#I don't think anything about this is anti but lmk if anyone thinks I should use an anti tag instead

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My Puckleberry brain absolutely LOVES the idea of Puck interacting with the Berry family omg. He definitely feels they are Too Much at first but I like to think LeRoy and Hiram’s unconditional love gets to him. They’re constantly trying to get him to join the family sing alongs and when he eventually does for the first time, they don’t make a big deal out of it. Until he’s left the room. Cue silent cheering and celebratory hugs. I’m also thinking about how his mom never went to any of his football games but the Berrys would be his personal cheer squad. (Kinda like Rachel’s “Team Finn” thing but x3) It’s what he deserves!!

Also you saying he’s a kinder person than Finn at heart… YOU GET IT.

Oh yeah exactly!! He tries to act all tough and like he doesn't care, because that's what he's always done and feels like he has to continue to do, but he'll slowly realize that it's safe to break out of that and just have some fun around them. I can so clearly imagine the scenario you're describing about them silently celebrating the moment he leaves the room, but making sure to not make a big deal of it in the moment while he's there because they know it would make him backtrack and get defensive. And YEAH they would one thousand percent be at every single football game cheering him on, probably to the point it would embarrass him, but he does secretly love it as well.

And on the Finn comment... yeah. In general I try to avoid being too negative here (not because I think there's anything wrong with criticism in fandom, just because I enjoy focusing on the positives most of the time and don't want to get dragged into discourse), but I definitely have feelings about this. To me it seems that Finn has to really learn how to be the good guy that the show paints him as having always been - we can debate the extent to which he does (or doesn't) learn, but I think the point still stands that he had to learn to be a more compassionate person. And it's not that I don't think Puck had any learning to do; he had lots he needed to learn, in many ways moreso than Finn. But I think the things he had to learn were different; he needed to learn how to let himself be himself, because I think Puck genuinely already was a compassionate and caring person, but he covered it up because he thought it made him weak. Puck in general is much more of a troubled character than Finn is (and more than the show and the fandom tend to acknowledge as well, imo) so he also has that barrier that tends to make him shut off those kinder tendencies at times in favour of appearing hard and tough.

[goose-onthe-loose]

i understand and relate to your ex religious posts so much it feels like you're in my head, even though i'm exmuslim instead. i'm also 19, i'm kind of jealous that your parents took it okay. i know it won't be safe for me to mention my atheism to mine until i'm moved out and independent (which is pretty far away atm). i'm glad for you that you got away from that and found your own beliefs. do you also feel like you're stunted from your upbringing? if so, do you have any advice on learning how to be a normal person lol

Hey! First of all thank you for your ask, and I'm sorry for the late reply. I've been in the shadow realm for a couple days but I ate a bagel so I think I'm good /hj

Ok! Before the advice, a couple disclaimers. First of all, I recognize that my relationship with my parents is pretty unusual, meaning there are certain aspects of what you might call "the standard deconversion experience" that I can't advise on.

I wish I could reveal the secret formula for supportive parents, but honestly I just got stupid lucky.

And second, obvs we are from different backgrounds so like. Take this with a massive grain of salt. Perhaps even an entire teaspoon.

Now to answer your questions.

Yes, I definitely feel stunted in a few ways... like, I missed out on plenty of general teen things, like parties, dating, and extracurriculars. Because of this I'm a little scared for college, mingling with people I feel I don't have much common ground with.

And then there are the years I spent in emotional turmoil, trying to figure out if I wanted to leave, how to do it, if I was making the right decision, etc etc etc.

I also regret the hundreds, if not thousands of hours I wasted studying obscure Jewish laws, time which could have been spent on... literally anything else.

But at this point, I can't change any of that. So I'm trying to focus on what I can do; here are a few things that have really helped me.

Research! Google is your friend, and you can use it to learn about everything from secular social norms to basic life skills. I literally got all of my sex ed online, lol.

Which brings me to my next piece of advice: build community. This one was especially helpful to me. In fact, I think of my discovery of the subreddit r/ExJew as a turning point in my deconversion journey. Like I know the site in general has a bad reputation, but stumbling across that page genuinely changed my life. It provided me with something I sorely needed: a place full of people like me. Somewhere where I could vent, ask questions, get advice, and even joke around. Idk about the culture on the exmuslim sub, but I'd say it's worth checking out.

This was also a good place to find anti-apologetic blogs and books, which went a long way towards undoing the bullshit religious pseudologic I'd been inundated with.

And lastly, "coming out". This one is iffy, and you should only do it if safe. But I still recommend it, because honestly. After I had decided to leave, one of the hardest parts was pretending to be something I wasn't.

So... after a while, I stopped. Wrote a letter to my parents, sent a mass email to the teachers in my religious school. I chose not to tell most of my classmates, but I did find another closet atheist in my school, and she honestly made the rest of my senior year a lot easier. Just having one other person to look over at and silently agree, "yeah, this is bullshit," can help with morale.

And even if you don't find anyone like that, there's a lot of peace, I think, in speaking your mind.

I hope this helped, and I hope good things come to you soon.

Lmk if this was helpful, or if you ever wanna chat :)

[xoxo-ren-xoxo]

Just a small thing that you can definitely ignore if you want and I know this might be bad to say or even selfish but I just.. miss the old Schlatt? not the one who's now doing this content and making hurtful jokes just for money. because every day I'm losing more and more hope that off camera, he's a genuine person?

