Monk really pulled nasty one on me with the thread title because whenever I see it I get Bob Dylan song circling within my brain circuits. So be it then
People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed
Yes, EGF has definetly changed (many times) during the time I've been here.
As for my timescale: I'm definetly old school among the current userbase but I think my familiarity with this particular subset of Eva fandom goes even further back than my join date and it's those members I used to read with great interest who really count as old school for me. This means largely the old ANF gang whose remaining members sit as scribes or staff members in today's EGF. Another breakup point is those who were part of the site when it was still known as EvaMonkey forum. So yeah if you were here before EGF era you're old timer too. Me, I joined both ANF and EvaMonkey right before latter site was converted into EvaGeeks and had been stalking both for 1-1½ years beforehand. So I guess I'm one with those really long perspective view of things, if also of course biased by my interests on this site.
While I agree with Monk and Bags that we haven't really exhausted all there is to talk about in original series and I have similarly to Monk my pet subjects I'd love to discuss and analyze in much more detail than has happened so far
(now if I could ever find motivation and time for actually doing it) I think Tines's assesment on Eva discussion is right overall. There's only so many times you can be arsed to kick same dirt around and I think I've engaged NemZ on EoTV/EoE/Instrumentality bumber cars ride for lifetime by now. White it is still one of my favourite things ever my personal motivation for Eva discussion has dissipated away pretty completely. Whenever I scroll through Discussion area I do it out of mod duty and repetitiveness and clearly lowered standards of discussion in general do not exactly make me burn with passion. I think Freaky is right when he talks about Eva discussion on this forum being far more vital even as recently as in 2009 (or 2010), even if both of us missed what I take to be true analytical and discursive golden age of this community that took place in ANF before it went to crapper. In fact that's why I first opted to create account there instead of EvaMonkey and joined EM after Reichu told me that place was good as dead and EM was the new home.
As for Rebuild it has been mixed bag. It wasn't really any sort of boom or downer before 2.0 given relatively milquetoast, inoffensive nature of 1.0. Almost all members who joined the forum joined for love of original series. Now we get many users who might, ohmygosh, even
prefer Rebuild over original and no offences for anyone but I think this has clearly had effect on the composition of userbase by nudging it more towards general anime fan/younger demography. That, however, has been lesser "problem" than the shell shock caused by 2.0 controversy. Before 2.0 we all were united if by nothing else by our love for Neon Genesis Evangelion on the whole. Ha really broke this unity with thundering clash as hardcore Eva fans pretty much split in the middle into the camp who couldn't stand this new commercialized crap and those defending or even preferring the new direction franchise took. The horrible atmosphere of Rebuild subforum for long time afterwards poisoned many relationship between forum members, angered some to the point of leaving the forum and in general considerably heightened tensions on the forum. While arguably some of this ended up having effect of really invirogating Eva talk in general and forum prospered thanks to seemingly unending wave of new users of various kinds and qualities I think it ended once and for all atmosphere of relative camaderie among old-anime-series-interested geeks. It was also by far the biggest factor in my withering interest in Eva discussion because it was all too often incredibly nasty and unfruitful with Rebuild. Burnout was the result. Q had something of a similar effect initially but thankfully the shock has been mostly contained in Rebuild subsection of the forum, place I honestly abhor to visit for most part. Personally speaking my interest in Eva discussion shortly spiked up again after premiere but accidental spoiler policy break and resulting temp-ban killed the momentum I had build up so I didn't really manage to reconnect with ostensible main purpose of this site again.
Partly of course this sort of detachment is just natural progress from Eva discussion losing its freshness but my indifference to Eva discussion is only small part of it.
I think it would be clear that like for many other old-timers my main interest in EGF has been the off-topic section for long time. Indeed it was something I participated quite heavily from early on. While the dark days of 2009-2011 (2010 in particular) were marked by professional trolls, higher degree of aggression and the huge arguments in OT section lost nothing to Rebuild drama in scale, bloatedness and high tension it was also far more stimulating and vital environment. I think a lot of the aggression and volativeness were result of general post-2.0 atmosphere and new horde of posters coming with it (return of JFaulkner, say) while many of us old time bickerers hadn't yet learned
what inevitably happens when serious business is discussed in forum context. I don't look with pride all I partook in those days but overall it was good and fertile garden of topics and perennially provocative subjects.
