How active is usenet? Looking at rec.arts.anime in particular [1], it seems to at least have some long-form conversation, albeit mostly from the same two or three people. Given that usenet in general (outside of piracy) has been mostly forgotten about and the eternal september has probably long since passed, might good snr still be found there?

[1] https://groups.google.com/forum/embed/#!forum/rec.arts.anime.misc

>>26214
It's dead outside of binary groups (aka downloads), and even those are more dying flops than anything else.
There's a couple BBSs that have a bit of a userbase though, if you're willing to comb through them.

>>26214
The only alive ones are the tech-related ones, and even then it's textboard pace.
Talking through the spam is shitty.

I just started crying actual tears while listening to some stupid fucking song that used to play all the time on youtube 15 years ago. I can't believe I miss those days.

>>26350
Was it Caramelldansen or Levan Polka?

>>26350
I was doing the same thing last night, with various NND mixes.

Mostly we've all moved on I imagine. Although some like me regularly get the nostalgia bug and come back to quickly scan what has become of our old hangouts. It certainly isn't pretty.

For the sake of fairness just wanted to say even those of us that seem to "blend" into the mainstream it may only be surface deep. As you get more school/work experience and generally wiser it happens even if you were dropping spaghetti from the start. I recall reading some articles about how your brain's executive is the last to fully form and only does so in the mid-late 20's.

At the risk of sounding really corny it does feel like a little piece of you was left back in those days and will always be there.

Bottoms up to the anons that have actually departed this crazy world for good. See you around another time another place lads.

>>26351
>Ievan Polka
I get this song stuck in my head every six months or so despite not having listened to it in years.

The majority of them became normalfags. They grew up, lost interest in anime and stopped pretending to be losers. They got married, had kids etc. These days it's very common to see someone on 4chan refer to their kids or wife.

As for me, I assimilated. I don't have any interest in joining discord servers, I never used IRC, Reddit is cancer and so all I have left is 4chan and other imageboards. I act and post like kids half my age.

>>26494
Why they were pretending to be losers in the first place though? I don't understand what kind of weird roleplaying shit most of them were doing for years, but makes me feel stupid to think I was the only one that was for real, like a joke I took seriously for more than a decade.

>These days it's very common to see someone on 4chan refer to their kids or wife.

This still freaks me out when I see it.

>>26495
My guess is that it's the public school effect, where social stratification is more in your face and isn't based on money. They didn't feel "normal" or "popular" in that environment, when in actuality there was nothing wrong with them. They had friends and cared enough about their reputation to conform in many ways, but still felt alienated, and maybe took pride in that as compensation, and went out of their way to like "loser things". That says more about the place they were in than it does them.

After graduating, the illusion is broken, but some of them might still use the same online hangouts they did in school without realizing any of this and think they really belong there. If you call them out, they'll insist they really are one of you and have the oldfag status to prove it.

Post edited on 19th Apr 2021, 10:54am

>>26496
Well, that's a really good explanation.
In the other hand when I was young I thought I couldn't be that much of a loser and it was the environment that made me one, but I turned out to be the real thing. There's some irony there, it's like everyone wants to be and pose as something different even if it's not necessarily a good thing.

>>26495
>>26497
It's like chuunibyou in a way.

>>26496
That would explain their cluelessness when it comes to bullying. All the retarded self satisfied stories of fighting back. "I just punched the meanie one day and then it stopped and then I was friends with everyone and then the bully actually turned out to be a pretty cool guy."
Truth is they were never bullied. They were probably being lightly teased by 1 slightly mean person, not consistently stomped into the ground every day for years by a class of >30 people while the school staff liked the normies and couldn't give less of a shit about you.
The basic fact of bullying is, if you're allowed to fight back you're not being bullied.

I'm 25 and I'm not really sure if I'm too young to be in the examples, but I was neet for years then joined school. Hard to be motivated studying in COVID but all I want to do is try get a job outside where I don't have to interact with people too much.

I'm less depressed than the NEET days (I live like one as everything is closed) but a lot of that was due to physical chronic pain as much as mental (though I was a shutin throughout high school prior to my health declining at 16). I assume the effects of anxiety and avoiding everything in life is probably more severe than a multitude of physical problems though. A lot of my hobbies (piano mainly) were killed as university takes up a lot of time and mental energy because it never feels like I've 'finished' and I also drag my heels with motivation, which is significantly worse in COVID as it's literally how I lived as a NEET minus the job centre. I sorta still would rather dying though and my goals are to try study in Japan just to at leaast have tried a new environment. Websites like this I don't want to bloat if I'm not a NEET as it seems unfair to the proper users, but I still feel it's fine posting here occasionally as I spent 4 years full on NEET and my entire adolesence as a shut-in.

