Ah yes, my favorite topic to discuss: the chronically online.

Misery enjoys company. People who are miserable in real life will gravitate to similarly miserable people, both in real life and online. Lazy, sex-crazed people will enjoy the company of other lazy, sex-crazed people as being in such company makes them not feel bad about their current lifestyle, as opposed to when such people associate with those who are more successful/productive.

The internet makes it so easy to get complacent, to use it as a sort of escapism so as to not have to deal/think about/overcome the struggles of life and the mind. It's a great asset to those with self-discipline and a level mind, but to the easily tempted/follower-types, it magnifies any issues they already have and introduces new ones.

If a person is constantly refreshing their FYP at all times just to get some kind of mental stimulation, then you know they're deep in the addiction.

Some say "The dose makes the poison, Even water can kill you if you drown in too much of it."

I think like they say, on it's own, the furry fandom can kinda be like watching a episode of a tv show or playing a game. You can live in escapism, but unlike games where you live a pre set objective, you could use or paint your own imagination, paint the stories you want/ed to tell and live in.

I think im definitely no stranger to it. I think there definitely were a lot of moments that just don't see the light of day that were just fun frolics. And i think even if you do focus on work or little things 29 days of the month but you were horny on the 30/30th and that 30th is when you always say, commissioned a nsfw + sfw piece or a smut fic.

People will look, at the gallery being like a collection of 20x of those 1/30th days, and probably interpolate that you whole personality is being sex crazed the other 30/30.

For fiction, since that's the only way like 90% of our characters ever get represented, and like you notice nsfw pieces sometimes getting 3-20x the foot traffic on fa, to sometimes like 15-57 view sfw pieces to like 150-15,000 viewed nsfw pieces. I think the lines can blur between being horny or, if you're spending lots of money or time, why not make something you hope as many people enjoy as possible? So you put your heart into what you want and it gets 15-50 views, then you put horny into another and it got 150-5,000+ views.

But i mean, i do admit, i've gotten a bit jaded recently in life, maybe not anyone individually. But sometimes i just watch those like Stolitz relationships and you see dragoneer's death and the wild west of comments and you go. "Oh, Stola's hospital visit ( https://youtu.be/KJy7T24rhg0?si=5oj.....5JW&t=1000 ) reminded me a bit like Dragoneer's death. Say, he passed away a bit after that, didn't he?" )

I think some relationships can be simple, shallow or as naunced or 'complex' as we want them to be. Furry fandom was probably always escapisms, people would play characters like a Shakespeanean stage play, to some it was real, others it was a act, but it could feel fun. But the hours could also pass too.

I think there's a fair point that Addiction might not solely be if something might give you lung cancer or aids or hiv or herpes or whatever. But even if you enjoy it, if it could be potentially disruptive in the way of life, say ignoring career or academics to have fun offline. But then on the other end, all work and no play can also wear you out as well.

I kinda replaced some of the furry fandom with like adjacent gaming community friends, did have fun but.. My character is definitely one of those "Hentai sex panthers with @!#!@# tail @!#!@#s lmao" and pretty extreme quirks if im honest myself.

They're good people, not the distant history, i used to go from expecting people agree with everything like a hivemind to us bantering with each other. But it feels like less of a "DISAGREE WITH ME AND I WILL TRY TO #!@!#@ YOU!" kinda vibe but more of a slightly questionable lockerroom lmao. "Hey Juan! You got da tacos!" "Oh haha, fuck you man XD" "hahaha, there's my man!" and then cheering back, having fun. It does blur the lines of 'frienemies' vs guys you just like screwing around with, but might not give a 'loan' to lol, but we have fun though.

I think Humans can be social creatures and can have a innate evolutionary desire to belong and find warmth where we find it. But idk yeah. Refreshing a twitter screen or a furaffinity screen for one interaction or waiting a whole 3 days for a rp that gets ghosted at the first sign the other person @!#!# can kinda be a reminder, fiction isn't reality, and we all still need to take care of ourselves, both mentally, financially, and be responsible for our own happiness.

There is a good point that I forgot to bring that you did - that of "what one represents of themselves" or of exposure to someone. Seeing less of someone and only seeming to see the bad parts can skew your view.

There are some I will be more lewd with, there are some I might be more nerdy with, some might definitely call me "24/7 horny" lmao.

I mean there's a bojack quote.. "When you see life with rose tinted glasses, the red flags can just look like flags."

The past was fun but even with Dragoneer. I heard. Some stuff. Alleged and covered over, but also had friends who seemed close.

One of his last 10 arts predominantly featured them together and like. It's messy. I wasn't involved but like I heard someone mention "cubing" personality traits.

