Hi Hunter
Thanks for your detailed and honest response. I'm glad you've come forward to shed light on the issues. From personal experience, which is also reflected in others' posts, most issues stem from the response from the administrator RemixedCat, or lack of it.
I appreciate the reason behind you building this site for shiny sportswear lovers, especially to avoid the corporate giants such as social media, Yahoo (Oath), and Tumblr (Oath). If you felt so aggrieved with the responses from users, maybe the following suggestions would improve matters:
1. Find a better content management system to rebuild the site, and engage with users
2. Hand over the reins to someone who is happy to build / run the site (not RemixedCat)
3. Abandon it completely and shut it down (may be v. unpopular).
The symptoms that resulted from the issue you described are very similar to those of sites that have been hacked, or where software updates have failed. Users will be concerned. I for one updated my account in response. In such an event, please do the right thing and post an apologetic response, assure users you are addressing the situation and update them accordingly. Don't accuse them of being entitled and giving you ****! How others users must have felt with your last response I don't know, but it can't have been good.
If you want financial support, as ILoveShiny as kindly offered, then perhaps build a subscription into the site or use some advertising.
I would support a site via a subscription, but based on recent events, not this one.