For school it sorta surprised me though, initially I was anxious about things but now I just don't give a hoot anymore, which sucks for my grades and removes any intensity or consequences to my actions almost so there's no genuine motivation. I think living a life of misoortune and then having chronic pain from 16 onwards while NEET and while completely socially retarded is a depth pretty difficult to return to unless I just let my self stagnate entirely (which will probably happen lol). I know a few people from websites like tohno and wizchan (not used wizchan in literal years though) who are in their late 20s or mid 30s and NEET. I hope I don't get banned for saying this either, but I did briefly join the Universities anime club too until I realised a lot of people would just bring up doujins and hentai unprompted and I'm not particularly interested in discussing things. I've learned to be social enough to work with people and communicate but I still don't really care for people strong enough to form real connections, which I wonder if its a consequence of being used to being alone.

But pretty much that's my reason I stopped posting on sites like these, though this isn't a toxic place so I still look here sometimes (unlike wizchan). I also have never used the mainstream chans like 4chan or 8chan so maybe I'm a bit different. I imagine overall people get jobs or school so can't relate as well, kill themselves or just drift away for some reason as they get older as the threads are pretty much the same year on year.

Post edited on 26th Apr 2021, 5:22pm

The internet is a burning earth. There's nowhere good to vent about depression and NEET stuff anymore, every place I tried to go I realized was full of women, normies, and teenagers. I've been away from this site for over 8 years at least and seeing it still around is like finding an oasis.

>What happened to all the people who used to inhabit imageboards ~10 years ago?
I'm still here. I even still like anime.

>>26573

Me too, though I don't watch as much as I did. I still love collecting art and doujins I like, my external hard drives with 10+ years of stuff are probably my most prized possessions. If I was a more outgoing person with any sort of income I'd probably rent a bank deposit box just for safe keeping of copies.

Post edited on 25th May 2021, 5:14pm

I was active on mostly local boards ~10 years ago and stopped using them altogether for a few years, tried to "fit in" and use facebook reddit twitter and whatever, socialize more, because I realized how toxic most of those places became. It was not the right response though in hindsight, I find people in general obnoxious I think, and I just need my distance from being personal with them so I started visiting a few chans again.

Maintaining irl contact is too much work as well, even setting up profiles is too much work, no I don't want to advertise myself dear website thank you very much, just want to talk and chill.

>>26651
>toxic
>chans
Go back and stay there.

>>26652
Well, that was a bit unexpected but okay I guess, I'll go away

>>26654
Snarkily telling someone they dont belong is the greeting on TC, welcome.

Some boards are still quite active. LolcowFarm is always bursting with people, Crystal Cafe not so much but it's still pretty cosy. I haven't been on 4chan in a while because it's mostly just porn and larpers at this point. Sushigirls is dead. The only real problem with LCF and CC is that the retards on /lgbt/ keep flooding the place with gore when they got their fee fees hurt entering spaces they knew they wouldn't like, *which really is the core of the problem*.

Old chan users moved on because the new people are zoomer idiots who spoil all the fun or they get offended and shit up the threads with their newegg tantrums

>>26658
>newegg tantrums
????

>>24676
>/a/ celebrated when kyoani burned down
no it didn't, it made lots of fire puns, joked about it being revenge for endless eight, spammed DAIZ KISAMA, HE CAN'T KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH IT, then angrily argued with itself about whether the people making jokes were edgy teens or the people telling the people making jokes to show some respect were dumb moralfags, then started feeling pretty horrified and a little guilty when casualties started mounting, just like 2009 /a/non would have done, except there were more SNK and DBS reaction images, the occasional frog, and they said based and cringe instead of epic win and epic fail.

I believe you when you say post quality has declined a lot and the sense of shared identity identity has weakened, but if you're saying the board is filled with nothing but strangers now you're majorly exaggerating, that goes for everyone itt.

please come back ;_;

>>26660
I tried, I really tried but DiTF broke me once and for all.

>>26658
>The only real problem with LCF and CC is that
Both of those places are awful because they're mostly used by women or people pretending to be women. They were never good. Crystal Cafe actually has a rule against posting if you're a man, so you're not so subtlety revealing you fit into one of those two categories. So kindly fuck off.

>>26659
*newfag, my autocorrect had a stroke there, my bad

>>26662
LCF is fun, the only real problem with it is that one of the admin actively hates LCF and refuses to pull her weight like the rest of the farmhands running the place, so gore/porn raids don't get dealt with properly.

(And it wouldn't matter if I'm a woman or a troon. Accusing me of being either makes very little sense on an anon board considering everyone here is anonymous, likely troons or women among the posts anyway)

>>26659
*newfag, my autocorrect had a stroke there, my bad

>>26662
LCF is fun, the only real problem with it is that one of the admin actively hates LCF and refuses to pull her weight like the rest of the farmhands running the place, so gore/porn raids don't get dealt with properly.