The most major draws for me in EGF overall and OT discussion in particular were the relationships with other forum members and above all much higher than usual level of discussion about art subjects like anime, film, music and literature - especially first two. In particular a ironically named "filmfag" subculture emerged of which I was one of the core members and I still think this stuff was the personal high point in my engagement with EGF. It was great deal of fun with numerous passionate and rather knowledgeable film buffs discussing in great detail films, reviewing them and actively engaging with comments each other - it even led to now 99% defunct review blog outside EGF.
Closely correlated with this "filmfaggotry" was the major draw of high quality anime discussion in general. I think it comes down to the kind of series Eva is but the general viewership pool EGF pulled was often capable of far better anime discussion than internet on average. It was clearly top bracket stuff among anime forums and while 4chan boards could match us with "not being shitty weebs" and "knowledgeable, smart commentary" parameters 4chan overall suffered from massive amount of trolls, shitposting and idiocy. Personally speaking EGF became for me gold standard for anime discusion in contemporary internet with /a/ as delightful and politically incorrect side dish.
Unfortunately both of these main draws (for me) have suffered what I feel is massive decline in number and quality. Filmfag subculture and all that benefitted from it slowly died out as members either became too busy in private life (Freaky), ran afoul with board staff eventually leading to intentional trolling and shit posting leading to ban (ran1), triggered too many conflicts across the board and felt no longer welcome here (Jimbo) or plainly gradually faded away when decline had grown strong enough (Mugwump). The few conscious attempts to rekindle the flame by posters like Oz and me have proved all but fruitless and its sole remains at the moment seem to be Oz's strong habit of writing detailed film reviews (that get practically no comments or discussion going like they used to) and my splurgy-spergy "Xard-posts" about this or that anime series that sort of popup from bitstream every now and then.
In addition the post-2.0 general aggression in discussion culture and some staff actions had all too often result of driving some truly contributive posters away. For former I'm thinking about sweet LiLi who receded away pretty much because of couple of jackasses didn't like content of some Kaworu-Shinji interview bits and led Rebuild subforum grudges incite them into some despicable hateraeg posting. For latter I'm thinking of even greater loss for information interests of us Eva/anime fans and for me personally as he was very good friend of mine: symbv who left us pretty much for no other reason than severe staff miscommunication and mutual loop of distrust and suspicion (if there's any reason I wish I had been staff member in 2011 it would be to block this from happening) and some absolutely retarded drama about his harmless avatar because some staff members had to get all autismal about it. Well, the guy knew to go where his resources and gifts were better appreciated. In almost no time at all symbv has climbed into major position in MAL. I think staff communication etc. problems are something we've managed to shift for much better as of late but there's no way around the fact that initially contributive, classy posters like ran1 and CJD devolved into shitposting because of perceived injustice from our end (ran1 lost respect and turned into trolling following my ban in 2010, CJD might've not been properly warned before his ban and took in ran1esque fashion, uhh, my ban as final straw). To some extent such things can't be helped but frankly I think all three mentioned at least were casualties we easily could've avoided - and again to keep things personal my motivation for anime related posting and discussion took definitive hit from loss of symbv as discussion partner.
