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Chatting about the recent FA hack
a year ago
General
Something that caught me off guard, and was very surprising to me, was how many individuals seemed genuinely afraid of the website being lost to us. Quite a few people seemed very worried. The reason this was so surprising is that, I've always got the impression that most of the new generation of furrys/scalies don't care about FA. My thought process is that most newer/younger furrys cared more about Twitter as that is the popular trending social media site and FA is a second hand site. I will forever refuse to acknowledge Twitter as a home for Furrys. Twitter is nothing more then just the current "flavor of the month" when it comes to social media. Twitter is 3rd in line when it comes to "the next trending" social media site and it will succumb to some other dumb, new, social media site as every other one in the past has.
Honestly, I wasn't worried for two reasons. 1. This was something I knew could be resolved and our administrative team would get full control once again, and 2. Even if somehow this spelt the end of FA, nothing lasts forever. Yes I would miss FA, but as something all ancient scalies understand over time is that nothing lasts forever. There will eventually be another improved Furry site that functions better, and more accurately appeals to our needs that we'll eventually migrate too. Something some of you might not be aware of, FA wasn't the first popular furry site/gathering place for the fandom. Many other furry sites came before FA. VCL, Herpy.net, Furnation, and I'm probably forgetting some more in there. The one thing that FA did over all the previous Furry sites is, provide a place that everyone agreed upon as a universally grand gathering grounds. FA was the first site that brought the fandom, as a whole, together in one place. For a long time even with the sites I mentioned, everyone was mostly scattered and fractured here and there. FA was the first place to bring the community together. (although I did hear Furnation was a highly popular place as well before FA came about).
One day we'll move on from FA. Something better will come along. If we're lucky, maybe it will be FA 2.0. A closing down of the old and being replaced with a newer better version of the site. I do like it here. I like seeing people's profile and knowing, "That's him/her and their character." The individuality. That you can interact with each other by simply typing a message and hitting enter. That you speak directly to the artist. THAT is why I will forever enjoy a furry site. That's designed for US and controlled by US. Our home.
But anyways! I was blown away that so many of you youngsters care about this ancient site as much as I do. <3
Honestly, I wasn't worried for two reasons. 1. This was something I knew could be resolved and our administrative team would get full control once again, and 2. Even if somehow this spelt the end of FA, nothing lasts forever. Yes I would miss FA, but as something all ancient scalies understand over time is that nothing lasts forever. There will eventually be another improved Furry site that functions better, and more accurately appeals to our needs that we'll eventually migrate too. Something some of you might not be aware of, FA wasn't the first popular furry site/gathering place for the fandom. Many other furry sites came before FA. VCL, Herpy.net, Furnation, and I'm probably forgetting some more in there. The one thing that FA did over all the previous Furry sites is, provide a place that everyone agreed upon as a universally grand gathering grounds. FA was the first site that brought the fandom, as a whole, together in one place. For a long time even with the sites I mentioned, everyone was mostly scattered and fractured here and there. FA was the first place to bring the community together. (although I did hear Furnation was a highly popular place as well before FA came about).
One day we'll move on from FA. Something better will come along. If we're lucky, maybe it will be FA 2.0. A closing down of the old and being replaced with a newer better version of the site. I do like it here. I like seeing people's profile and knowing, "That's him/her and their character." The individuality. That you can interact with each other by simply typing a message and hitting enter. That you speak directly to the artist. THAT is why I will forever enjoy a furry site. That's designed for US and controlled by US. Our home.
But anyways! I was blown away that so many of you youngsters care about this ancient site as much as I do. <3
Eventually something else will come along, but I can't see that happening until a disaster of some sort kills the site itself. The sheer weight of momentum and existing old content here has carried it through rough times before, and will almost certainly keep doing so until the servers are shut down for good.
(Which, incidentally, is the same reason Twitter is still surviving, despite its recent degradation. Twitter is only one year younger than FA! And most in the fandom were active on both. I can't call that "flavor of the month" by any definition.)
But before Twitter got sold, I used it to stay in touch with a whole lot of dragons and other fandom folk! Both on normal safe accounts and spicy 'after dark' accounts. It was like the super lightweight, pared-down version of what LiveJournal used to be (for me, anyway), and absolutely was (at least one of) THE popular social media site(s) for well over ten years. As in "I was following over 100 dragons/furs" popular, and most people I knew followed twice that.
It's.... terrible for art galleries, though. Always has been. Though it makes sense why artists use it that way, the retweet mechanic makes it good for exposure, which admittedly many artists really need...
But the features for making our galleries our own little world, to show people who we are, or what we're creating one character at a time are pretty great. Making folders for specific characters and such.
Im an old Herpy.net veteran, so this was my second site, i never moved to the Herpy.nu replacement, as id started branching out from dragons anyway.
But yeah, im really glad we all came together to help the site get back on it's feet. Really great to see. It's home, in a way.
I felt like it's going to take ages to build up a whole new community like this, from zero, and to feel the comfort that FA makes me (us) feel.
FA got me, I got to to FA at a part of my life when I was really low, and slowly made me feel alive.
I don't know about others, but for me, that was the reason that made me feel so sad about the thought of losing this site.
Also, Twitter, eugh.. I really wish people would just accept that place is dead.
It might be "old-fashioned", but new doesn't necessarely mean good, which brings me to twitter, which is absolutely horrible when it comes to having something like an art gallery.
It's good for small chit-chats but it's garbo, when it comes to presenting yourself, might that be through a profile page, an art gallery, or journals.