Hmm, what has definitely happened in the last few years is that the community has scattered across thousands of discord servers and some telegram channels.
Every other artist posts there first (having their own server) and sometimes skips posting on main sites entirely. Consequence of that is that more and more interaction of viewers has moved to discord too...

Yeah, I guess that's probably it.

Normally if I get a friend request out of the blue, let's say on Discord, I immediately assume it's a bot. All of the recent Phishing bots going around, and spam at least is making me hesitant to reach out unless the person has mutual friends and servers.
"Hi I saw you on Furaffinity" has been a few bots sent my way wanting to sell me AI art.

Very relatable.

I mean since the owners death...some people quit this site completely or didn't feel part of the community anymore

Hard to say for me overall, I had spent years lurking and not really interacting with folks, and only recently have tried to engage more with people and their content. (So for me at least it's gone up, but that's only because I had like 0 social interactions online before)

I'm going to go on a limb and say that US politics have something to do with it as well.

For me, I've just gotten deeper and deeper into uni and it eats up more and more of my time, plus my worsening depression completely guts my social energy bar. But I'm more of an edge case x)

Not everyone is from the US though

No but US politics affects almost everyone, and I've seen plenty more people become outspoken in a way that can polarize friendships

I 100% know what you mean, I pretty much don't have more than 2 friends in general anymore. When I first joined how ever many years ago all kinds of people tried to converse at least a little and invited me to discords. Now, almost every single person has an ulterior motive to only talk to me to get art with one of my characters. Otherwise, people try and talk to me and I just get a "hey how are you"? which is genuinely impossible to have a conversation with. I respond with "im doing good, ive been doing xyz, what about you?" and I get a "nice! and nothing much". Like, why even message me then....idk. Send me pics of your pets or tell me about a cool game you have started playing, or a book you have been reading or anything. Surely you have a single interest lol Its quite exhausting. All the discords never work for me either cause they devolve into "give me the attention!" circles that revolve around getting horny art with people @.@ I just want real connections with people man. I thought about making my own discord for furry people but im way too much of a softie to tell people to leave it who annoy me or make me uncomfortable so itd never work >.<

I've been listening to the Dungeon Crawler Carl audiobooks! They're very well done, and the voices are on point for things. On book 4 now, and totes worth a listen if you're into them!

I have a pretty small social battery. So I'm usually not the person that engages others. With a very few exceptions.
And usually limit myself to shit posting in serversband groups and all that.
Overall I'm not that active here anymore then I used to.

I think Overall it's gotten quieter on FA in general. Some moved on and Combine Patreon and Discord and probably other Social Media Sites. I see Bluesky pretty often now too.

Discord definitely feels like a big part of it. You see a lot less action on forums nowadays due to it and other platforms similar to it.

And here's me despising discord servers because it just doesn't work for me. It seems to be the case, sadly, that simply put the userbase of FA has gone down and the community is scattered.

%100 Discord seems to be, intentionally or not, built to cause weird fractionalization. I don't like it either. The feeling of an organic community among them is basically nonexistent; it's built for video game communities where you're friends with a small tight group up until the game stops being popular and then you just ghost the server and find somewhere else to hang out.

FA has had a million fold more staying power in a community sense then people (now at least) are being normalized to.

Glad to hear I'm not alone in this :')

Mhhh for me i recognized this too that i got less active both on fa as same as in other social media...mhhh but im unsure why mebbe less time or mebbe less feeling the need to come online...

Everyone is fighting over you. Means no one can send a request until one succeeds above ALL!
But yeah the community has definitely tapered off

Gladiator fights over a request? Metal as fuck

Atleast in my case:

1. I have limited time so I can't be social butterflying with everyone
2. When interacting with artists I don't want to seem like I'm trying to suck up for free art so I don't message them at all except for commissions
3. When interacting with other people in general, I don't want to interrupt whatever they're doing or make them feel obligated to respond so I don't message others

So I don't really talk to people lol

My ability to socialize is highly inconsistent, some days I'm open to talking to many people, other days I don't feel like talking to anyone. I also do exist in small bubbles, I've never really enjoyed large groups in the first place, it's much easier to socialize with a small group of people. My time to socialize is also limited.

I have seen a noticable drop in interactions with artist on FA lately though this is a combination of many reasons. One reason is that people don't have as much money as before to be buying art which means they're less likely to visit FA to look at artwork. Another reason is that many artist exist in their own separate places (such as discord and telegram) and have a group of people that consistently commission them which means they don't need to reach out on FA as often.

From my point of view, people have accumulated a lot of problems or something like that and because of this they have become less active in the networks.

I've always been more of a lurker, occasionally though I get spurs to talk with those that aren't my closest friends. I also have A hard time usually explaining my thoughts properly so I tend to just mentally agree with what other people say and move on.

There's a lot of artists I absolutely love in the community and others who only commission/talk that I love hearing talk. I just have a very small battery of social and it usually gets taken when dealing with job, but I do appreciate posts like your check up one. Even if its not directed personally it still puts a smile on my face.

So even if others are doing less, if it makes you feel better I'm still sending good vibes for ya!

I reach out to people mainly on tg. I've had maybe 2 outright rejections, a few never respond. But most I've been able to chat with fine.

I would say that people can be a bit more on guard these days. I try to be candid and also helpful: my introduction is where I found them and why I want to chat.


And that's usually enough to put people at ease.

The comments here all pretty much sum up what is really a multi-faceted issue. Politics plays some role in it but I think it's more along the lines that with Discord servers being more of a norm nowadays the socializing seems to have shifted there more or less. Telegram to some extent as well.

Also the pandemic triggered a global recession which contributed to an overall increased cost of living. More people are working multiple jobs these days to make ends meet which is a drain on the time people have to socialize.

Overall it just seems to me that circles have tightened for a variety of reasons. Time being a big one for many. FA was more or less "the hub" of social activity here for years but that's kinda not been a thing for a while now.

Even as I'm going through a 6 year backlog of notifications so many posts just have little to no comments. I've had to tip toe too much about comments so I just kinda rarely do it anymore.

Honestly I believe Discord and Telegram pretty much busted up FA as being a hub for socializing through the comments/journals. They're better suited for it in my opinion.

The platform rules are more relaxed than they are here and the admin/mod drama is not as far reaching since once you're banned from here you're cut off from a large hub. On Discord/telegram it's more or less the equivalent of just being blocked by a user since you really gotta be trying to screw up hard to get banned off telegram or discord entirely.

To my understanding though a lot of people DO still use FA but more as a business hub than a social one.

For me it's been a yes and a no at the same time. While I can see drops in likes here and there, by becoming more sociable myself people are more willing to come out of their shells themselves so to say. So I guess it can be a personal choice of them not interacting because of feeling shy/awkward/fearing to be judged? That'd be my guess, because I've been there.

As for the outside communities, I've been very happy to have a healthy and growing community on the discord. It's really awesome to see folks having fun in comfort and interacting with one another who share the same interests and tastes as they are.

And as for the friend requests, I've been here since 2017 and had like... 2 people at maximum who just wanted to simply chat.

The 'greymuzzles' who grew up on the old internet all have careers and other priorities now, time to socialize is limited more when you have other things to do. Gen Z and younger millennials do most of their socializing on Discord/Telegram. People who just want porn get it from e621 or the countless channels/servers on Telegram/Discord rather than use this site. Artists view doing their art as a way to make money alone and distance themselves from the larger community - usually for valid reasons.

The last point follows into the fact that the internet is, as a whole, more hostile than it ever has been. There has always been bots and scammers but now there are entire industries around it. It used to be rare to see people impersonating artists but it happens all the time now.

People have also become a lot more factionalized and partisan in their thinking and far more hostile to eachother because of the industry around outrage fueled by social media algorithms. Most furries are deep into nerd culture which has somehow landed itself on the front line of the Culture War. You'd be amazed how many people refuse to associate with the larger fandom because they think everyone is 'woke'.

*strong déjà-vu vibes*

Is true. I do see a lot of folks in chat groups on discord/telegram etc but very few in private messages.
Artwise I'm really struggling with it and considering quiting again.

Its the opposite for me. No one ever dms me or Has any interest in me lol

As I've said, this doesn't happen anymore. You ain't alone (sadly)

Well, I think myself people have forgotten the "yolo" mentality... A lot of people might have gone lurking?