I’m thinking of not doing fanlistings anymore. I talk to most of the fanlistings people on other sites, and I think that ends up being the part of the whole thing I enjoy most of all. The people. Maybe that’s because of my inherent laziness. Maybe it’s because I tend to go through these phases. Maybe it’s because I’ve been in more and more pain lately and just feel like I need to find out what I can and can’t do anymore. I don’t know.
But honestly, I just feel tired of running fanlistings, making layouts, doing codes, and all of that. I don’t even feel like adopting them out. Besides, last time I adopted them out, I ended up adopting out to the faker-girl who got the Avatars fanlisting, closed it a month later, ended up being discovered as an evil genius person, and basically made it so that when Kya ended up with said fanlisting, she had to completely start over. (In other words, I can be a lousy judge of character, and I wish that I had given said fanlisting to Kya to start with because I think Kya is awesome and she’s always upfront about her genious-ness.) So, if you end up with any of the fanlistings, let me know. I’ll send the members list.
I just hope I don’t lose the friendships, or that I become like a complete outcast amongst the TFL crowd. (I know some people don’t care for me, but that’s okay.)
I definitely agree that the people of the fanlisting community are what have made it so fun for the vast majority of us, myself included. I started building fanlistings in February 2003, but started building friendships with people in the hobby in December 2003. I have made so many wonderful friends and met so many interesting and unique people through the hobby that I will always be grateful for it no matter what.
For me the issue has always been balancing my offline life with online duties. I had 100+ fanlistings at one point and I could manage them all just fine, but after graduating from high school years ago that has become pretty much impossible. Haha. Lately it’s been less and less fun for me because of time constraints and not being able to put as much work into each site as I would like. So at this point, I am giving up like 75%+ of my fanlistings because I know that my interest in them will wane further as will my amount of free time. Best to secure them with new homes now versus later.
People in the fl community are fantastic by themselves. The issue has always been and unfortunately continues to be to an even greater degree the concept of fanlistings themselves that make people go sour. There has been so much dramarama between people on the boards and off the boards because of junk that started about a fanlisting approval, rejection, layout, etc that ends up getting personal. It seems more rampant now than ever, and it’s sad to see that especially for people such as myself who have been in the community for years and years that remember when drama wasn’t so commonplace.
So idk. If people make you feel like an outsider just for stopping your fanlisting career, then they are not really people you should be trying to be friends with anyway. haha. Fanlistings are so trivial; if someone judges you based on your fanlistings and whatnot, then they are definitely not worth the time.
But yeah. I feel you. Mosdef. <3
Geekery Saves You Money was the last thing I wrote
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It’s funny that we’ve basically been part of the community for about the same length of time (though my time has kind of been off and on). I hadn’t really felt like part of the community the first few times, and I know I used to annoy the crap out of most people there because I probably came off as like the world’s biggest collector. And sometimes I still feel like I come off that way.
Yeah, offline life seems to get more and more hectic as you get older. It’s like it doesn’t matter what is going on in your life, you’re always busier as you get older, and that keeps you from doing some of the fun stuff.
The people are definitely amazing, and I’ve noticed that there is a lot more drama lately. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s that the people are older now and some things bother them more. Or maybe it’s that the world is just a bit more serious these days than it used to be, since it seems like no matter what is going on, we all are struggling so much lately. Maybe we’re just all getting a bit grumpier due to that, but the drama sometimes feels like it’s gotten out of control.
I agree on the outsider thing and how trivial the whole thing is. I definitely think that the majority of people that I consider to be friends there are actually my friends.
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