this post got long and is pretty stream of consciousness-y

imperion and I were being nostalgic last night. Well, okay, I'm perpetually nostalgic and haunt the Wayback Machine like a late 90s/early 2000s ghost, looking up old pages and crying over What Use to Be. It's kind of pathetic, frankly, but that's besides the point. Sparky and I were being nostalgic and sharing our favorite old sites. I was delighted to find that one site that I adored, Bishonenink, was reopened as Bishink! But so many fanfic archives that I used go to are gone. And so many personal webpages, oh man.

I mean, it makes sense! People moved on, the internet grew up. Automated archives make things easier for everyone. Social media grew and fandom seems to have mostly flocked to that. I have a twitter account (rarely used) and a tumblr account (very often used!). I still have a journal (at dreamwidth!). It's not like I've refused to get with the times. But for all the social media that's used, fandom seems so much more fractured that it used to. Even with individual sites and no twitter/skype/what have you, it felt so much more like a community of nerds back then. People seemed much more willing to email each other and sign guestbooks and actually talk about things. Now it feels more like we're just...a number, something to be collected, to boost friend counts and subscriber lists. Which, I mean, sure LJ was very much the same, but with commenting and threads, at least conversations could be had. Now that fandom is primarily on tumblr, things are so...distant. And that seems to work for a lot of people (and I'm genuinely glad for those people!) but I feel pretty adrift.

But anyway. Fandom is different and I am not. And I think that might be the problem, ultimately. As I near 30 (less than a month!) I think maybe my problem is that I'm still longing for the way things used to be instead of dealing with the fact that fandom may not be the thing for me anymore. Maybe I should just. Stop trying so much with it. Give up the ghost. Still watch and read and play - and hell, even write and draw - the things that I want, but give up expecting to interact with fandom. Just focus on the things I want to do instead of trying so hard to be a part of something I'm not sure I want to be a part of anymore.

Another, somewhat shameful problem I have, is that I visit these old websites and I see what the old webmasters are up to and...they've all grown up and moved on. Which is...dumb to be surprised about???? Not everyone wants to be stuck in the early 2000s, Nan, people want to create new projects and have careers and have things happening in their lives. And I know, logically, that I am also an adult and also have things going on in my life. I have a ridiculously awesome painting series happening! I just flew out to Texas to spend time with family! I have an awesome support system of friends - both online and off, if you're reading this, you're great! - who are interested in me and what I'm doing and supportive and excited for me!

But I don't know. I don't know what my problem is. Fandom has always been so important to me. It feels weird that it's not so important anymore. I think I want it to be important because it always has been, but it might actually be a crutch that I'm using that's actively holding me back. Maybe? I don't know.

I think I need to just fold myself into a new project. Maybe that's what I'll do. Maybe that's my actual problem. Feeling adrift creatively, rather than pouring my efforts into a central thing.