I turned 41 this year and much like >>29462 I avoid most social parts of the internet now, preferring to just watch anime, read the occasional VN or manga, and listen to music. I go through a cycle of working for a few years & then NEETing for a while with my saved up funds which allows me to enjoy my hobbies more so than somebody who works every day would, though at the cost of my retirement; regardless, I digress.

I've known a lot of people over the years, ranging from an old anime MUCK to old IRC channels to several imageboards/forums, and the majority do just move on. They may not quit the internet entirely, but they usually dial back on their hobbies and begin to take a more passive role as life takes over. Additionally, the internet is far more walled now than it used to be despite the rampant centralization of it all; there's a good chunk of "old weebs" that went to platforms such as Twitter and Discord, but these by their very nature are not conductive to open discussion. The former is largely reliant on who-knows-who (much reminiscent of the more ugly parts of IRL) and the latter is quite literally a walled garden where you can't join unless you're granted the secret password. As a result, you'll most likely never encounter these people.

Another aspect I've thought a lot about which I equally assign this to is how a good chunk of people treat this general 'sphere' of hobbies. Anime, manga, VNs, etc. tend to attract a lot of people who use the hobby as a means to socialize rather than socializing because they enjoy the hobby. This results in many people significantly dialing back their interests over time & moving on to other stuff once they've established a group of friends. Whether one considers this bad, intentional, whatever, I don't really care, but it's certainly prevalent.

Cutting the rant short, I believe it a mixture of people moving on due to life; people moving onto walled gardens, which makes them practically nonexistent to anybody outside of said gardens; and people who were never actually that into the hobby in the first place, using it as a means to socialize instead. Those left are either the occasional rare older people who still have a heavy passion for the mediums and still contribute publicly & those like me who hardly ever post anything online. It's a boring answer, but it's that simple; people change and so has the internet.

>>29551
I'm curious what type of work you do where you can work on and off for such periods and sustain for that long. Is it more decent jobs or more a frugal lifestyle? That type of gig is beginning to sound more appealing to me as I get older.
>a good chunk of people treat this general 'sphere' of hobbies. Anime, manga, VNs, etc. tend to attract a lot of people who use the hobby as a means to socialize rather than socializing because they enjoy the hobby.
This is putting into words something I have known but never could materialize in my mind. I've always felt like the shared hobby was secondary for most people I spoke to whereas for me the hobby is the priority over the people I share it with. Very well said.

>>27976
Two years ago, I made this post. Years before, I made that other one, then the others ones itt, back to 2018. The better part of a decade has passed. What has changed since then? I tried to be part of society again. I tried hard and earnestly. It's the same. I'm only allowed in as a slave, as an implement of destruction, as a believer of lies, as a knot in a bloody whip, as a perpetrator of suffering. Only allowed in as chattel, as cannon fodder for one tyrant against the other. Only allowed in as a blind follower of oligarchs, warlords, despots, tycoons, and maniacs. Only allowed in as a morsel for the lions. Only allowed in as a gullet for putrid, corrupted values; to be oppressed and to oppress, to abuse and be abused, to destroy and self-destruct. If I'm told to eat my own feet, I'm to be thankful for the opportunity, to stop when I'm gnawing at the ankles and ask for further instructions. I am not, no matter what, to dispute any of this, but to propagate it. I look at this inequity with crystal-clear lucidity, with excruciating intensity, and my reaction is a long, confused laughter distorted by bitter tears. They dry but don't stop running. I bend in pain, I crush my forehead against the floor, almost breaking my nose. This is the deal. Another one won't be offered, now or ever.

