“By the way, I got doxxed again today! So that’s great,” Taaryn Cooper said.
“Again? Isn’t that the second time?” replied Roman Ikram concerningly.
“Third!,” Cooper responded with a shrug.
The idea for Taaryn’s video game – Five Nights At Freddy’s: In Real Time – came from a conversation with his friend Roman about the original game that came out in 2014.
“That feeling of like, that nostalgia and remembering, like, what was our imagination as kids, and so I remember I always wanted to see, like, the animatronics move, because I loved that they were still and I think that’s a genius idea,” Taaryn said.
FNAF in Real Time began its full development around August of 2023, going through some strong efforts of trial and error the first few months of development, looking for any way of making the project work.
In all the excitement and anticipation while creating the video game, Taaryn had no idea the negative weight that social media would carry later down the road and the impact it had on him as a person.
The process began with Taaryn reaching out to people on social media and asking if they would wanna collaborate and create a game together as one.
In its early stages of development, social media played a big role in bringing people together and it was how Taaryn was able to reach out to people such as coders, animators, etc. and invite them to all collaborate on FNAF in Real Time.
Social media played such an impactive role in the development of the game as well as Taaryn’s life throughout the almost two years he spent working on the game from his bedroom at home. It allowed for many opportunities to come through the door and it helped him grow into a sort of icon within the FNAF community.
It also took a great toll on his day-to-day life and the way that Taaryn’s full perspective on social media and the influence it can have.
“There’s a lot of things that I that I got from that [social media] that I wanted to do, and I think that it was my first step in honestly being able to see how any of my ideas could turn into something that could be kind of realistic, that was really fun,” Taaryn said.
“But then I also kind of very quickly realized that to do anything like that, you really need a strong sense of barrier security, no matter what, because all I did was make a Five Nights at Freddy’s game, and I got doxxed.”
He has so much appreciation for the positive impacts social media has brought to his project and continues to do so with new projects he is working on.
On the topic of “new projects,” Taaryn is developing a new video game, which he has organized a Kickstarter essentially connecting creators with backers to fund projects.
However, he also recognizes as good as social media can be, it can also rip into you, and the way you handle yourself can really define the outcomes of things. Taaryn knew he had to keep a strong sense of self when developing the game, especially when a community formed around it and faced so much criticism.
“I think at the end of the day, I have to talk about my experience with social media as it has been the worst years and the best years of my life. It has been some of the most terrible and hurtful things that I’ve ever experienced,” he explains.
“So much assault and harassment from social media, I have had my worst depressive episodes ever and hit my limits, like, five fucking times, it shouldn’t have happened. God damn you, Five Nights at Freddy’s,” he said with a laugh.
But he does not let that back him into a corner, as he knows that this is just something you have to learn how to deal with because there will always be a few people trying to poke at you for a mere reaction.
“So at the end of the day, we can’t keep, keep crying about that shit. The harder we cry, the more that they’re gonna be like, they’re gonna want to like, hear us cry even harder, you know,” he said. “So let’s just celebrate how much cool shit we’re doing. So I think that’s my overall perception.”
