TL;DR

There is deactivated code in the Civtiai repository to handle NSFW payments with a different sort of buzz.

Introduction

Civitai is an open source site, we can all see the code here. I have been working in IT for almost a decade now and thought I could read this to tell you something insightful about the way Civitai works. However, analyzing a large code base is hard and I am lazy. So I am writing this instead.

There are a lot of guides in the repository, which document various technical topics. One that immediately caught my attention was "red-buzz-restoration-guide.md". This brings up the question: Was red buzz ever a thing?

Red Buzz?

I don't remember ever having seen red buzz on Civitai. When I joined, everything was yellow. They later introduced blue and green, both of which was announced and quite visible.

I googled the term, wondering if I had missed this or fallen victim to a Mandela effect. I found a couple of relevant articles:

These are however not by a member of the staff, and published too late (see below). This probably was never really introduced.

What is Actually in the Code?

Red Buzz Restoration Guide

The file red-buzz-restoration-guide.md was added on September 16th 2025 and not modified since. It is a technical list of relevant technical components, but does not describe what the purpose of red buzz is. The file is AI generated, so I would not trust it too blindly. However, the title shows that introducing red buzz is at least an option that exists.

Technical Files

The file BuzzTypeSelector.tsx contains the only description of red buzz I have found. Its current version has this:

greenButton = {
    text: 'Green Buzz',
    description: (
      <>
        Can be purchased using <b>credit cards</b>.<br />
        Can <b>only</b> be used to generate <b>safe for work</b> content on Civitai.green.
      </>
    ),
  },
  yellowButton = {
    text: 'Yellow Buzz',
    description: (
      <>
        Can be purchased using <b>Gift Cards or cryptocurrency</b>.<br />
        Can be used to generate <b>NSFW</b> content as well as anything else on the site. Can only
        be used in Civitai.com.
      </>
    ),
  },

Going back to the version of June 26th 2025 (hash 8ee0d48dbe2caa55f6017694c367f4415bd82ea7) shows this:

<div className="flex flex-1 flex-col items-center">
            <Button
              size="lg"
              color="green"
              radius="xl"
              onClick={() => onSelect('green')}
              leftSection={<IconBolt color="#fff" stroke={1.5} />}
              data-testid="buzz-type-green"
              className="w-full min-w-[120px] px-4 py-3 text-lg font-semibold shadow-md focus:outline-none focus:ring-2 focus:ring-green-500 focus:ring-offset-2"
              aria-label="Buy Green Buzz"
            >
              Green Buzz
            </Button>
            <Text size="sm" className="mt-2 text-center text-green-700 dark:text-green-200">
              Can be purchased using <b>credit cards</b>.<br />
              Can <b>only</b> be used to generate <b>safe for work</b> content.
            </Text>
          </div>
          <div className="flex flex-1 flex-col items-center">
            <Button
              size="lg"
              color="red"
              radius="xl"
              onClick={() => onSelect('red')}
              leftSection={<IconBolt color="#fff" stroke={1.5} />}
              data-testid="buzz-type-red"
              className="w-full min-w-[120px] px-4 py-3 text-lg font-semibold shadow-md focus:outline-none focus:ring-2 focus:ring-red-500 focus:ring-offset-2"
              aria-label="Buy Red Buzz"
            >
              Red Buzz
            </Button>
            <Text size="sm" className="mt-2 text-center text-red-700 dark:text-red-200">
              Can <b>only</b> be purchased using <b>crypto</b>.<br />
              Can be used to generate <b>NSFW</b> content as well as anything else on the site.
            </Text>
          </div>

The text on red buzz then is pretty similar to the text on yellow buzz now, ignoring the part about gift cards.

There are more mentions of red buzz in the code and technical files, but nothing that explains it more clearly.

Subscription Multi Buzz Migration

The documentation file subscription-multi-buzz-migration.md also mentions red buzz. It seems to be a plan for having separate subscriptions for different buzz types, instead of one. Like the other documentation, it is pretty technical, but at least it is not obviously AI-generated. This is the latest of the files, published on September 30th 2025. At one point, this lists buzz types as "yellow, green, blue, red".

Conclusion

This is a bit of a shaggy dog story. Possibly red buzz was just a temporary name for what is now yellow buzz. Possibly it was an idea to get more revenue out of NSFW content. Possibly the restoration guide will be followed on day, and there will be an explanation. The only thing I am pretty certain about is that this was an idea considered last summer.

I am snooping through incomplete info on a Sunday, so take this with a grain of salt. Maintaining websites is hard, and all projects have weird spots in their code.

Snooping around in the Code: The Mystery of Red Buzz