What choices are left for someone with a shred of morals? I find myself extracted like a bad tooth from the vicious maws of modern society. I am rotting, head first; my ambitions have rotted, my anger has rotted, my lust has rotted. My distractions have rotted. The basic prerequisite to be part of the self-proclaimed productive, enlightened, progressive society has rotted in me; I no longer covet. The insurmountable mounds of orders, proudly provided and brutally imposed by the political, financial, and secular powers of this world, lose their appeal. It becomes sewage. The only thing lingering is a bad odor in the air. A gentle breeze blows it away. My interest in Japanese culture has grown organically, without any pruning, for over 30 years now. I see the good parts and the bad parts. It's a growth that took unlikely turns, culminating in my own Journey to the West. One last mental effort before the breakdown of the body. I find this extraordinary, if for nothing else, because I didn't see it coming. Three years ago, Buddha was staring me in the face. "Enough is enough," I thought then; I made him think this through me, for my own benefit. It was time to get up and go. I got up. I went.

Where am I now? You wouldn't notice external differences yet. The surface has barely changed, except everything is further decayed and closer to its natural, unavoidable end. As for the mind, I'm studying Pali. I'm disappearing now, the little dust remaining is to be used to assemble a monk. This is my sandy, sinuous, last road to the West. I'm a lingering shadow of Dogen, of Moksadeva, crossing yet again the broken paths, the deserts, rivers, and mountains. 靴が壊れ足には水疱ができている पदत्त्थानं भिज्जति मम पादā पीळितā होन्ति। Where am I to end up? Where am I to fall upon the earth to not rise again? Where is the spot I'll look at my own two hands one last time? Wherever it is, I focus my mind towards the dhamma. I got a glimpse one day, years ago, and now I walk towards it. I was shamed and isolated as a student, shamed and isolated as a worker, shamed and isolated as a NEET, isolated I found my peers. I strive relentlessly towards the dhamma. The time for myself and others is over, the time to unbecome and remain dhamma has come.

>dmahha
>religion
When I realized that even religion and pure ideals were created by them too, I first vomited, then went empty. Since then I haven't believed in anything except the simple truth – you suffer proportionally to your mental weakness. What did it give me? Nothing. What did I expect? I don't remember. As of this second, I don't expect anything. Don't strive for anything. And don't really believe in anything. The machine has succeeded in breaking me by simply showing me how broken it is itself. It's not that struggle is useless. It's just that there is nothing to struggle for.

>>29838
I assume you're also working to develop attention and awareness along with your studies though, or else all the theory in the world is going to be useless.

>>29839
Change "mental weakness" to "emotional weakness" to be more precise and I would say you are spot on.

>>29842
>Change "mental weakness" to "emotional weakness" to be more precise and I would say you are spot on.
Why'd I do that? I don't understand the difference. I suppose mental strength goes first and then forces emotions in place as well. Controlling just the emotions will simply lead to suffering with a straight face.

>>29843
You don't control or suppress the emotions, but be aware of and integrate them. In a sense this is how past karma is dissolved, no longer letting previous emotional states (e.g. childhood abandonment) affect your current state (producing anxiety and loneliness). "Mental weakness" is too nonspecific, since emotions are one layer below the conscious mind.

>>29844
It doesn't work. How can you "integrate" them? When I'm okay I can suppress them, when I'm down, they gnaw me alive, that's it. No amount of self soothing and saying things like "it was a good lesson" or "it doesn't matter anymore" or "it cannot be changed now" helps. I don't understand how exactly I am supposed to do anything with subconscious twangs of pain. Conscious mind on the contrary is well understandable and it's not hard for me to understand how it's fortitude would directly increase my ability to resist whatever emotions are at hand.

>>29845
>It doesn't work. How can you "integrate" them?
Well that's the great puzzle of course. If there were a surefire way, then all of therapy would be solved. The end-state is clear, to be at a point where you have memories of the event (those can never be erased of course), but they no longer produce any emotional response. Traditional Western "talk" therapy works at the conscious mental level with little success, some slightly more niche schools like EMDR try to induce reprocessing of memories by the right-brain in a fashion that disassociates them from emotional responses, and eastern schools try to deal with it in somatic terms exploiting a form of mind-body connection.

I strongly believe that the last one is the right way to go here and it works but very gradually, over a span of years. In fact when done daily it is the easiest way to effortlessly achieve the non-dual state, but I won't bother trying to convince anyone on its merits. Nor could I really make a cogent argument for it since the personal way I view it relies heavily both on implicit acceptance of things like mind-body connection, (breakdown of) bicameral mind, attention schema theory of consciousness, etc. as well as exposure to various eastern traditions (traditional chinese medicine, tai chi, etc.) whose theory has gone through a game of telephone and needs to be reinterpreted with a more modern grounding in psychology (something adjacent to Jung's theories).

