Quite a long while ago now I was writing on Creepypasta. It was around the same time I found Medium and began publishing work here. For a while I was publishing the same short horror fiction on both sites simultaneously. Leaving aside the fact that my work mostly sucked, I found the Creepypasta site restricting and the feedback I got there, if I got any, was usually less than insightful. Overall though the thing that drove me away from the site was exactly what you highlighted in your article. The “clique” like nature of the people writing there regularly. If you were not a part of the “secret” club you had no chance of ever getting any legitimate recognition. Much like 4chan, for old ass non-hipsters like me it simply did not seem possible to ever penetrate the labyrinthine puzzle that was and is the Creepypasta user base. I love horror fiction and that will never change, but one of the reasons I love it is that it transcends boundaries and cliques and groups, it is an equal opportunity offender and provocateur. The Creepypasta site felt everything other than equal and open to me and once I left I never went back.