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People like to hear when someone tells them to stay in a roleplay, it feels like you have a reason to be there.

I joined the roleplay because it was one of the Instagram roleplays actively updating in the beginning of February 2018 and I wanted to feel that rush of excitement especially in a platform I was not familiar with. I wanted to change my judgment of IG rps, which has always been aesthetics galore and be in a place that thrived with activity and warmth to see if it was more than what meets the eye. And I was not disappointed, the place was active. That was indeed true. However, the warmth is another story. I didn't quite grasp the warm welcome I had received when I was rping in Facebook, but I couldn't compare that between the two platforms. It just wasn't the same.

There's not much to say about the theme because it was a non-au crack (note: memes and text-talk) roleplay and there weren't anything to look forward to nor did I have any expectations since the actual roleplaying was nonexistent. 

There's so much freedom that you just hop on the bandwagon that is aesthetic, memes, selfies and occasionally, if you're on their good side, appreciation posts. While that may be the premise of most general roleplays, there seems to be a lack of idol presence or the realization that we are characterizing that role. There is a difference between roleplaying and a group of people bonding.

Brace yourself, it's lengthy.

To begin, there is a lot of bias, that is something I cannot leave out of this review. Without it, I do feel like the welcoming would be better. People are capable of welcoming, they just tend to welcome their bias quicker than they would welcome you (unless you are the bias). And by welcoming, I do not mean the copy and paste messages that everyone receives. I understand it gets the job done and often helps when you have nothing to say, but you're not really trying to make friends if its a paragraph of text. Tip: use a joke or a new song as an ice breaker. Starting out with a paragraph is going to bore people and lose interest.

Because Stay put on their bias perfume, it attracts cliques. It's basically the odor you would recognize every 5 seconds because it's everywhere. I'm gonna break it down for you in simple categories. 

1) The Idol Groups. If you are a BTS member, congrats, your first friends are your own members. Are you surprised? Neither am I. It's a good thing that you can rely on your group to make you feel somewhat welcomed when you join, so I do advise you to join in a group to make socializing with others better. But people also seem to label your group as one person too. They see BTS as one person and not really seven people, so you have this reputation already thanks to your members. Your group is literally the only people you can rely on as your friends here because unless you change characters, then you're glued to them and they keep talking to you. But if you are a solo or a model, it's harder since you're on your own and you have nothing to fall back on. I highly recommend being in an idol group - you'll feel less lonely. Although if your group members are inactive, then it's pointless to be that idol. 

2) Real-life Friends. It's cute when you want to join a roleplay with your friends but then it becomes less cute when it stops becoming roleplaying and more like your personal account. If I wanted to see you and your friends hanging out, having sleepovers, and going to school daily, I'll follow you in real life. I don't have a problem with sharing it every now and then, but when it comes into the roleplay, then that's when you're ostracizing everyone. Just know your limit, and if you really want to share it to someone, you can DM it privately. Just remember what you're here for and that's to roleplay.

3) Other RP Friends. We all do this, and this is a good thing. Ever join a roleplay and realize, "Hey I know you from this other rp!" Well, people might not say it openly but you can bond over knowing someone. It helps you feel less like a stranger and that you have someone to talk to even though it's not exactly a 'new' friend.

4) Social Butterfly Instigator. We all see this type of person and it means what it says. A person that is friends with everyone you know but also the person that starts rumors between people because they know so many. The more people they flock to, the more people is involved and thus, why I categorize as a clique because everyone knows this person and typically don't want to associate with them because they're generally biased. 

+ Couples. I don't want to add this to the list but I mention it because couples are their own clique from the roleplay. When we're in love, we just want to talk to our boyfriend or girlfriend the whole day as if they're the only one that exists. And it's romantic, it's cute, it's adorable. But it seems like couples are what drive the roleplay to stand because no one actually cares about making friends. And that's really sad. Because that doesn't make the future of this roleplay that bright. If you think about it, the core of every roleplay is to meet new people, create memories through conversations and moments, and friendships. If love is the main principle that keeps this roleplay alive then there's not much to work with to entertain, there's no reason to actually 'stay'.  The admins do try to restrict couples from only interaction with themselves by limiting posts with each other but that only creates chaos. And the only thought that crosses my mind when I see that is, 1) What's the point? If you're going to make the couples limit their posts with each other, you might as well limit the other cliques from posting about their friends and since cliques make up the rp, you should just enforce the rule to everyone. It also doesn't help that the admins do it themselves so it's really hypocritical.

While I do notice cliques more frequently, this is not to group everyone into the ones mentioned above. You will see a few people who do try but get overshadowed, and it's a shame since you could have a good group of people to talk to, they're just harder to find.

My solution to fix this is to be more open. Openness goes a long way and it will help you step out of your comfort zone and you'll never know you might meet someone wonderful in the process. There is no reason to avoid someone. This roleplay isn't your personal account. You cant make your own rules; you have to obey to the roleplay rules. It's not difficult to approach someone and make them feel welcome. You wouldn't like it if someone ignored you so don't do the same to them.

I didn't feel like my existence actually mattered. Not even the admins welcomed me directly. I did receive an insane amount of friend requests, but that's not important because what is a number supposed to feel like? The problem for me is that within those number of requests, there are only a few that actually go out of their way to welcome you. On top of that, it was confusing when people were 'resetting DMs', which is the process of deleting your DM inbox and messaging people again to 'start new'. Doesn't help if the other person doesn't do the same thing. That other person was me, which made me sad because you basically threw our conversation in the trash. Was it not meaningful or memorable that you can delete it that quickly without hesitating? This further proves that befriending others here is difficult; it may be easier if you're a guy because there's a magnet that surrounds anyone with a thing-a-ling in their pants but it's still very difficult to keep or manage a friendship without your members. This 'resetting' DMs and Feed thing throws me off guard that I kind of gave up on this roleplay because of it. I didn't understand the point of resetting your feed if you're supposed to post once a day; in my opinion, that's all the hardwor