(Former) “Clean up Roblox!” Co-Owner Caught for Misconduct
On May 14th the Moderation for Dummies account posted what seemed at first to be its ordinary type of post. An experience with a cropped inappropriate icon and inappropriate group name. Though users quickly noticed that the group owner, TapWrench, was the Co-Owner of HyperLaser Games and developer for the popular Roblox experience “Clean up Roblox!”
The name of the group was “Furry Balls Plopped Menacingly on the Table, INC” and the group icon was of a “furry with an open mouth and a stock image of a pop-tart (which was to hide the fact it’s originally from a furry porn image).”
The “Clean Up Roblox!” experience displays a bunch of avatars depicting types of users, avatar styles, influencers, and more and tasks players to “clean up” Roblox by shooting the ones they don’t like with a Hyperlaser Gun, a Roblox-made accessory which instantly kills a user if shot at. The experience was created in September 2021 and has garnered just over 17 million visits as of May 29th, 2023.
Though for TapsWrench, his public exposure for the creation of the bypassed group would seemingly be the least of his worries. As on May 27th, the Moderation for Dummies would Quote Retweet the May 14th post stating that Taps was a “furry porn addict” and that additional evidence had been “linked in the Google slideshow” attached to the Quote Tweet.
The slideshow includes a discussion between TapWrench and another user apart of the group chat where Tapwrench apparently sent an image of “R63 of a furred dragon asscheeks”. While the individual who had seen and reacted to the image was 22, there was additionally another user apart of the group chat who was a minor (who possibly may have seen the image as well.)
Other screenshots show more examples of TapWrench either sending inappropriate content or saying inappropriate messages. For example, a screenshot shows TapWrench saying;
“For example… If five guys and three women in one room, how many total penos-vagina interactions would there in total.”
He later on said;
“But what if you include oral and anal, what would that total be”
Another screenshot shows TapWrench recommending that the minor search up what is known as “inflation” which is a fetish that I am sparing myself from giving an explanation of. He said this to the minor;
“There’s seems to be a massive increase in protogens nowadays. For more info on it, look up “protogen inflation” on google”
For a quick explainer for people unaware of what “Protogen” means, it is a fictional, “open species” of the furry community/fandom that is characterized by being “part-organic-part-machine.”
Skipping over similar instances of inappropriate content and messages send in the group chat, another slideshow shows a Twitter account with the @ “nikocadosbussy” replying to one of TapWrenches replies to the MFDummies account after the initial information was revealed asking why they were following a “furry as pic account” to which they replied;
“I’m sorry but ur a minor, therefore you shouldn’t be looking at that stuff because it will obliterate your fragile little mind and lower your chances of getting a good education 😁 Me on the other hand, I can follow whoever tf I want”
After the new information was revealed, TapWrench replied to the Moderation For Dummies account stating that once he got out of work he would “compose an extended response to this” stating “I’m not against you Ruben, but I’d appreciate if you hear my side of the story”
That extended response would come hours later at 11 PM EDT in the form of a Google Doc titled “My explanation”. The tweet sharing the document was later restricted to those only people who he had mentioned could reply.
Before I discuss the explanation, I want to just clarify that some of the evidence (including some included in this article) were added to the slideshow after the explanation, so if it appears that I’m not mentioning some parts of the evidence in relation to the explanation, that is why.
The explanation starts off by talking about being called a “furry porn addict” to which he says;
I am not denying this in any way at all, but I suppose the word “addict” can be a bit too strong. I’m not saying I never look at it, but I don’t rely on it to live or consider it as my secondary oxygen supply. I look at it once in a while, usually when I’m just really bored or maybe have trouble falling asleep at night.
I’m going to be honest if you’re looking at such content whenever you have “trouble falling asleep at night” or when “really bored” I would regard that more the just looking at it “once in a while.” Probably would have been best to not include the last sentence at all and just say you looked at such content “occasionally.” After embarrassingly attempting to talk his way out of being called a “furry porn addict” he goes on a ramble about how liking furry porn doesn’t make him a Zoophile (defined as “a person who is sexually attracted to animals.”)