> I don't understand how exactly I am supposed to do anything with subconscious twangs of pain.
At its simplest, you sit still and place your attention on it until it fades. Alternatively you can maintain awareness of it while deeply breathing. This is the basis for all the eastern schools of therapy. You don't want to suppress or resist the emotions to rot in your subconscious, you bring enough attention to them to lift them out of the subconscious. You "feel it out", until everything has been drawn out into the open and there is no more emotional charge left to experience any more. It's akin to how crying externalizes inner sadness and usually makes you feel better once the tears have dried up.

Most schools of meditation are very clear that actively working to achieve a non-dual state without gently surfacing these suppressed emotions is a recipe for disaster, and likely this is what is responsible for the many stories of "kundalini awakening" gone awry. There's a linkage to the phenomenon of the dark night of the soul here, as strongly charged emotional trauma can also violently resurface past trauma, overwhelming the mind and in a sense giving you the "ego death" you want but at huge price.

College and jobs are more interesting than depressive, incessant navel gazing. If you're consumed by anhedonia, you're not a weeb anymore, you're a washed-up neurotic spreading negative energy. It does not matter how ornately you dress it up.

>>29848
>College and jobs are more interesting than depressive, incessant navel gazing
I don't know what I want more, to laugh at you or to punch you. Though I guess if my job was to harass depress people on imageboards and if I were a psychopath on top, that could indeed be fun.

Anyway just in case somehow this post wasn't written in deliberately bad faith, both college and jobs become a hell born torture once your grasp at sanity slips. Or perhaps at normalfaggotry. I think I would rather ditch it all down, yield to computer game addiction for as long as possible and then kill myself than to go on for one more fucking day doing this stupid shit. I'm very disappointed with your post.

>>29850
A computer game addiction would also be better than dwelling on your poor mental state with a paint job of buddhist bullshit.

>>29851
what the hell are you on about

>>29852
Moping aroundsad is worse than being distracted by something.

>>29862
It's not something I'm in control of, stop projecting your personality on my void.

Post edited on 21st Dec 2024, 8:33am

I'm a little distraught to see that my post (>>29838) caused animosity between some people here. It's strange, I thought my words were pretty positive overall in the end, at least I feel a reassurance I haven't felt in a very long time, maybe ever. Well, let me address your thoughts.
>>29839
I don't know who is 'them', anon. Our crimes are committed with everybody's incentive, it's a little push created by every hand, or most of them, anyway. Even in the smallest, casual interactions between two people one can see ill-will, harsh speech and harmful thoughts. Look at the interactions that followed my post. Some guy feels like punching another guy and proudly lets him know about it. Proudly says that person is deserving of his mocking. Was it 'them' who posted that? No, that was a person in anger, and for no good reason. Look what followed that. Two people finding ways to be disagreeable, acting in a passive-aggressive manner with each other, again, for no good reason. Was it under some tyrant's order? I doubt it. Maybe an internalized one. My previous post was not a political statement, but a spiritual diagnosis of our society. Your path is blocked to me as my apathy has been incinerated, also, I don't believe there is nothing to struggle for.
>>29842
Reading the suttas carefully and memorizing them is, in itself, a development towards the dhamma. I know you didn't mean useless literally, but there is great value in studying Pali, even if taken as an endeavor by itself.
>>29848
In case you were responding to me, I'm not consumed by anhedonia, anon, on the contrary, I'm free from it. I did make an extra effort for that post, those thoughts were developing in my mind for two years and it was the first time I shared them with the world. I tried to be as concise as possible but also completely illustrative of my points. It's odd to see the reactions that followed, mostly negative or dismissive. It's good you find several aspects of the secular world to hold your interest, I'm just being honest when I tell you this is no longer the case with me. Is that really deserving of your loathing? If so, it somewhat strengthens my resolve.