We can all have certain personality traits we show to others and or vice aversa. The same way a cube has a 1, a 6, 4, a 2, a 3 and a 5.

Someone seeing the 6 doesn't erase the 1. But like yeah I media, it did feel like most people came to get off then leave and it was make believe but it could tap.

I always liked separating fiction vs reality but I guess it was also kinda a slap for the relationships in fandom. Guess sometimes maybe we keep up appearances only to find out the whole thing was a facade. Guess that's okay. Life moves on.

If we all could have a time Turner to replay things or yen the clock back an have infinite time and replays on earth while free of financial constraints, I don't think anyone would mind.

But yeah sometimes we keep our eyes open or closed to some stuff. Hoping it'd have gone away if we pretended not to see it. Its been a pretty eventful decade, for better or worse. Covid, ai, dragoneers death, mass layoffs, weakening purchasing power, three jobs o buy what one did before, etc.

Just can't live in fantasy forever while the timer is marching as well too.

Proud of you derg, keep it up.

Tbh your words ring true to me. The aspects of the internet are both helpful and destructive, and I am NO stranger to web addiction. The anxiety of trying to maintain a facade that conforms to certain website cultures while still trying to be true to yourself is a very difficult and mentally destructive task. And I am proud that you have found the balance in this life. I hope to see you keep up the good work!

Hmm.. true.

Turning your hobby into your business is something I've dreamed of for years. I finally have an awesome opportunity and it's looking good. Can't share more, lest I doxx myself to the trolls.

I do need to touch grass more tho...

Okay?
Yes, it’s common knowledge that you shouldn’t overdose on some things. There is even a saying that everything is a poison, but it depends on the dosage. Too much of one thing can be equivalent to drinking too much alcohol. It’s also well known (I hope) that terminally online people like Twitter keyboard warriors have too little to do in their lives if they care about irrelevancies or stuff they have no control over.

I think that it’s counter productive to complain about not being able to find community you’re looking for, and wishing that people you know did the things you would want them to, the way you want it. If you don’t like finding server where people enjoy talking about sex-related topics, find another one. If some people online are too disconnected from reality for you, just go to a bar, or talk with your colleagues at work. If you don’t want people talking the certain way with you, talk with different people. I think this approach would be much more fruitful.

By the way what’s with all this entitled anger of so many people when somebody texts them „hi”, „hi, do you rp”? I’ve seen it over and over again. Is it really this frustrating to reply „no”? Are you guys getting these texts 50 times a day or something? I just don’t understand it.

At the end of the day, we all want to be happy. In my opinion the best way to do it is by having a meaningful relationships. I would advice everyone to look for them the way that suits you the most. Either online or offline, or by combining the two. Other than that, please remember to do things that make you happy from time to time, so you won’t get overwhelmed by doing only things you have/are supposed to do. Whatever these may be: gaming, exercising, having sex, meeting up, role playing, reading a book or seeing a film.

(Congrats on your weight loss journey! If running and achieving better results is making you happy, then good for you :) Best of luck on your business! Please remember to follow all applicable food safety regulations to make sure your coffee products are of the best quality)

Some specifying about paragraphs 2 and 3 :p

Don't worry, if a server is JUST Copulation City, I leave in a heartbeat. Even so, there are times where it's periodically so, and times where it's worse than others - to the point that even other people have mentioned it as unusual. I'm of course not telling people what to do - just that when it's the same few people taking all the "bandwidth" for such talk, it can get somewhat tiring.

As for the RP thing - that's why I compare it to a much less serious drug. It's just annoying when you have people reach out for __just__ that. Downside to the ups of a sexually open community I reckon.

Great points there. I think i used to think over this stuff constantly. To me i think, the furry fandom itself seemed to be a pretty positive community 5-10 years ago, or at least it seemed to me. Though one thing i remember was adoring everything then with rose tinted glasses only to go back and say. "Wait, was this it?"

It kinda brought back that memory of "Do you miss the og patch of Wow Classic / Overwatch classic, with poor balance, being broken, and minmaxed with modern wikis, or being young, having endless energy, playing with your friends, everything being fresh for the first time, and enjoying traveling for days with people you called your buddies who also called you their friends?"

And you smiled, there was no frown, because to them and you, it was true, or at least it seemed to be. Even if it was like "friendships you formed as a child" of like being a kid at a Fast food Ball pit, the other kid showing off all their toys they owned, you having none then, sharing them, like little 1$ hot wheel cars when you had none and going "Vroom! Vroom! VROOM! :D" all the time.

