I certainly didn't know what I was getting into when I joined at the end of 2013. Last year of high school, a Manimal at 17. I was like whatever, I'll just post some of my art and see what happens. I really didn't think anything of it.
It's amusing that the biggest thing this forum has done for me is with the help of one piped, pickled, peppered and planeium platypus, is expand my music tastes past my box and in a domino effect get me to start recording music. I mean this is manga artists & writers community, and yet it is more then a one purpose thing here for me.
This is the spot on the internet where I just come in and go in my corner and vomit things out. Sure I might get more people to listen to my music elsewhere, discuss anime with more people elsewhere and so on, but like...I don't know the forum just has a vibe for that you know, it's odd. When I look at my post history it's literally me changing, not by much, but still. No other forum has had this effect, I've been posting online since I was 10 and no one ever liked me before. I was an annoying kid with a scale of two extremes for opinions, this sucks or this is the greatest thing ever since ever.
Everyone was always older and they either made fun of me or said "he's just a kid guys". Fortunately I had skin of steel when I was that age and ignored those people. On every forum I've been either the joke or the wallflower. I don't know what I am here, probably still a joke, but this is the first place where people weren't rude to me. Naturally because I'm not that age anymore and gradually my aggressive negativity calmed down, but it's still worth noting.
and then Vacant and NO1SY come in and are like, hey guys we're going to do a podcast and my God, for a show I was like "eh I'll come on if they ask me" to become sometimes my only social interaction in a week, like that's a whole another story. I am grateful to them for starting this and enjoying being a goof and talking to peeps like those two, Coryn, Nair, Lego, Mahlua, Paipis, Sherbs and so on. But again, that's a whole other thing all together.
For this site to still be here a decade later I think that's very cool. It's insane to think of all those older members who are literally all adult age by now. Technically I'm adult age but I'd never dare to call myself an adult, I'm just another whatever. Literally people a generation or so ahead of me who's youthful dreams and ambitions only exist in the backlogs of their forum profiles. It does make me feel weird to look back at that stuff it's like man. 2007, I will reflect on that in a more fitting thread but for now...
I don't know, 10 years. That's cool.