Time to face the wall again, anons, I wish you all the best.

>>29872
It's human nature. I can't quite understand why exactly, but it seems there is some deep internal desire to offend. You did nothing wrong. People fight for no reason at all, it's the same as sexual drive.

>>29872
>>29873
I've refrained from voicing it out until now but I'll take the opportunity to say that I've personally noticed an increase in hostile posts in tohno for a good while which seems to coincide with the increase in activity in recent years. I hesitate to pin the blame on an increase in new bloods but that is my personal conjecture.

>>29872
>I know you didn't mean useless literally
Yes you're right, bad choice of word on my part, I didn't mean the tone to come off as dismissive.

I'm not too familiar with buddhism, but at least in yogic practices if the goal is to experience samadhi then texts are only meant as a guidepost. That is, "memorizing" it seems a futile endeavor, when that time would be better spent simply meditating (in any form).

>>29872
>It's good you find several aspects of the secular world to hold your interest, I'm just being honest when I tell you this is no longer the case with me. Is that really deserving of your loathing?
It's like going to a small cafe that caters to coffee aficionados, and the regulars socialize in, and talking to them about how you don't drink coffee anymore because you've transcended the need for caffeine. You converted to Mormonism and realized drinking coffee isn't what Jehovah wants from you, so you stopped having any desire for it. Then you'd start talking about how you're preparing for the after-life and the end of the world, which you can tell is imminent. Then other people would get sucked into this and start talking about all the bad things going on in the world. Can you not imagine why a regular would get annoyed by this?

>>29876
this is Ronery why would you instigate a fight? what is even the point you want to prove?

>>29877
Now that I think about it, I'd prefer /so/ be like /tat/, where you don't see it on front-page. That's a topic for /fb/ though. I don't visit tc to hear about people's morbid fixations.

Post edited on 22nd Dec 2024, 2:08pm

>>29878
if you put emotions aside waifuism could be described as a morbid fixation as well. why would you go to such extremes? the anon wrote a few peaceful posts, didn't offend anyone, didn't even flood or whatever. why do you need to attack him out of blue? everybody has their own way of coping with life, why snapping at everyone who isn't you? how exactly did he offend you, or what harm did he do to tohno in general?

>>29872
I enjoyed reading your posts anon. I hope you find yourself in a monastery someday, it sounds like you'd make a great addition to a community practicing the middle way.

>>29877
Lol, word. So many people on the internet (not just here ofc) act like their crush is watching them post and they have to sound as tough and uncompromising as possible.
Just making a general point here, not picking on any specific anon

>>29944
That's a good way of putting it. The snarky, curt hostility reminds me of seeing insecurity and fake-toughness when I was in middle school. Like you've got something to prove and do that mainly by putting down someone else. Acting that way on the internet seems even more pathetic than in real life, but I see that mentality online way more often than I used to.

>>29993
This might become a little more understandable once you assume that quite a lot of (most?) people on internet are insecure.

I'm tired of American phone kids and ESLs I wish everyone under 30 would die instantly.

>>30005
ESL simply means you aren't a native speaker. It doesn't necessarily mean your mastery of the language is poor. One of my best friends is ESL and almost never makes a mistake while speaking.
The folks you have in mind are best defined as "painfully underschooled"

>>29993
>>29994
For certain. So many internet fights are just people venting the anger and bitterness from wrongs and awkward situations dating from many years ago.

An exception is social networks... over there you may be effectively communicating versus the world with your real name or a persona you are very fond of. So while posturing is still pathetic in general, it makes slightly more sense there.

But posturing in an anonymous discussion is so illogical it's almost funny. Almost

>>30005
What did they do to you?

>>30010
Nothing probably, he's just mad because "they" (kids and ESL) make the "internet worse".

>>30051
This is a long suffered topic I'm not sure I want to bring it up again. But since you decided to chime in I expect you hope for a reply? Well then, I believe there is a certain amount of "influencers" in the media who actively cooperate with certain entities, pure profit based relationship, they put certain cues into their content and get paid for it. Period. Young minds exposed to the cues get ideas planted into their heads, which then grow and transform into whatever. I don't think there's any fault with new generations. They just do what they always did – believe in a world of lies. Being annoying is the least harmful thing they do. I don't think anything would be suddenly fix itself if people younger than 30 died.