(And it wouldn't matter if I'm a woman or a troon. Accusing me of being either makes very little sense on an anon board considering everyone here is anonymous, likely troons or women among the posts anyway)

>>26663
The main point of Lowcow Farms is for snarky cunts to stroke their ego by making fun of people they think are more pathetic than themselves. The kind of people who would find that fun don't belong here. Looking at their rules, they also have one against male posters.
>on an anon board considering everyone here is anonymous
I'm not accusing you. I know because you revealed it yourself. If you have even of modicum of decency in your cunt head, you will extricate this place from yourself without further encouragement.
>>/pic/7133
>>/pic/7135

Post edited on 22nd Jul 2021, 7:44am

>>26661
Darling in The Franxx?

>>26660
>spoiler
I still lurk, but why post there if I can do it on TC and other small imageboards?

>>26668
Yes.

Just a friendly reminder there is no rule against women on TC.

>>26670
There is rule against announcing/implying you are a woman. Saying you're a regularly user on websites where only women are allowed to post counts as that.

>>26671
Pretty sure the point of the rule is just to discourage attention whoring, and I think that includes drawing attention to the gender issue itself. Which is what you two are doing right now. because no one wants to see this shit.

>>26671
Because no women ever posted on TC and no men ever posted on CC.

>>26672
>>26673
Don't say you use either Crystal Cafe or Lowcow Farms here. It's that simple. In addition to explicitly being intended for women's use, they are repulsive, noxious hell pits. My reaction should have been expected. Don't talk about it. And don't pretend you don't know what a strong implication looks like.

Post edited on 22nd Jul 2021, 4:42pm

>>26674
I've never been to either and I've only learned about the former from TC, so.

>>26675
I'm saying this in general, not to any specific anon.

>>24683
No one gave this post a reply, so I just wanted to say I feel exactly the same way. Nothing seems to capture that moment, that same atmosphere, but with the same level of activity.

>>24683
but it was horrible

>>24715
>I feel like there's no one from 10 years ago, because people get old and they turn normal.
That's what happened to my older brother and his friends.

>>26683
I feel like I've been devoured by normalcy too.
Not in the way of becoming normal, but reading what I posted two years ago makes me think of a time when I could worry about things like imageboards while now my mind is 100% occupied with the disgusting miseries of real life. I guess that's what adulthood means, and it sucks.

>>25372

I have been on the internet for all those years. I remember everything. Wizardchan, the solourful designs of the software, the hyp for some games. None of those things matter now, sadly.

They became transgender, commited suicide, became rich and fucked off, grew up had a family etc. or just died of health problems(they were not very healthy)

>>27779
>They became transgender
The people on imageboards from 10 years ago did? I was under the impression that only really gained any prevalence amongst the last generation (maybe last two).

>>27789
Yeah, I think the major contributor to that depopulation is normalfagification.

>>27789
a good chunk of old trannies are from that og era, it trickled down and became popular later, but they we're the first generation, exposed early to internet porn and over stimulation, pair a bunch of ugly nerds that with that late 90s early 2000s industrial goth/bod mod scene and boom, they were literally the goth "gf" of their time, before that being transgender was relegated to prostitutes and prison.

>>27789
you get that impression because imageboards are filled with culture war perverts sharing information downstream from the american media cycle, which has recently brought trans people as the next object of contention after gay people won some rights. being trans as a phenomenon in the modern "west" started in the early xx century, and various cultures around the world had their own equivalent. (it's worth noting that it wasn't exactly the same, because the conception of gender and medical knowledge were different)
this is just my personal theory, but the reason why you see a lot of transgender people coming from imageboards is because they're places where a lot of social rejects tend to congregate, and due to the prevalence of escapist media on imageboards, which i probably don't need to explain why it appeals to trans people

>>27794
While true that to some degree it does date back to the early 20th century(the Kaiser's Germany recognised it as a mental illness and allowed people to be transgender) it was not common or widely accepted. Other cultures variants are often not variants at all, people have political agendas to try and push the idea that it's a universal and timeless phenomena and they take great leaps to try to claim that, one that I hear is that since a prehistoric man is not buried in the manner of a man or a woman that makes him a third gender when really that just means he had a separate role in society like priests and monks do now, that doesn't make priests and monks trans.

I agree that it's something that social rejects are likely to pursue but many normal and even successful people have become trans lately as well which is something that would be unheard of even 10 years ago.
For example there are senior officers in the US army that are trans.
These are older people as well so I don't think generation has anything to do with it, in fact I think generational differences are overplayed by people in general.
Society is malleable, people are malleable and they remain that way even as they age. People simply follow what is allowable right now and avoid what is frowned upon, being trans was frowned upon before but now it's not so even older people are going that way now when 10 years ago social stigma would have stopped them.