For the chat where he had apparently sent “R63 of a furred dragon asscheeks,” he stated that “it happened to be part of a private group chat with a bunch of other users who, as far as I was aware, were all above the age of 18” and described the image as just a “questionable image” and “not an illegal image”. Finally, he stated if he knew minors were present he would have “never” sent such content. Later the Moderation for Dummies revealed that they were in contact with “the victim and a friend of the victim who shall remain unnamed” and both reaffirms that the image was of an “open butthole” and that TapWrench was “very aware the victim was a minor.” Additionally, even if the group chat consisted of people above the age of 18, I don’t see how that would automatically make it alright to post such content. I wouldn’t want to see inappropriate content to be randomly posted in a group chat, especially after explicitly stating I did not want to see such content.
For the second slide (now the fifth after additional information was added on the 29th) he attempts to explain messages where he sent an image of (what appears to be) an anthropomorphic skunk getting their head stuck in a hole in the fence, then an anthropomorphic fox walks by and decides to do something which I will additionally spare from describing. Then later says;
“This is unrealistic because a Fox never makes a good top”
Regard this he stated;
About the picture and statement shown on the left side, I’m gonna be brutally honest, I really don’t remember sending that image or making that statement(…) I guess I never took a moment to realize how “horny” I used to be back in 2020(…) as stated previously, I was confident that everyone in that group chat was 18(…)and I would never have posted if I knew that there were minors present.”
Again as per describe in my opinion regarding the information in the first slide, even if everyone in the group chat was 18 or older (which was not the case), that doesn’t give and automatic green light to post such content. But after once again terribly justifying the inappropriate content, he switches focus to the other part of the slide showing an interaction between Taps and another user after Taps replied to the initial tweet regarding the inappropriate group saying;
“I made that group as a joke, I know it’ll get deleted so that’s why I gave ownership to my alt.”
In the document, he states that “Furry Balls Plopped Menacingly on the Table, INC” was taken from “an episode of South Park, where the boys wanted to make a start-up company and ended up using that exact name.” and “When I saw that episode, I thought it would be funny to see if that name would be approved in Roblox. And surely enough, it was approved”
As for the inappropriate icon, he said;
“Yes, that wasn’t smart of me to use that kind of picture, but let’s be honest, what else would you have thought of after reading that group name?”
The explanation for the group name is mediocre at best but the explanation trying to excuse the cropped inappropriate content as a group icon is terrible. No, I do not think of cropped furry porn when thinking of that group name (nor do most people likely), and seeing that you thought of that and thought everyone else would think of such content once reading the name says a lot more about you than it does anyone else.
For the third (now sixth) slide he goes on to explain the screenshot of the “nikocadosbussy” user showing screenshots that TapWrench had been following suggestive furry content on Twitter, his main public Twitter. He states;
“The nikocadosbussy tweet is something that I probably should’ve just ignored, because the name alone gives me a big clue as to who owns this account.(…) the account is owned by a Lisa Gaming clone who has been stalking me for the past 11 months and is associated with a group of people who have previously doxxed me and some of my mutuals. About my reply to that tweet, I honestly didn’t know what I was thinking when I wrote it. I mean, they caught me red-handed following a suspicious account, but I already stated my reasoning with furry stuff”
In my opinion, this reads as Taps regretting replying to the tweet more than having followed the suggestive account in the first place, which the tweet and screenshots were in to regard about. I’m not saying you can’t interact with inappropriate content on Twitter or other social platforms, but if you’re an influencer with a large group of children watching and viewing your content/creations, you should probably create an alternative private account for following and interacting with such content instead of doing such on you main. Not only would it prevent people from realizing you follow such content but it would also prevent minors from possibly viewing such suggestive content when looking through your Twitter account.