>>30052
I dunno anon, I kind of agree but to me humanity has always been like this, for a simply example that has existed since humans are humans (specially the current developed ones), most people are inserted ideas of marrying and having a family from almost the second they're born, the unique difference I would say that exists is that in this case the idea isn't implanted by your family or friends but rather "influencers" who get paid, something that has been happening since the dawn of the TV or one could even say media in general, be it written or spoken most things try to leave a message for you.

>>I don't think anything would be suddenly fix itself if people younger than 30 died.
Then why did you say people below 30 and ESL should die ? Unless you're not the anon who posted that, if that's the case just don't answer this part lol.

>>30061
>>30051
That anon wasn't me. I'm mad because the proliferation and normalisation of otaku interests across young people and ESLs (accelerated by things like the pandemic) have meant that they overwhelm and drown out any otaku space. They already are able to win in a pure numbers game because of how normal it is to be into anime or games for this generation, but due to a lot of our cohort either an hero'ing or outgrowing being NEETs it means we are ostracized even further into barely existing pockets.

This means that even on sites like Tohno the old weeb who actually carries these feelings of our era are systematically denied a place to discuss our experiences and interests. This is a problem especially because of the memes (social norms) these groups carry with them due to being raised on social media (the norm for third worlders and zoomers) rather than image boards and forums.

>>30068
>This means that even on sites like Tohno the old weeb who actually carries these feelings of our era are systematically denied a place to discuss our experiences and interests
Are you really sure about this one?

On the second thought, the modern poster makes me seethe too. Can't they at least fucking put an effort in their post? Their posts are so low IQ effort I look like a high achiever in comparison and god knows just what a joke it is

>>30070
I write both high-effort and low-effort posts, according to the principle of mutuality: I tend to put in as much effort in a discussion as my interlocutor seems to be doing.

Then again, I'm not an iPad toddler

>>30068
>young people
You had better be at least 40 if you use that expression to refer to your enemies

>They already are able to win in a pure numbers game because of how normal it is to be into anime or games for this generation
Is it though?
Openly claiming to be into anime and vidya won't make you popular with the ladies, or convince others that you have a life.
Whenever someone asks me what my hobbies are, I'm always careful to exclude such things from my list, even if they actually occupy a lot of my mental activity (although I no longer dedicate entire days to them, partly because I have a full-time job and partly because the immersion doesn't hit as it used to do).

>This means that even on sites like Tohno the old weeb who actually carries these feelings of our era are systematically denied a place to discuss our experiences and interests
Are we being raided? Doesn't look like that to me?

>This is a problem especially because of the memes (social norms) these groups carry with them due to being raised on social media (the norm for third worlders and zoomers) rather than image boards and forums.

Memes are like goods.
Yes, you can prioritise quantity over quality, but nobody with a working brain will be fooled by the decrease in quality.
Just like shitty shoes last for months instead of years, shitty memes are soon forgotten, whereas good ones stick around.

Low-time and high-time preference is an important dichotomy that applies to countless contexts.

Not sure if I get your point of equating memes to social norms, though, unless you mean "culture, common language" rather than "rules"

>>30068
>how normal it is to be into anime or games for this generation
This has died down in the 2020s in my opinion actually, there's a noticeable difference between the spaces the casual netflix viewer and a hardcore who pirates his anime frequent and aside from a mega hit like frieren their tastes rarely overlap.

>>30073
>Openly claiming to be into anime and vidya won't make you popular
I think these days it's much more accepted though. I mean I don't claim to know anything about what is "hip" these days, but my gut impression was that being "moderately" into anime is viewed fairly positively (where "moderate" by normalfag standards is watching stuff that would be considered "mainstream", but it's sufficiently "tasteful" to them).

