Brutus
That’s my conclusion. The online community, not just for cubfurs or all furries but in general, has never been weaker and less accessible, not once since the start of public Internet access about 1996, and i’m not going to simply trust that it’s going to make a turn for the better soon.
A while ago i felt that things could get better soon, but now i’m not sure. Just personally, i feel disconnected from what everyone else is doing and unable to affect or make any impression on anyone, in a way i haven’t felt since 1996. Not once in 30 years have i felt like this.
In a short span of time, i’ve gotten banned from Discord, Bluesky and Twitter, which really gives me a perspective on how little else there really is to the web nowadays - but even when i had all of these, i could tell how much worse it had gotten. And i really suspect both that, and me getting banned, was a direct result of a trend for big web services to get more restrictive, because of pressure from the Trump regime, or just a wish to benefit from catering to it.
And in no way is it only what is online that’s affected. If i search for my city, all that comes up is crime reports and bots posting sports results. That’s it, that’s the only thing anyone has to say about my city online. Nothing positive, nothing creative, and certainly no social community i could even try to be part of in any way. Anyone telling me to try something in real life - try WHAT in real life? There’s nothing here anymore! And i’m sure it’s the same for most other places, anywhere in the world.
When the decline of independent websites started in the early 10s, i had the feeling it was going to be a long downer period, but eventually work out. After all there had been another “dark age” in the early-mid 00s, at least in my opinion it was. But this time, i’m not sure and in retrospect, it kind of makes sense.
What’s starting to occur to me is that internet culture peaked 15 years ago, and it took 15 years to reach that peak from being practically non-existant to the public. The more i think of it, the more it makes sense. 15 years up, and 15 years down. The absolute zero point is right now. That doesn’t mean it will get better, or that it won’t, but it has a clear symmetry to it.
The Internet has become the domain of the privileged - those with education, high-paying jobs, vivid real-life social circles, those who just happen to live in a city where there are others with the same interest as you do. The time when it was actually benificial to those that weren’t lucky, is gone, and it’s gone back to being just like the time before it.
What’s odd is that i can’t even figure out what most furries, even the popular ones, do online anymore. Even when i was excluded from much of the community for various reasons, i at least had some idea where they socialized and how everything worked, but now i’m completely blank.
I tried searching for “furry community” and various similar terms, and what little seemed relevant was mostly dead links or abandoned websites, and there doesn’t really seem to be anything an outsider can take part in anymore. There is simply no way to be a furry right now if you’re not American, an artist, can afford a fursuit or just won the proverbial lottery to live in a city that has local furmeets. There is nothing else to do right now.
Everyone knows what the problem is, but few will actually do what it takes. We need to start running our own websites again, instead of relying on corporate giants who don’t care about us in any way, and we need to use them, even if it means a little less convenient way of recieving your daily updates or a little fewer commissions for artwork. But most furries, especially artists, are just arrogant shits who don’t give a damn about contributing to a community for the sake of less privileged people, and they’re only looking for ways to make money or gain popularity.
So is there nothing else i can do? Anything else i can be?
It’s not seldom that i question myself, and why the hell i even bother to keep trying. What’s the point of being something nobody wants and everybody hates? I found an answer in an unexpected place, from the movie “Lord of War”, about an arms dealer who bought and sold weapons to worldwide conflicts where civilians and resisters were killed en masse, and didn’t even make that much money from it. Why did he do it?
“Because it’s what i’m good at.”
Because it’s better if it’s done by somebody who’s good at it, than someone who isn’t. And the world would be a lot better if everyone just did the things they were good at, instead of things they weren’t. (Cut to Trump and tech industry leaders.)