I got bullied a lot. The only clique that didn’t bully me, was them. They were very ride or die people. They always made me laugh, my first ever crush was on one of them, but I never told him. Then, years after school, I’d get random people from that subculture helping me. A bunch of them talked me out of suicide. I didn’t even know them, but that’s what they did. And now that subculture’s just…gone. I know those people still exist, obviously, but every time I think about it, or watch old videos involving people of that subculture, I feel a wave of warmth followed by emptiness. I never got to thank some of them for making my teenage years my golden years. I felt safe opening up to them emotionally. Otherwise, I was a closed book. My family are very “get on with it” “stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about” people.
I forgot to put my age, but I’m a woman, and 30.
If you are, so am I. I was part of the BBS scene, and it didn’t survive the transition to the internet. I’ve never felt so well-understood since then. Sometimes I dream about the LAN parties and summer picnics.
No, it’s normal.
What is immature is to dwell on it and prevent you from moving on with your life. Like, I’m in my 40s and I meet people who are still hung up on shit that happened to them in high school or college. It’s weird.
It’s not immature all to reminisce about times in your life that brought you joy.
Vagueposting.
Probably AI
We can only assume they’re talking about my little pony.
Oh, that makes more sense. I was going to leave a top-level comment that furries are still a thing, but you’ve made that superfluous.
Which would be perfectly fine and not just because I was (and still am) part of that fandom.
Subculture or not it sounds like you just met some friends.
You’re describing a sense of nostalgia. And no, I don’t consider it immature.
It reminds of the sentence “you can never come home”, because the location might still be there, but the time and the people have changed.
am I immature if I feel
No. Never. Feelings are just as real in adults as they are in children. It’s tragic, toxic some might say, that we’ve built society to think otherwise.
It’s not immature to miss something good in your life in the past.
I also would love to know what the subculture was.
But IMO no, you’re not immature. I think it’s only natural.
Personally, I get sad just hearing stories like this. About subcultures, or communities, or groups, or websites, or games, that people used to love and get joy out of no longer being around because they died or faded away over time. That sense of loss makes me sad even when I had nothing to do with the community.
You can’t leave me hanging, what subculture?
i dunno if it’s the same one, but the feelings OP described are how I felt about bronies.
there was a time before the infestation of predators took hold when almost every person you’d meet among them was unflinchingly, unashamedly, relentlessly wholesome, sincere, and genuine. people who really took honesty, loyalty, kindness, and generosity to heart. but that kind of environment was not hostile enough to defend itself from exploitation. an object lesson in the paradox of tolerance: there are some things that no society will survive tolerating, and there truly are some behaviors that cannot be rehabilitated. there is hardly anyone around anymore from the height of the subculture around 2014…
I was one of the wholesome Bronies. Met a lot of great people that I still keep in touch with to this day.
The movement and the mindset really helped me in my darkest time.
I didn’t know that about bronies. Please share your view on why they were especially wholesome. I’m genuinely interested as I met some of them and they seemed friendly and maybe vulnerable as they seemingly had no bad intentions it made me relax, even though they were strangers. Maybe it struck a nerve in me as I was very accustomed to nerds in school, but I really don’t like My Little Pony :)
Apart from a lot of us (myself included) appreciating high quality animation and story that didn’t predisposition itself to be dumbed down for their intended audience, the main mantra of the Brony movement was “Love and Tolerance” which in the early days was practiced pretty cohesively, even extending to aggressors who would pop in and call everyone gay/other slurs to try to get a rise out of others, and whatnot. We’d just be like “ok, that’s just like, your opinion man, we love you anyway” and proceed on with our lives instead of engaging them in arguing and namecalling. At the time your typical garden-variety internet troll didn’t really know what to do in that situation. The Encyclopedia Dramatica page on Bronies was especially amusing because they admitted they didn’t have any viable way to cause flame wars or upset within the fandom.
As the fandom got bigger of course it was going to get people that take the bait so from my perspective it wasn’t as much of a unified front in later years as it was in the beginning.
But I was part of Mumble/Teamspeak servers, Minecraft servers, Steam groups etc and they were all very welcoming. I think it was just that most of us were well intentioned people that enjoyed us a good cartoon, lol.
but I really don’t like My Little Pony :)
Ooh. Then you might be one of today’s lucky 10,000.
For a children’s show, My Little Pony has no right to be as good as much of it is.
And they basically got John Delancy to reprise the role of Q, because his granddaughters were fans.
Essentially, you’re just describing a feeling of “Better Times”, or nostalgia. Nothing wrong with that, and everyone has those feelings.
It becomes a problem when people tend to fixate on that, and not realize that time has passed. Not that you can’t create those conditions and feelings again, but that life circumstances and everything else really make it impossible to replicate that same thing again realistically.
I think it may serve you better to focus on what about that situation made it great for you, and what practical means you have to create a similar social circle again that will approximate those same feelings. It won’t be exactly the same, of course, but it sounds like you have just been feeling somewhat lost without a similar group of people around you.
I don’t think nostalgia and “remembering better times” are equivalent.
I can reminisce about “better times” all day, but the feeling is absolutely different when some old stimulus comes on and punches you right in the feels.
Nostalgia is literally feeling those old feelings, not simply remembering them and whining about how they cannot be wholly recreated.
As others have pointed out, I think you should read the context of what OP is saying.
Had, then lost. Thinking about a lost time. Literally the title.
You’re just describing a subjective way to process feelings.
Nope. Just recognizing the nuance between nostalgia and literally remembering better times.
I’m not sure what you’re thinking is nuanced. They’re complete separate and distinct ideas.
Yea, that’s exactly my point…
Then you’re not understanding what I said. Can’t help you there.
Edit: are you confused on what the word “or” means, perhaps, or is it the Oxford Comma?
lol no I’m not confused. You seem to not understand the situation… sad.
You said, “you’re describing the feeling of ‘remembering better times’, or nostalgia”. Those are two different things. You agree they’re two different things, yet you’re confused on my point … pathetic. That is pathetic levels of comprehension.
Dunno what happened with your subculture but there is a recurring path that isn’t pretty:
