So over the last few days some dude faked some leaks.
That’s really what it all boils down to, basically. It happens. In fact, it’s happened quite a lot over the last couple of months. Why? Well, I’ll get to that later, but first, here’s what’s happening.
I’ve basically rolled the clock back over in the 2016 Discussion topic. Some posts have remained from the ordeal, but for what it’s worth, feel free to continue discussing as if the interruption never happened.
That being said, the 2016 discussion topic is being renamed to “BIONICLE 2016 Pre-Leak Speculation.” When actual pictures come out, I’m going to start completely fresh and make a new 2016 Discussion Topic.
Now, I’d like to speak a little about what happened. Honestly, I never believed the leaks were legit so I was not all that affected by them being confirmed as fake. However, I feel bad for a lot of you who honestly did believe them and are likely pretty let down and annoyed right now. I get you and understand. I also don’t take too kindly to somebody joining our message boards for the sole purpose of trolling our community and being hailed as a hero and treated like some kind of superstar by the masses while doing it. The fact of the matter is that there’s always going to be people who like to mess with the community; that’s never going to change. What can change is how the community responds to it.
Honestly, if it was me or someone else from TTV who fell for this leak (among others that have been created this year) we’d have nobody to blame but ourselves. We’ve been in this community long enough to recognize what’s true and what’s not. That being said, I know for a fact that the advent of BIONICLE’s return has brought forth an entirely new community into the fandom, people that don’t have the experience that others do and who may not be able to separate fact from fiction as easily.
You don’t have to feel bad if you got tricked; situations like these will help you develop the knowledge and the perception to be able to know what to trust in the future. People grow by experience, and this is no different. In the future, however, I would hope that people will remain skeptical of basically all information until concrete evidence is presented. I would also strongly advocate immediately discounting basically anything that doesn’t have solid photographic (or official, ala Amazon) evidence to back it up. There’s nothing wrong with discussing leaks and entertaining the possibility that they’re true; I just don’t want to see them instantly believed and treated as “fact” because people will be very disappointed when they turn out to be false in the end.
Hype is a dangerous thing, and can be a double edged sword. We all have brains, and we all have the capacity for rational thought and critical deduction. Let’s put it to use in the future and look out for each other to avoid crippling disappointment, because these fake leaks are only going to grow increasingly prevalent. We’re a community, after all, and we’ve gotta stick together.
Well said Meso, well said. I was honestly surprised to find that the guy was trolling us, as I myself believed some of the stuff he said was legit. Clearly hype does have the potential to overcloud ones rational thinking.
Honestly I think leaks should be banned here all together, IMhO.
They’ve given some people a bad taste for the site and I personally don’t enjoy all the leak discussion.
Now this is why I don’t really trust leaks so much. Back when I was a kid and I didn’t really understand what leaks were, I didn’t mind waiting for new sets. I didn’t want to see any leaks, either, because I thought of them as spoilers. With the introduction of new and faster technology, people can just fake stuff more and just lie. That’s just the internet and how it works. People can share images more and troll people more, making a lot of bionicle fans susceptible to this. A lot of people seem to find fake leaks true simply because they’re too eager and impatient.They just accept whatever is given to them for one reason only-- because they can’t wait for 2016.
I really don’t think talking about leaks here is going to end up well most of the time. I think speculation about the sets and what’s going to happen story wise is what we should talk about when it comes to the upcoming years for BIONICLE, not sharing leaks and getting trolled.
This is the first year I’ve been invested in a community that really plays up leaks. I get it’s practically part of our culture, but I myself prefer to stay as far away from the whole ordeal as possible. Too much energy and time for not enough reward IMO.
I was so skeptical about it at first but when he showed me the “catalog cover” I just thought it had to be true. And then to make it worse he wanted me to vouch for him so people could trust him. He told me that he didn’t trust you Meso which was kinda odd but I can’t believe I fell for it
as soon as he said Tahu had pink eyes and lewa had no keetorange, skepticism mode turned on high for me, so I wasn’t disappointed when I found out they were fake
