GWDFI: A lesson in good things taken in poor moderation.

GWDFI: A lesson in good things taken in poor moderation

GWDFI. Many have heard the name, many more despise it. GWDFI, or "Girls Who Don't Fit In" is a collaborative community based on Scratch, a coding platform for children. In the years since it's creation, GWDFI has taken over scratch in a storm, with an estimated 22% of all active users having participated in the community. But what is this group, and why is it so popular?

GWDFI is (in theory) a meeting place for users who feel that they do not "belong" with the people around them. The idea being that if people who don't belong come together, they will be where they belong. Participant users will share projects, interact, share personal stories, or simply talk with others, creating a massive conglomeration of projects and like-minded people. In theory, this all seems perfecty fine, but in reality GWDFI is quite possibly one of the most toxic and uncaring places one could find themselves on the internet, rivling the likes of Reddit and 4chan degenerates. So why is it so popular? Well the answer is simple - adolescents. Roughly 56% of all scratch users are between the ages of 12 and 14, which is around the time in which severe mental and emotional changes begin to occur in female adolescents; the target demographic of this group. Adolescents will find a group of other adolescents and follow a line of what they believe their actions should be, generally venting about problems or inconveniences, making jokes, or asking for help. However, this also happens to be the perfect breeding ground for trolling and cyberbullying.

GWDFI is widely hated for this. Not to mention that a lot of the comments in the studio are either people who seriously need help refusing to get it, and people to harrass other for fun. "Timmists" is a term coined by GWDFI users, which refers to spammers or trollers. This name comes from a common hoax where an account named Tim would post comments saying they were kidnapped, and other users would spam a petition link and other things about tim to 'troll' the other users in the group.