Amy's gone. Life sucks.

This is mostly a personal note about a sad thing that happened today, but it also happens to be very much on-topic for this blog.

A photostream on Flickr by a young woman calling herself amyg4fun - COMMENTS WANTED was deleted, earlier this evening. Amy's photostream was easily the most fun I've ever had on Flickr, and after following her postings and the myriad user comments for the past couple of months, I found myself looking forward to it every day. I also felt the absence on weekends, when she usually didn't post. I was a dedicated fan, maybe even more than I should have been.

I don't know why her photostream is gone, but the leading theory is that there was something in it that pissed off the Flickr gestapo, who have been deleting a lot of accounts lately, with no warning and no explanation. As I was looking about tonight, trying to figure out what happened, I noticed a couple of other contacts of mine were gone too (most notably a lovely woman who called herself "Luscious Lii", although she hadn't been active for a while, unlike Amy). Amy's photostream definitely fit within the boundaries of what I talk about on this blog, since it was often very erotic, but at the same time, the primary emphasis was almost invariably on humor. It's kind of hard to explain, but her collection of photos, numbering somewhere on the high side of 1500, was the antithesis of porn. (Actually, I kind of like to think it's what porn would be, if we lived in a world totally free from sexual guilt and recrimination.) Unlike almost all pornography, these photos conveyed a spirit of fun and innocence. Yes, they were sexy, but where porn is quite often soulless and empty, this collection was never like that. It just wasn't even in the same league.

What it was, was an ongoing, online party, with Amy providing the entertainment, and all of us, her dedicated fans and stalkers, chiming in with literally thousands of comments and quips over the past few months. I, myself, must have posted several hundred comments on her photostream, probably more than all my comments on other photostreams put together. Some days, I would comment on every single photo she posted. It was just fun. We all liked Amy a lot, too. I also very quickly lost track of how many times Amy got propositioned by various commenters. :)

An alternate explanation for the disapperance, of course, is that Amy herself deleted her photostream. That seems far less likely to me, though, considering that earlier today, she not only posted some of her finest stuff to date, but broadly hinted at lots more to come. [Update--this theory was proved wrong, she sent me a message confirming her original account got nuked.]

The only reason there's any doubt in my mind is because she didn't talk very much. With her, it was mostly the pictures, and a brief, funny comment on each one. Sometimes she would respond to us commenters, but a lot of the time not. That's just how she was, take it or leave it. Most of us took it, accepted that that's the way Amy was, and loved her anyway. She was a beautiful, sexy sweetheart, what else could we do? :)

In a way, I kind of hope it was Amy herself who decided she'd had enough. I mean, that would be bad, because it would make me wonder if something was wrong, and I might tend to worry. But at the same time, if it was the morality cops that axed her account, that would be a grave injustice, because there was nothing the least bit offensive or objectionable there at all, except possibly to the sorts of idiots who can't tell the difference between play and reality (that's a good description of most morality cops, actually). Not only that, but deleting a person's account without warning, especially a well established one like Amy's, with thousands of comments and probably close to 200,000 views, is completely and totally unfair. The Flickr cops never bother to tell people why they're being axed, and never give anyone any warning. I have read the rules and Terms of Service myself, and they are not exactly clear, but the Flickr cops don't seem to care about that. This is the main reason I referred to them as "gestapo" above. If they were interested in playing fair, they wouldn't be pulling this sort of shit. They would be helping people to understand and obey the rules, and they would be warning people who were crossing the line, giving them a chance to straighten up. I guess I'd better shut up about this, though, because I am starting to get pissed off, and I don't want a second night in a row of insomnia.

The only possible positive outcome that I can see, if she was axed, is that she might decide to come back and give it another go. I suppose I shouldn't get my hopes up, though. Even if she does come back, there's no recovering what's already been lost, in particular the thousands of comments and notes that are totally unrecoverable.

Whatever happens, this is a serious bummer. I suppose I'm going to have to find something else to look forward to every day--my life has been a total bitch for the past couple of years, and lately, this one thing was pretty much all I had to look forward to. I found it much easier to get up in the morning, knowing that there would most likely be a new assortment of pictures waiting. There's plenty of other titillating material on Flickr, but there was only one Amy, and, as I look around at what else is available to me, I find myself feeling quite uninterested. :(

[update, 4/11/2007] SHE'S BACK!!!

This just completely makes my day. :-D

Looking back at what I wrote last night, I was pretty depressed. I feel much better now, and am resisting the urge to go back and re-write this whole post to make it sound more upbeat.