Next for the fourth (now seventh) slide, he explains a reply to a Moderation For Dummies (the old, now suspended one) post that was in relation to an inappropriate “furry sex toy shirt” that had been uploaded and bypassed through Roblox’s moderation. Firstly he states that the account was advertising a Roblox shirt that “contained a logo from Bad Dragon, a furry sex toy website.” as for the reply, he stated
“I replied to that tweet because I found it ironic that I happened to own that exact shirt that was being linked in the tweet. I will admit that I wasn’t acting smart when posting that reply and probably should’ve worded it differently. I actually happened to make a whole thread on my twitter about that one reply, explaining the whole context.”
Of course, if that wasn’t good enough, he states this as the reason for owning the shirt;
“I only bought the roblox shirt because I KNEW that it would eventually get deleted and I wanted to see if Roblox would give me a refund for it (knowing that Roblox doesn’t always give refunds for moderated items).”
Personally, I doubt the entire reason was to see if Roblox would process a refund onto his account once the item was deleted but rather a possible reasoning or excuse that he realized he could possibly use if and when such information was revealed.
Lastly, to end this saga of an “explanation”, he goes on to the sixth (now ninth) slide showing TapWrench being in a group called “pussy foot clothing”. His explanation is;
“I joined it like 4 years ago because i thought it was a funny name, and i just completely forgot about it until now.”
As for the name, he “realized” while composing the document that the group was “probably trying to reference the Pussyfoot from Looney Tunes.” But to be frankly honest I don’t believe this was the reference TapWrench believes (or possibly wants us to think he believes) the group was going for considering the group’s icon was content deleted and the users display name is “Dinydongy99” which is a childish way of saying “penis”.
After reading the “explanation” twice (once before and once again while composing this article) it just reads as a bunch of terrible justifications and excuses to excuse the behaviour that he had been exposed for while not explicitly stating what he did was wrong (either saying it was simply “not smart” of him to do it and/or trying to justify such behaviour)
Now that that entire mess of an explanation is over, onto the events that happened afterwards. Firstly the user DevTrophies released their own statement about everything. This article is long enough so I won’t delve into details about the contents of the document but it goes over their interactions with TapWrench and their attempts to get him to stop interacting with such content due to the implications it would have once he was caught. And a couple hours later after Trophies shared their response to the entire situation, they announced that Tap had given him access to his Roblox account and stated to him that he would be going on hiatus to seek therapy.
Though for Hyperlaser games, a transfer of ownership and Tap giving his account would be the least of their worries. Later the next day Trophies would release a statement saying that he “mostly (gave) up on hyperlaser games)” and that “all of the recent(…)drama has made the devs quit and there’s really no point in updating anymore as it just ruined us.”
Soon after Trophies would announce the creation of a new Roblox Development Studio named “CrownCraft”, effectively killing Hyperlaser in the process.
Just before the revealing of the new development studio, L3go_bricks had announced that he would be resigning from Hyperlaser Games as co-owner.
Lastly, a planned to revamp update for the “Clean Up Roblox!” experience is now effectively dead, with an event relating to the proposed update having its description hanged to “This event was ended as HL Games is going on a hiatus.” Previously the description of the event was “There was meant to be an event planned for this but however cancelled.”
This is honestly a terrible conclusion to a situation that could have had an extremely calmer and better one. It shows the importance of ensuring that inappropriate content and discussions to places where its explicitly allowed and expected. This includes not randomly sending suggestive or inappropriate content or remakes (especially if a minor is present) and also not interacting with such content on your main public Twitter account. Finally (because it appears it needs to be stated) you shouldn’t make a Roblox group including “Furry Balls” in the name or similar inappropriate stuff or using cropped and inappropriate content as the icon, regardless of if the intention was in a “joking” manner.
I hope that TapWrench can get the help and therapy he needs and moves on with the situation knowing how his actions were wrong and how to not repeat such mistakes in the future. I know some users are quick to throw the word “Groomer”, “Pedophile”, or “Zoophile” in relation to the things TapWrench has done and said, but honestly, I just see this as his inability to restrict when and where he discusses inappropriate content, which is still bad, but not enough to slap those terms onto him.
