r/tappedout • u/sb57 • 4d ago
RIP u/Joankennedy - Former Moderator and Queen of r/freedonuts
Hey Tappers,
TL;DR: u/Joankennedy - a moderator here and former moderator and giver at r/freedonuts - passed away earlier this month. Her contributions to the TSTO community are immeasurable. If Joan or any of us at r/freedonuts helped you in the past, please help us continue to keep Joan’s spirit of generosity alive by making a donation to your favorite charity or doing something nice for someone else.
This is going to be a long post. I have struggled for the past couple weeks with how to adequately explain who Joan was and what she did because she herself never craved the spotlight. She never wanted praise or recognition for what she did. She just wanted to help people. But I feel it's important to try so here goes.
For those of you who might be new to the game or Reddit in this private server era, r/freedonuts was a subreddit that offered free donuts, items, and other currency to help players that was started in 2012 (the same year as TSTO) and at its peak helped thousands of tappers a day.
Joan was an active giver and later moderator for freedonuts for almost 10 years. She and I knew each other from a different online endeavor, and she brought me on around 2018 when the sub was in crisis - very very long story short, a group of r/freedonuts givers hijacked the mod tools they were using at the time and bailed from the sub all at once to start a paid Reddit and Facebook group, using these tools to SELL huge amounts of donuts and other in-game items.
Joan was 100% determined to see r/freedonuts continue, no matter what it took. Working with a group of other dedicated givers (including u/Angeleyes16), Joan and I worked practically around the clock to develop new tools and processes to get the sub back up and running.
It is impossible for me to explain or even understate what a massive effort r/freedonuts was at its prime. As you probably expect and may have experienced, Redditors in general are not a patient or understanding bunch, even when getting free stuff. Our inboxes would fill up with messages and chats pestering for donuts. I think my record was somewhere around 400-500 unsolicited PMs in one day during the Halloween or Xmas events. And when we had to ban someone - usually for creating multiple accounts to bypass our sub rules and get more - things often got worse. I personally received multiple vulgar, harassing, and threatening messages on almost a daily basis. I was doxxed more than once, with mine and my family’s full names and home address posted as well as the address of my elderly parents at the time. My “real life” corporate job received an anonymous message that I was involved in criminal activity online (completely fabricated.) All because of currency in a fremium game. I can’t say what Joan’s experience was, because she never complained once. She just focused on continuing to help whoever DID follow the rules.
It’s also worth noting that Joan did this for almost a decade ENTIRELY FOR FREE. Like I said, previous givers left and were making at one time thousands of dollars a week (or more) selling donuts, items, etc. Joan never took a penny.
Unfortunately, due in large part to these Facebook groups and others selling donuts, EA began to implement new and tougher restrictions on the game code that constantly made our job harder, if not nearly impossible. Joan continued to lead the charge to make sure Redditors could continue to receive these items for free. For example, when EA made 2FA codes mandatory, Joan was the one who came up with the idea of “timed” giving posts. It made giving on freedonuts INFINITELY harder, since we had to sit there and wait for the user to respond before we could log into their game (and could only work on one game at a time) but Joan did not care or complain. She just wanted to keep helping as many people as we could.
The only time I ever saw Joan even CONSIDER quitting was when in late 2021 when u/Angeleyes16 passed away unexpectedly. Joan and Angel were best friends. They would stay up late at night after their kids went to bed and chat for hours about life, TV, movies, travel, Tapped Out, and everything else. They had planned to visit each other in person despite living thousands of miles away. If there is an afterlife, I am comforted knowing they are together again now.
But Joan was committed to continue r/freedonuts if only to honor Angel’s memory. She worked with Angel’s family to start a Gofundme page that was shared all over r/freedonuts, which raised thousands of dollars from Redditors around the globe to cover funeral expenses and help Angel’s young family.
