In real life, online or both?

People move on from things, people, and places. Humans are always moving to this or that. It's how we've always been. Also many people in first world countries are spending more and more time indoors or at work. So that would also be why you might be seeing less and less people. Combine that with younger generations having fewer and fewer children and we are starting to decline. Granted there are already plenty of humans so I feel we can loose a few. We over produce so much crap anyway, scaling things back wouldn't be so bad for us all in the end.

But yeah! That might be why you're feeling like this? Unless you mean fewer and fewer people reaching out to you. That I can't answer.

Online, it felt so much less lonely four or five years ago. I see enough people irl as is. Too many for me. Can't feel alone anywhere nor have any quiet.

Well if you mean in real life, Texas.

If you mean online, well, people come and go from FA all the time. Some people leave when they don't agree with changes or moderator actions, find a new site to post, etc.
Some people come back because of the same reasons on other sites. It's just a constant flow back and forth of where people go.
Less people around because of all the shuffling about means less interactions. Its sad to see some names disappear, but that's just how it is.
Or some people just don't know what to say when interacting/commenting, so their names don't pop up a lot.

Do they? Maybe I'm not in the loop, I thought everyone was heading to twitter but that place was lonelier than here even before. I have thought a lot that I'm "past my prime". It really feels like that, more and more each year, no matter how much better I get with art and how much I've tried to get out there.

People head to twitter and head back all the time, but they also just seem less social across all platforms.
I've had those same thoughts about basically going nowhere no matter how hard I try, but I promise you, you're not past your prime. It's just hard to get noticed. The only thing that truly works is to just keep moving forward and posting. Not giving up really is the best way to deal with it.

Yeah, I've noticed that in the last few years. Thank you. I will step away from everything for a while next month, but I'm not going to leave altogether.

As someone that's been less and less social over thr last few years, it's generally just always working and having little to no energy nor time to socialize in real life or online. Working two jobs mainly to set myself up better for life in the future and to accomplish crazy dreams early at the cost of talking to people really. But generally, when a break is given, people generally come back, maybe not as much but still.

I understand. I just don't see many new folks which doesn't make much sense to me unless I'm alienating somehow.