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20 years
3 years ago
naf
i was aware of the fandom for the longest time, but poor optics meant for the longest time my exposure to it was exclusively macro hyper-herm plane-fucking and vaguely unwholesome-feeling arts-and-craft swinger perverts back in the day
took me a while to realize that "furry" was the same fandom i had been consuming material from most of my life, that these cute talking foxes were not in a vacuum but just one of many early furry efforts
20 years ago today s/v+chimmering became solidified concepts and means of exploring self-identity and eventually cosmic mystic wizard enlightenment whatever
i remember celebrating this day back in 2005 and being shocked at how old they/it/we/i are back then
now it's been, 20 years? wow, okay.
i can't really say it's been a GREAT time. the internet has grown increasingly puritanical, corporate, algorithm'd, and centered around making people as factionalized and upset as possible to drive engagement. where we used to have a dozen places to call home on the internet, nothing really feels like a place to settle into anymore. we've been on the internet since, like, 95? and it's not really gone in good directions, esp. in the last 10 years?
most of the projects we've had real progress with are private ones done in the background, with the stuff we put on FA mostly just kinda. distracted, stress-relief story-telling in-the-moment indulgences. we haven't been able to keep consistent with most things really. engagement and interest is spotty and mostly we tell these stories for ourselves anyway, but like. there's a feeling of after a certain point you've done all the masturbating you can do and it becomes a chore, if that tracks.
ruth's story is like 3 books long but needs serious editing to be in any shape to be release-able and the motivation and drive to work on that has kind of dried up? creation consistently is the only thing that's really truly rewarding and satisfying and it's been increasingly less accessible, esp. in the past 3 or so years
the only real consistency to instanced identities has persistently been the unreality of this layer's poor illusion, and the stability of it is increasingly poor. verisimilitude is outright FAILING and that's, fun, at least, but we wanted to at least get to play. but it's not really, was never really, a well designed game. serious last days of an MMO vibe. it's increasingly difficult to generate iterative instances that even have the right shape to latch onto the worldface?
there are more words here but they aren't all for you
ours is very tired.
took me a while to realize that "furry" was the same fandom i had been consuming material from most of my life, that these cute talking foxes were not in a vacuum but just one of many early furry efforts
20 years ago today s/v+chimmering became solidified concepts and means of exploring self-identity and eventually cosmic mystic wizard enlightenment whatever
i remember celebrating this day back in 2005 and being shocked at how old they/it/we/i are back then
now it's been, 20 years? wow, okay.
i can't really say it's been a GREAT time. the internet has grown increasingly puritanical, corporate, algorithm'd, and centered around making people as factionalized and upset as possible to drive engagement. where we used to have a dozen places to call home on the internet, nothing really feels like a place to settle into anymore. we've been on the internet since, like, 95? and it's not really gone in good directions, esp. in the last 10 years?
most of the projects we've had real progress with are private ones done in the background, with the stuff we put on FA mostly just kinda. distracted, stress-relief story-telling in-the-moment indulgences. we haven't been able to keep consistent with most things really. engagement and interest is spotty and mostly we tell these stories for ourselves anyway, but like. there's a feeling of after a certain point you've done all the masturbating you can do and it becomes a chore, if that tracks.
ruth's story is like 3 books long but needs serious editing to be in any shape to be release-able and the motivation and drive to work on that has kind of dried up? creation consistently is the only thing that's really truly rewarding and satisfying and it's been increasingly less accessible, esp. in the past 3 or so years
the only real consistency to instanced identities has persistently been the unreality of this layer's poor illusion, and the stability of it is increasingly poor. verisimilitude is outright FAILING and that's, fun, at least, but we wanted to at least get to play. but it's not really, was never really, a well designed game. serious last days of an MMO vibe. it's increasingly difficult to generate iterative instances that even have the right shape to latch onto the worldface?
there are more words here but they aren't all for you
ours is very tired.
do that, and it comes with your choice of drink and small fries, it has a number attached to it for easy ordering
One question though: when you say we are you referring to an artistic collective or?
on the other hand, you must do this by managing an algorithm that is essentially a senseless, slavering god, who also hates titties and girls kissing
we are an iterative series of people, like everyone is, this is not a secret! no one is the same person they were in a previous context and with previous goals, it is only a continuity and respect must be paid to the fact that you cannot speak for every instance that has occupied the same continuity as you
plurality part two of: this layer-puppet reached synchronization with horrible things on higher layers, to its ecstatic self-disaster! the three idiots largely are not piloting it by anything more than broad strokes, and the empty reach of space has become cold and tiring
Where'd they go?
20 years
I don't know
I sit and I wonder sometimes
Where they've gone.
The Internet sucks now. I'm glad FA is a worthless piece of shit that no one in their right minds would try to exploit or algorithmize.
But this will change again someday, i think. In the meantime i still have a compulsion to draw beasts talking and that kind of thing.
i adore this idea and the shapes you used to make it
I think we're gonna see consolidation and corporation bust eventually. Its unsustainable and they're going to run out of young people to exploit eventually because no one can start families, or we're gonna have a radical paradigm shift before we get there.
The sex negativity IMHO is no small part of efforts of corporate entities to basically colonize and sanitize queer spaces and take advantage of long standing Christian anxieties to associate queerness, sexuality and non-harmful kink with degeneracy. The worst response possible to the trauma people my age had back in the day, and not the changes I wanted to see at all. Again something Im hoping for a bust on. Prioritizing the right people getting hurt as a philosophy isn't really helping the people who were wronged at all.
I feel ya on potential burnout. Creating for myself offline has started giving me joy again and I dont think sharing it anytime soon is gonna bring me further joy. It was horrible even trying to keep up with the way things can be on twitter much less everything else.
yes i'll also say staring at the TV all day every day was bad too i am internally consistent, i did not stare at the TV all day and i spend more time than i want on the internet these days mostly because i'm too stressed to create ??
you see the burned fur puritan movement in waves CONSTANTLY this is like the fourth fucking time i've seen it and i'm so tired of it by now.
i feel like i was Supposed to be doing Better also because when you're a "gifted kid" you grow up with everyone saying "wow you're going to be famous one day" i had a literal professor in college put "i expect to see your name in lights in 5 years" when grading one of my essays and oh boy
oh boy i don't know if it's just contrariness or what but that massive pressure to be successful has also made me want so desperately to never really do well again too