>there's a noticeable difference between the spaces
Yeah I agree, I don't see it having died down since 2020 though. In fact if anything, it has only become more apparent.

>>29848
Honestly this posts hits the mark succinctly. You read enough of the insufferably gassy stories of self-hatred, alienation, gloom and doom and if you have any sort of agency and diginity you realize you just have to work with what you have or can, or else face fates worse than your current predicament.

I remember one of my biggest fears as a "teenage wizard apprentice" was still posting feels as a middle-aged burn out among literal children under the guise of being in "good company".
Thankfully, I wisened up and I stopped visiting hubs with these attitudes long long before even coming close to being middle-aged.

I might go into detail on what has helped me a good deal after coming to terms with the greater cultural death of the worldwide web(There are no refuges now. Period.) but I found an old thread I made 9 years ago here that ended up being truer than I even believed at that point. Pretty cute, I guess. Took me a bit to realize, holy shit I wrote that.
>>21365
http://tohno-chan.com/so/res/21365.html

>>29848
>College and jobs are more interesting than depressive, incessant navel gazing

What one needs is hormesis: modest but regular amounts of pain that keep you awake and vigilant. Unfortunately, not all academic and work environments bother to make you feel at least potentially welcome.

In particular, I remember being shocked by the fact that I was just a number in college, as if I had told myself as a high school senior "You know what the upgraded version of this class really needs? 7 times as many students for each professor!"

I would like to believe that university was more introvert-friendly back when it wasn't seen as a mandatory stage in life, but rather infrastructure catering specifically to those who are genuinely fond of a specific form of human knowledge

>modest but regular amounts of pain that keep you awake and vigilant
People who like pain are the reason the world is fucked.

The people I met online 10y+ ago have mostly become norm, or always were. But a few hiki/NEET remain. Everyone is 30-35 and none really care to venture back into public forums at this point. It's too late to invite new people in too. So it's just a slow death. But you feel ageless in that space.
I think it applies to a lot of older anons. Upgrading from IBs to a small friend group.
IDK if that's akin to being a normalfag. Maybe to the most extreme loners.

I look at the new ibs once or twice a year and feel the sense of dread that, not only am I not among the youngest, I'm actually over 2x older than a lot of them.
My mind tells me they shouldn't even be alive.
It's surreal to align that with your own idea of self once you experience it.

I've got nothing else to add that other anons haven't said better in this huge thread..
But I'm still a hiki until I DIE and I will never leave IBs for good.
Also, seeing the thread age made me realise OP may be in his 40s now.

>>30137
I'd argue that the root problem of the world is people who live in denial of their own inner pain, because denying it makes you neurotic, and that in turn makes you an unpleasant person to deal with.
It's rather simple

>>30139
>My mind tells me they shouldn't even be alive.
For loners specifically, since we haven't had a lot of meaningful social experiences and rituals of passage, the idea of growing older confuses us since it's not hallmarked by any specific events, but only by the flow of time.

This is why I don't feel that different from the myself of 10 years ago: no wife, no stable career, no house of my own, am I really supposed to feel any adult-er, except in a purely chronological sense?

Ironically, I still remember claiming to be 18 when I was 17, for all sorts of reasons

>>30139
This reminds me that I saw this thread when it was new and it felt like a far off thing to worry about, but I'm turning 30 myself this year so this question is now hanging over my head like the sword of Damocles.

>>30141
>people who live in denial of their own inner pain
What do you suggest they do instead?

>>30143
Acknowledge it, of course.
If it feels weird, it's only because you were evidently taught that repressing your own negative feelings is normal and consequence-free

>>30145
>Acknowledge it, of course.
And then? It doesn't make it any less bearable, nor does it magically bestow powers to be nice on you. If anything, after acknowledging pain instead of being an asshole you become a self conscious dedicated asshole with an excuse always at ready.

>>30147
>It doesn't make it any less bearable
You can always kill yourself if it's outright unbearable.
Better than abusing whoever happens to be both nearby and weaker than you, for sure.

>instead of being an asshole you become a self conscious dedicated asshole with an excuse always at ready.
What excuse?

>>30148
yes yes yes