Then they waved goodbye, left the car, and the parent hushed them and took the toy back because they didn't spend the money to give it away haha. XD. As kids, our imaginations were rich and i feel like the furry fandom might have offered a analog to that. You went from being able to pretend anything was real ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_57wrFBPc0 ) , to being able to imagine any character do it, if you wanted.

So many moments like that, it felt at the time that it wasn't about the 1$ car, it was about the memories we didn't know might be the last time. Years fly by, 8 to 18 seemed like a eternity. But i remember feeling like the ds was recent coming from marveling at the nes to n64 to gameboy era, and yet it was 20 years ago.

Like i remember as a kid, i skipped out on Vanilla so i was a "Wrath baby" During Wrath of the Lich King wow haha, ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Hzh43k330 ). But i do remember i missed those moments, maybe it was being a kid or fresh 18 'im a adult now! I can make decisions, i know more chemistry then u, i ahavn'et dont taxes yet b ut i know evoultion and u don't dad who works a 9-5 to feed us!" energy.

I think the furry community kinda offered a perfect kinda example of Escapism. You could be anything, anywhere, and make your own world, paint it or pay a friend to paint it. But then we all grew up and life and bills got tighter for everyone.

I knew some people working three jobs to make ends meet who were constantly talking about their landlord jacking up rent prices, and it was either cutting out food, rent (and being evicted), utilities, or entertainment / arts.

I remember so many people dreaming about becoming US president, making 7 figures, all that. And in some sense life still has a lot of freedom, but the earlier you chase opportunity, the more years you can have for your career to advance. I felt like i did good in grades but i didn't feel informed enough about jobs and their pay and work.

I remember just looking at the checklist too and seeing "engineer made most money" and i tried it and the work life balance was nonexistant and filled with constant overnighters and cram sessions and poor / nonexistant tutoring at our area.

I think there's good points that it's alright to have fun but it's also fine to walk or balance that tightrope. Too much work and you can burn out, too little work and you can have fun but then hit a wall if you're ever financially behind. And it's much better to be a 100$ ahead than a -100$ behind + -200$ late payment fee + -200$ re activation fee + 267% payday loan -> -2000$.

Two things can definitely be true, a moment can be sweet in the past or a sweet chapter, and it could still be sweet today or it could be bitter tommarow.

The ripest peach tree you ate from as a child could be a strong towering tree today, or it could be withered and died while another's was strong. Even the sweetest peach might be better as a memory than slowly withered by time.

But say what you want, Dragoneers death and also seeing others have NDEs (Near death experiences / maybe Near Dire Eviction experiences), it kinda felt like a reality check.

While it's not reality tv, i feel like Bojack, a cartoon show about animated talking animals did this well. There's some cartoonishly hillarious scenes ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bbj.....illin%27Around ), and then there's gut punchers like these ones ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txP.....=ThirstyCactus )

I think finding the balance is important. Life still goes on, in world or around. Even Dragoneer's death, while tragic, is a serious reality check that even if our characters can be powerful, invincible and immortal, we still need to take care of ourselves.

Yeah i gotta admit. Putting the furry fandom aside or not. There is kinda like that "take off / removable" part of it.

Maybe it's like the 'silver chain 'addiction' ' so to speak. Anything can be destructive if it gets to a point you're neglecting real life for say, some shiny mmorpg loot (that you'll grind forever, saying "it'll be good, because it'll be the best forever!" only to see your mythic raid gear stat squished below a dungeon green. )

I didn't spend as much as the others i think, but yeah, i had a health scare of my own recently.

I think it was a alright reality check but i think even for the furry fandom, like the 'popufurs' are usually the big, rich, who can constantly order and i have no grudge against that, they're supporting the community and spending the money they earned how they like and keeping people afloat. Just kinda as a smaller / mid furry. I think i did get my own reality check realizing after that health scare. Small things i just assumed like a check in or whatever, just didn't happen. Which was fine, i guess on the flip end, everyone is busy and guilt trips were not intended.

Since i ended up lifting myself out of my own shit. And i was fine, y'know?

But like, it was kinda a wake up call too that while i think plenty of people will come to the aid or the words of kindness and support, while i don't think there's anything bad about it, i kinda feel like the furry fandom can be a popularity contest to some fair extent and all. It's self chosen attention and any one of us can or could be the change in the world we wanted to see. But Dragoneer's death also was a sobering reality check that people could die to be a fictional superhero.

Call it jaded but alright and happy. But spending what felt like so much time (relatively) on the furry fandom, only to realize how much of it could kinda feel all 'virtual' was kinda a fair call for me.

Guess i never obsessed or figured i'd get too into it. But as i checked into the hospital with some chest pains, a health scare and a 1000$ bill, hearing that story and others kinda reminds me that no matter what our fictional character could be, we're still human irl at the end of the day. I wish we could just open a book or a artwork, and jump into it, live as that character, (and there's "lucid dreaming/ daydreaming" for that.)

