From a cult, to illegal worlds, to drug use, to porn worlds. We've heard it all. Let's clear some things up.
Anybody on Worlds is no stranger to the many many rumors and misconceptions of it. If you've been on it for some time, you've probably heard some crazy things, and you'll know they aren't true but they get spread around anyway.
Well you are in luck, as this blog post serves as a explanation of these many falsehoods spread around.
The Cult
Probably the one spread around the most has been the rumor there is a cult on Worlds. It's also the most annoying to deal with and was made popular by Youtubers looking to make clickbait. The cult has never been proven, and any information on it has derived entirely from a loss of context.
The explanation about the cult is pretty simple: When Worlds was first brought to the attention of 4chan's /x/ board, it brought along some users who some ended up staying. Due to the obscure and empty nature of Worlds generally, and it's lower end graphics from a simpler time, it allowed them to troll and scare new users who joined. The cult was all a troll gag during then, and while it was only one of their many gags, it seemed to be the one that gained the most attention, as spawning from it was not only 4chan threads about a supposed 'cult', but also a blog still up today talking about it which has lead to why we still face this completely false accusation.
Nexialist is just a normal dude, and he ended up just growing out of his trolling period. He isn't some cult leader or anything. It would be a terrible idea to run one anyhow on a program such as this, and we'll make further points on other topics to explain why. There is nothing we worship or anything. It was simply just older users having a good time back in the day.
Illegal Activities
I've heard a lot of talk about black market activities on Worlds.com and so on, and let me tell you how dumb they are.
Just because it's obscure and old, doesn't mean it's ignored or not paid attention to. Everything on Worlds.com is logged, from the chats you send, to the locations you've been. It's on the server logs, and they know. It would be so dumb trying to do any criminal activities on there. You'd be better off hanging a sign on your door saying "Drugs here!" and not get caught as easily.
I believe even at one point, Worlds had an FBI agent online. It's not confirmed though, but if you are reading this, nice.
Illegal Worlds
This is a more general term used around for just generally bad worlds. As many know, worlds created on Worlds.com need to be hosted on a webserver to be explorable by other players. This could in theory allow for users with malicious intentions to cause problems, but the question is: Why?
There would be no real gain in doing this in Worlds. Shaper is not an easy tool to learn, and it seems like a wasted effort if not very many people are going to see it at all. It'll also at some point be found, and would lead to the arrest given the requirements needed for having a functional webserver to host worlds on. It wouldn't make any sense to do anything illegal on Worlds.com at all. You wouldn't even be able to get to a world on the deep web. It just has no backing.
Furthermore, no illegal content has ever been found or reported by any user publicly. Not a single report has been heard about or seen, just rumors.
Porn Worlds
This is usually lumped in with illegal worlds when it's talked about by newbies, but it's not illegal. You aren't going to be on some watchlist by just looking up porn (if you aren't disgusting). It's not illegal whatsoever.
Worlds is public. I mean, you can just make an account, can't you? At some point, some fellow is gonna come on and want to create some explicit stuff, and I don't blame him too much. So of course, at some point, there is going to be a porn world or two, and a few are known to exist. There is no point in hiding it's existence, but they are usually kept private because we do not want kids walking into them or dumb Youtubers using them as clickbait.
Infact, I find it surprising I have not once heard any mention of CyberSexWorlds, which was a porn version of Worlds that released in the early 2000s and did not last very long. We actually have a version of the client archived. During this entire huge talk about porn worlds, that has not once seemed to have been brought up. The servers are of course, no longer up for it, but it still does exist and had a subscription you would pay for access.
Now, let's get to an important question: Why? It's 2021, you don't have to look at polygonal boobs anymore. Why in the world are you looking for porn on some old obscure chat program? We now have hyper-realistic porn games everywhere and plenty of high quality images and videos so you don't have to jack off to only a few pixels. It makes no sense as to why you would care about these worlds in the first place, but what are you even going to do when you find them? What's your plan? Go to a normal porn site.
Mugshots
Ah yes, the infamous Mugshots.
Mugshots is a world created by Jimbly which features many users submitted pictures along with their username. It was a way to know who you were talking to without being too invasive back then. While the anonymity was nice back in the day, some people really appreciated Worlds and the users on it, and submitting a picture was a way to share a virtual connection with others.
There are other worlds like Mugshots, as it was a common thing done by worldsbuilders at the time, they just aren't so often found today. Mugshots is the most popular however, spanning over 100 rooms currently and one of the few remaining.
Where is the misconception? That Mugshots is full of stolen images of people. Completely dumb, I know, but that's what has been heard. If you have a brain whatsoever, you will notice in the very first room of Mugshots is an email address listed and rules for submission. The images uploaded to Mugshots are from people who have asked to have their picture up! There is absolutely no stealing or unauthorized images there.
So you see, many of the rumors or secrets you hear about are just events that have happened out of context, that were misunderstood to create something bigger. From simple trolling meaning you are in a cult, to people who don't read the first room of Mugshots thinking we are doxxing. If you think about things logically, you'll see it's all kind of dumb anyway. We are just a bunch of people obsessed with some old chat client, having some fun.