The other reason for my passion for the forum aka interpersonal relationships between members also have been affected by changes not really intended by anyone in particular. Most notably disintegration of filmfaggotry and general OT discussion culture circa 2009-2011 has led to exit of members like Muggy, Jimbo and chee. Some of such posters I got along with well, some less so, but they all definetly played large part in general forum ambience and I feel sad about their disappearance. Partly this is just inescapable "tragedy" of join dates. Since most of the people I sort-of bonded with were members joining around same date as me stretching few years onward from that point the gradual disappearance of this forum demography (unless they're hauled upon staff boat and can therefore never leave mwahahahahahahah) has also meant gradual disappearance of the relationships I personally felt invested in. On the other hand the certain degree of separation involved in being mod and walking the beat and constant inner attitude of "welp new poster I hope he won't be shitposter I need to prune all the time" has also contributed to my "detachment" from postin' away like in the old times though given the unlimited powerrrr and opportunity to get a bit closer understanding of other staff members has been compensation. I don't think I'd ever much talked with Monk Ed before, for example. :P
Another, unintentional factor in the disintegration of semi-old OT poster networks (I say semi-old because these 2-3 year old posters are at most middle-aged to me) has been spread of skype among these members who'd also go on to build considerably extensive skype contact networks and number of group chats with revolving door memberships. This reduced attention to forum posting and communication also ended up making OT itself slower and I guess duller for many such people. So to some degree I think posters like Dream and CJD have themselves to blame if the supposed "quality" has dropped.
So yes, EGF has changed and from my point of view and interests the change has been more or less gradually worse in roughly speaking 2012-2014 period. Old timer jadedness to many time covered Eva discussion topics (for us) is of course part of it but it is mainly due to withering away of OT discussion culture I so greatly enjoyed
(esp. the arts/entertainment discussion, loldeep topics on the other hand left me with permanent internet argument trauma I defy at my own cost) and the related disappearance/relative inactivity of posters I felt somewhat bonded with.
I often feel like ash sweeper morning after great bonfire was burned and drunkedly danced around these days. This even moreso than my often crazy busy study schedule (I've been toxically stressed for two months by now and in constant danger of missing this or that deadline unless I've missed them already, something not helped by huge amount of time I devoted to gay marriage essay regardless) has contributed to my change from downright overactive posting to becoming far more ghostly presence. The only time in a long while I've felt the old ember burning within was while writing said essay and of course I fucked that over by feeling personally hurt by response I got and punching back twice harder, a sordid reminder how difficult following avowed ideals can be at times. So I just burned the house down with that and now have more ash in my hands that I can't quite clean.
This isn't really criticism of current userbase or call to stop having fun - we've also got new members like pwhodges I really wish were already around back in the "golden days". The stuff I was personally most invested in and cared a lot about is something obviously not high in priorities of the calmer and more casual in touch current userbase & posting culture and that is fine - my love for "filmfaggotry" and all that surrounded it after all is quite particular and were it of same value for others that stuff wouldn't have ever took such major blows. The reason this forum exists after all is to discuss Eva and those who want to do that are free to join and post exactly the kind of posts about the subject they like.
I am however a bit hurt by callous comments along the lines of "if they don't like it here they can just leave and go where stuff they care about is talked about" and surprised by inability of many of my fellow staffers to understand why anyone complaining about changes that have genuinely taken place. There are places to talk about anime or films or whatever in internet a-plenty but none really resemble the specific discussion culture we had going on here and by all signs it can't be simply recreated. Secondly it is really cold attitude that betrays not slightest hint of regret about some people feeling out of place in place they once felt they belonged to.
This is my personal take on the issue as well as confession of feelings I haven't really felt fitting to bring up partly due to what I take is my projected forum persona and being board staff member. It is also little more than attempt at explicating why I could and can sympathize with this comment by Dream:
Dream wrote:I came here for the interesting members and a level of discourse on animation and films i never found anywhere else, and while i'm sure i can still find that in here nowadays, most of the activity has taken a turn for shitposting or some internet "smart" guy to get into a fight about whatever. To be honest even in this thread, many of the posts just seem to prove my point. It's not even about what's been said but rather the way it's said... Ultimately there is interesting discourse and you get some things out of it (shame it's on stupid internet drama rather than something constructive) but there's just too much banality, circlejerking and condescension to be worth it.
Thank you for reading.
Link a sample? Cuz if what I see regularly from people not named robersora or Oz is not considered big enough, I'd like to see what is.
) to 2009-2011-ish to now, in 2014. I was such a forum noob, though I've been on the internet in some form (at home) since 2000-ish!