But yeah, whether vr, food, hobbies or whatever. The dose can make the poison. I honestly think a little is good and a social community is something many of us innately crave, whether say, a church potluck community vs a crazed "HARM EVERYONE AND TRY TO CONTROL EVERYONE THAT IS NOT FROM THE SOUTHERN WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCh" kinda stuff. You can kinda run into lines or spectrums of health vs unstable.

I had a pretty bad experience within religion myself. (Got born into a god damn cult. YAYY). But i heard some people got apparently love and compassion community churches with potlucks. While i think i had a pretty shitty religion where the people seemed nice on the surface but in the building obsessed over "god wants us to kill children, abraham said so. For it shows our faith". And seeing shit like the Jehovah witnesses choose their kids dying for blood transfusions and Heaven's gate antics and scientology and Exmormon stories really kind of made me question it too.

You could argue furry fandoms and churches are pretty much extreme polar spectrums. One is about being whatever you want, including a sex crazed deviant, the other is the other spectrum, a lot of people eye will eye roll the concept of throwing jesus at furries to "save them". But it was kinda a small, bittersweet laugh for me. I got my own health scare and it was my responsibility, not others, i guess i didn't need it, nor communicate it, but getting back from a 2-3 year gap from that as a smaller mid furry commissioner guy.

I kinda realized that maybe it was all in my head. Most people look after themselves, and that's fair, it's natural selection and survival. But when i had that health scare, i waited for the furry community to come or wondered if someone would.

..

..
.


.

Silence.

Then a religion somehow heard i was there, from a neighbor or family member or something.

They came, but it was to shove bibles down my throat lmao.

Survived in the end, but as they say. Some things are what they are. Dragoneer's death kinda mirrored that too. He overshown us all a 10000x and deserved it tbh. But even he made like a thousand friends, then died tweeting in a hospital.

It's just life man. Cheer up, shoulder up. Shit happens. And that's just how life is. We can either mope in what didn't happen forever, or clean off the shit, take a bath, a hot shower, clean it off, clean the mud off and move on.

Part of the reason why I say the Internet is both a blessing and a curse. I can get having horny thoughts and wanting to talk about it, but yeah, those servers that only talk about it are a bit much. I have had randos ask me to RP on here, I just blocked them. I feel like I'm chronically online mainly because of my ADHD.

Just a jumble of my thoughts on this.

I really agree with you there. I read about withdrawal symptoms from excessive weed smoking, and it really made me see just how addictive the internet can be, and how similar of an effect it can have if you try to stop using it so much.

I'm sad to say it's had an effect on my friendships also. The problem for me is I'm not very sociable IRL, and live in a small town with little to occupy myself with, so I often end up sat here online.

Very well said as a deep and personal opinion ^^

Quite an interesting read. Definitely spot-on in terms of how easy it is to lose track of the fact that in the end, we are still dealing with people. One big thing about online communities and relations is the great ease of disassociating from others - be it over even small grievance or loss of interest. There's always another person to find, another chance at a friendship to try out, another attempt at getting some kind of craving satisfied. No need to fix anything, to come to terms, to put in effort or to delve deeper.

There's always that escape from reality, though. Just like with alcohol and such - a distraction. Yet it's remarkably difficult to find substance in it.

I definitely chuckled at the mention of "copulation zones" and adults talking like little kids. For quite a while I had a hard time finding valid spaces for me to socialize in within the community because of that. I still cherish those I did find for how rare they are. You know, people just talking... Adult stuff. About everyday life, not "adult" topics in the usual 18+ sense. Quite refreshing.
Oh, and I got reminded I should get back into swimming, too.

Yeah I guess that on one end he ease of walking away when its all virtual can be a blessing and a curse.

Share 8/10 things in common? Bam, bookmarks and chatters.

Have 9/10 similarities but the 1/10th is a dealbreaker or just different time zones?

Blocked/ghosted and replaced with the next.

Popularest can take all and like. It is what it is. Nothing wrong with that.

Just mileage varies. You can know 1000s of people but value the one you feel closest with over a thousand strangers. Or vice aversa. Whatever makes money or keeps a dream alive or most attention.

People can pick their own goals and priorities and in a way, online communities can be very disposable or vice aversa I guess. If you don't like one, you can just reroll and join another. Maybe not furry but gaming/sports/hobbies /movies/fandoms etc.

I think it can be good to have multiple lifelines both financial and social if shit hits the fan.

I'm a furry with multiple ocs but people talking like they can be voices inside their head kinda strikes me as off ngl.