fandom & online community nostalgia
Back in my early teens, I was a big fan of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Season 1 of the show had just finished airing in my home country, and in the US, Season 2 was about to start. Wanting to get more info about the new season was what made me join my first English-speaking online community, the Avatar Spirit Forums. At the same time, I was also active on another ATLA forum (German-speaking), where I made a lot of online friends and acquaintances. Every now and then there was some drama, but overall, it was very comfy. We discussed the latest episodes, did stupid forum games, posted fanart, and made custom avatars and "sigs" (banner-like pictures that you put in your forum signature).
Eventually ATLA wrapped up, and I never got into Legend of Korra that much. Instead, I started watching a lot of (Japanese) anime, and, of course, joined a forum. I frequented that one from the tail end of high school throughout my university years.
All of those forums have since disappeared. The ATLA forums were both closed - even though Legend of Korra was quite successful, they didn't attract enough people anymore. The anime forum was merged into a review site, and I stopped going there (which was part due to the move, and part due to a sharp drop in my anime consumption).
Every now and then, I get nostalgic about these old online communities and think how nice it'd be to find something similar again. Back then, I was one of the "younglings"; nowadays I'd be one of the older users that always seemed so vaguely cool to me circa 2009. I never really got into Social Media or Discord; they're too short-lived and fast-moving. Bear Blog is really good, but low on interaction. Reddit sometimes comes close (depending on the Subreddit), but overall, the communities are too large, and I don't like the vote-based comment system. I just want an old-fashioned forum where posts are displayed in chronological order. Contrary to popular belief, these still exist if you search for them hard enough. However, another issue is that I don't consider myself part of any particular "fandom" anymore. There are video games that I like for their visuals, design/style or lore (Splatoon, Pokemon, Fromsoft games...), but I don't actually play the games. I don't watch any shows that are currently airing on TV or streaming. I don't read any long-running manga series. So I don't know what kind of forum I should even look for. Maybe the kind of online community that I reminisce about will forever be a thing of the past.