Or I just want him to improve and become better? I don't know, I know I might be selfish for being like that and I do recognise that parasocial relationships do exist and he is merely a stranger to me but I just want him to become better and to be better. curse me and my heart where I just want the best for everyone, even if I don't know them. c': I think I miss the old Schlatt - because I feel like even this persona he has is not doing him any good?

This might be a thought but you know when you look at someone and you can just see or feel that their mindset is affecting them - especially when it's affecting them negatively? I noticed that with him. Again, I know I'm a mere stranger and I don't know anything about him but even with strangers you can notice this? When he was on a break from that sort of content while he was moving, on the update "I'm Back" video he had a better energy? But when he started to embrace that persona again, his energy is just becoming worse and worse. the only times his energy was better again was when he had the moments with Jambo?

I don't know. I'm just going on a ramble at this point but I just wish he became better?

This is the exact reason I still watch the guy! I completely get where you're coming from, and it can be hard to have these sorts of conversations without speculating about what goes on 'behind the scenes' (something we know Schlatt is uncomfortable with and is possibly one of the reasons he puts on such a contrary persona).

I agree that his content has taken a downturn lately. But I don't think it's the fault of the persona, I think it's the fault of him misusing the persona. Of course he can do whatever he wants, I don't really care cause if he decides he wants to keep being a bastard then that's his problem and I'll stop watching cause that content isn't for me. However, I have some ideas about why the more recent videos have been 'worse':

His heart isn't in it. Jackbox games are fun and all but they aren't the kind of content Schlatt likes to make. In my opinion. His old channel had videoessays, but he's said before that they don't make enough money for him to keep doing that. I think he likes the little slice of life videos more because they're easy and because they're fun. I think the Wii videos were great, well-structured and good examples of well-done satire, but I feel he got a bit bored of it so he tried jackbox, which just isn't the same.

The satire doesn't work with jackbox videos. In the Wii videos it's just him and the game and some props. He plays his character and clearly makes fun of the kind of person he's portraying, or he just makes fun of himself, which is cool too lol. For example in the Wii fishing video, he plays the character of a misogynistic guy who loves fishing and hates his wife. Then proceeds to be terrible at the game and get angry to the point of making himself look like a fool. That's why we laugh! We laugh at the dumbass he's portraying. And obviously this is the same for most of the bits he does. The classic one being the gay Catholic patriot. The unexpected clash of traits makes it funny. With the jackbox vids you don't really get that. It's him and some friends. And yeah, they make fun of themselves and each other, but it has the unwanted side effect of being easy to turn into something that starts to make fun of other people, such as minorities or victims of tragedy, which isn't okay.

Mans is just trying to get a rise out of people. We all know this. The last video was purposefully offensive to try to scare the dream stans away. Which was dumb, and he shouldn't have done it, but I get why he did it. With everything that's happened recently, I'm sure Schlatt doesn't want to be associated with that sort of fanbase. Unfortunately, he went the wrong way about scaring them off.

Moving, the entire thing with lunch club and cmc, getting a cat, and Connor moving in, all while making near-weekly videos, two podcasts, and being on streams. That's a lot to think about, which is probably another reason for the lazier content and falling back on 'easy' jokes that often turn out offensive.

What I'm saying is that I feel he's in a rut. He hit a dead end, tried to fix things, then fell off and made a shitty video as an attempt for controversy. If I'm right, then I feel that he's gonna take a bit of a break (he's already taken a pretty long break if you look at how long it's been since the last video on his main channel) and come back when he's actually ready to do some better content.

The video was bad, and I get why people don't feel comfortable watching him anymore. I've made my peace with it and I'm hoping for some better content soon. But not too soon!

Lots of his friends have spoken about the whole thing, and the general consensus is that yeah, it was bad. I think Connor talked about him and Schlatt seeing a kid watching The Video and Schlatt having this 'oh shit' moment? I might be wrong, if anyone has a link to the clip or stream where Connor talks about this lmk. But regardless, I think mans is taking a break and sorting himself out. There are also rumours he might stream soon but idk idk.

I feel that off-camera he's a completely different person. Minx said she sees it that way, Ty also said he's very respectful and chill off-camera. So I don't think he's a bad person (I don't think he's racist or anti-Semetic, he fucked up but I highly doubt he believes that shit irl and I think claiming that he does is just performative and kinda weird. I understand microagressions are also very bad and can be used by racists/be racist but on their own they do not make you a racist especially if it's poor taste jokes that went too far etc).

You're right though, he definitely wanted to make money. That didn't really work out for him though (if you look at the stats on The Video, it performed terribly) so I doubt it's a mistake he would make again.

For now, if you want to see better content that (I think) reflects Schlatt in a better light (aka he's still doing a bit but he's much more chill and less of a bastard about it) I recommend the chuckle sandwich podcast and sleep deprived podcast. He's on OTK streams a lot too but that sorta thing isn't really for me.

Also stan connoreatspants bringing us Jambo content all the time. 🙌

Idk if that was helpful, but it's more a gesture of solidarity since I agree with and feel everything you're saying. Of course, this is all speculation, please don't spread this as fact because I don't know Schlatt any better than you do. He's just a comfort CC and guy I think is kinda neat when he's not doing dumb shit.

Sorry for the long post. Also, you can disregard the shit I said about racism if you want cause I'm not qualified to talk about it really. There are good points for calling someone a racist for jokes like the ones in the video, but I feel like the rest of the factors should be looked at too since this is a complicated situation. Again, just my opinion, please no hate. If you have a complaint DM me or send an ask. I'm open to hearing other povs.

Have a nice day !