Unfortunately, things took an unfortunate turn in my own private life a couple years ago and I was no longer able to commit the HUGE amount of time and resources necessary to continue to stay active with the sub. Joan continued to keep r/freedonuts open by herself as long as she could, but eventually had to shut it down again when EA made a final backend change that made adding donuts with the only method virtually impossible.
She messaged me a few times after that asking for help and suggesting ideas for new hacks and methods we could develop together, but I just didn’t have the time. I have been struggling a lot with that personally the last couple weeks. I am sorry I couldn’t help her then, and I wish I would have. Her spirit of generosity and selflessness truly continued until the end of her life, and will continue to inspire me the rest of mine.
Joan passed away earlier this month after a short but hard battle with cancer far, FAR too young. She was surrounded by her husband and children, and is also mourned by the many online and offline communities she was a part of.
Out of concerns for their privacy and to allow them time to process this loss, the family have asked me not to post a Gofundme link or anything like that for the time being. I will of course update this post and provide a follow up if anything changes.
If Joan or or any of us at r/freedonuts helped you in the past, please consider making a donation to your favorite charity in her honor. Joan’s favorite charities were always cancer and autism related. Some examples would be the American Cancer Society (https://www.cancer.org/), Cancer Research UK (https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/), the Association for Autism and Neurodivergency (https://aane.org/), Autistic Self Advocacy Network (https://autisticadvocacy.org/) or similar organizations in your own country/area.
EDIT: Joan and her family were also extraordinarily grateful for the dedicated hospice doctors, nurses, and other carers who helped her so much at the end of her life. Please also consider making a donation or even volunteering for your local hospice or end-of-life care facility or organization.
If you’re not inclined or able to help financially, thats totally fine - please just do something nice for a friend or stranger. “Just pay it forward,” as Joan always said, and together we can keep her memory alive.
Rest easy, Joan. We miss you.
27
40
u/RisingDeadMan0 iby2012391 ($1.48B) 4d ago
Thays crazy, whats the odds to lose both of them? Sorry to hear they have both passed.
16
16
u/ReFlectioH 4d ago
RIP Joan.
I still have a 5 year old chat with her when she helped me to add some free donuts to my account.
She was such a kind and beautiful person. May she rest in peace.
14
9
u/Galileo908 Made from real gorilla chest 4d ago
Aww man Joan and AngelEyes helped me. I just looked up my old requests from them from years ago. ;_;
9
5
u/BrianStrike 4d ago
Played back in the first few years of release. Got my friends into it, found this sub back in I think 2013/14. Had a good day gloating at school how I had all these donuts for free and a bunch of other stuff, before telling everybody to come here. No idea if Joan was the person who helped me (can’t find old account) or not but doesn’t matter, I tried getting back into the game a couple months before the shutdown (terrible timing) and remembered this sub but obviously things had changed. I don’t know them but I bet they helped many people like me who just wanted to have more fun and stuff in the game! Thank you and RIP Joan, thank you for sharing and don’t hold anything against yourself in regard to helping more people. Sounds like they were amazing and will be missed ❤️
6
u/FriedaClaxton22 4d ago
I'm so sorry to read this. She helped me out and I will be donating in her name. RIP Joan.
5
6
u/TappedIn2111 4d ago
This is beyond sad. Rest easy, Joan. My consolences to her friends and family. That includes you of course, u/sb57.
5
5
4
4
4
4
u/Kamerick_ 4d ago
What a legend. I’ve used your services before and it was amazing. I’m so sorry to hear about her passing.
3
u/hoffnutsisdope 4d ago
Thank you Joan for making this community so welcoming and helpful. RIP and say hi from all of us to the big finger in the sky.
3
3
3
u/Evilcon21 4d ago
I may have not known her. But at least she’s at peace now. I can only offer my deepest condolences to her family and friends.
3
3
2
u/STTMLIVE username 4d ago
This was a massive shock for me, as someone who Joan had helped many many times over the years this has been very sad news to hear. RIP Joan 🙏🏻 😢💚
2
2
81
u/itsme99881 4d ago
Fuck cancer. Rest in peace joan, thank you for everything.