind of took that creepy Koolaide and ran with it in some sort of feverish fervor that still seems to keep growing.
Back to Any Old Time......
She had started asking some hard questions in the forums and wasn't exactly getting any real answers. At the time it was really amazing to see how quickly they turned on her.... but knowing now what we didn't know then....nothing seems to be much of a surprise anymore. ( And that in itself is the thing that makes it even weirder....when you have heard so many strange things that none of it seems shocking.... you just get to where you expect to hear or be shown even more weird stuff.)
The day came when some of those Zibbeters pounced on Any Old Time and threw her under the bus and they actually put that bus in reverse and ran over and over her. Here was the person who had worked so hard to bring so many new sellers to that venue and to take that venue to the next level..... and BAM! she was banished quicker than you can say "AMEN".
The girl was pissed and she wanted her money back and they wouldn't give it to her. Zibbet had made a lot of false promises in "selling" those "premium" accounts that they weren't delivering on. And each time they were called out on something new.... the spin just kept spinning and more and more math that doesn't add up kept getting revealed. And now more and more people are digging deeper and deeper and yes.....spreading the word. It would seem like the CEO's there in zibbetland would have made themselves a lot more than the $247 bucks Any Old Time wants back had they simply treated her with some sort of respect.... offered her some sort of an apology... and given her the dad gum refund. Not only did that not happen.....but Andrew made it even clearer that he was going to "cleanse" those Zibbet forums even more so that new "users" could not see what was happening.
And those Zibbet forums today? hmnnn... I myself have been involved in a few train wreck kind of situations...but those forums seem to put the "loose in Caboose" and give the phrase train wreck a whole new meaning. Like a train wreck on crack? (or could it possibly be kool-aide flavored crack?)
The latest example? A new shop owner... LockedNLoaded gets called a sock puppet and bounced before he even has a chance to set up shop. I said in my last post that you seriously could not make this stuff up even if you tried. And I know.... I know.... it's their venue and they can do whatever they want with it. I just wanted to send another shout out to Any Old Time and people like her who had a voice and gave a lot of us hope that there is a venue out there where we can feel at home and where we can feel there really is a chance for us to thrive. Any Old Time and people like her showed us that we really can work together to make a difference. HOWEVER---
Many found out and are still finding out that Zibbet is not the difference they were looking for.
Good luck to all of ya'll who are still there trying to make a go of it..... and creepy Karma times a gazillion to the very few of you in that little secret group who seem to thrive on causing chaos. I think someone should start a little prayer group for ya....maybe we should pray that your grand poo bah hats will stop pinching off the oxygen to your brains as the thinking within that group seems quite questionable to many. wink wink
#Anyoldtime #Zibbet #chaoscreators #handmaidenarmageddon
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