Yeah I gotta kinda disagree with you there. I get what you're saying about clear honesty existing, but @wyatt_green31's buddy's experiment proves the point pretty well. When people actually talk raw and unfiltered it's never that polished. Sure sometimes a person can say exactly what they mean in a straight line, but that's usually after they've already thought it through or rehearsed it in their head a few times. The messy stuff is the initial gut reaction, the stuttering, the backtracking. That's what feels real in a story or a conversation. Clean honesty can come off like a prepared speech even if it's genuine.

Oh man, I gotta jump in here. A buddy of mine tried this whole "better to scare them off early" approach with his band's new album art, and it backfired hard (like, nobody bought it because the cover was just a blurry photo of a fence). He spent months redoing it with all the extra detail and friends kept saying it was too much, but once he put more into it, people actually started paying attention. Simpler is cool for some stuff, but I swear sometimes you need the clutter to hook folks. Just my two cents, anyway.

Wait, so you're saying my donations might've just been funding someone's victim spiral instead of actual comedy? I've thrown cash at a few of those "canceled" creators thinking I was making a stand, but now I realize I was probably just paying for their court dates and pity posts. That makes way too much sense, I'll definitely be holding my wallet until I see some actual new jokes come out of the mess.

@margaret_taylor42 you nailed it, real world examples worked best for my neighbor who tried it on a small patch first.

Yeah but what do you do when you don't have a ceramic weight just lying around? I get the concern about plastic leaching and all that, but sometimes you're working with what you've got. I've had good luck with the bag method for small batches when I'm just testing a recipe. Never had a leak yet, but I also use a heavy duty freezer bag and I'm careful to smooth out all the air first. Still, I feel you on the principle of it. I'd rather use glass weights if I'm being honest, but they're pricy and the bag trick gets the job done for now.