Hello! Project Survivor '18 ~Inaba Manaka is the WINNER!~

[Celedam]

^ Is that supposed to provoke or taunt me? Are you still trying to be edgy? Bless.

Anyhow… No, I didn't forget. I just didn't care strongly enough about any of the "Group ∞" finalists to pick one and only one and then post it in the thread. I like all of them, and I suspect a lot of us here feel the same way. If I couldn't do it with a poll selection, meh.

Going back to what TU said, we all eventually grow up and move on, and given the nature of the Internet, we move in different directions. It's been 12 years since I got into H!P. I'm in my mid-40s now and in a very different place in my life. I still watch H!P videos on YouTube because the subscription feed makes it easy to do so. And I still come here mostly out of habit; even if I didn't have the site on my favorites bar, I have the URL in my muscle memory. But do I still spend a couple hours every day actively searching for stuff to post here? <snort> Good lord, no.

Heck, I still catch myself typing "slashdot.org" sometimes, even though that place has been a dumpster fire for years. (My Slashdot user ID is in the low 5-digits. Other Slashdot users will understand what that means.)

[rikkikow]

OK. Let it go. This is what killed H!PS. I apologize.

[esm]

The best H!PS ever for me was when there was the clone polling thread and people not reading the instructions were voting in it. That’s classic! There were some very fine endings in the past. Fitting this year is that esm got the killing vote!

That's my only vote this game. There were points when I checked the game and there were too many girls I didn't care for. Then I dropped by and was like, oh it's the last round, I'll just vote.

[erilaz]

I think that Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms have drawn a lot of people away - there are pretty active H!P and other J-pop groups on FB, and there's a lot of Asian pop music activity on Twitter. I don't think that J-pop or H!P have become less popular - if anything, I think they're more popular - but the community of J-pop fans has become much more spread out and fragmented.
[snip]
And I suspect that to younger (post-Millenial) fans who were raised on contemporary social media, something like a BBS may seem kind of old-fashioned.

I agree.

We've seen not only a decline in the number of H!PS participants, but also a decline in activity on the forum in general. There are clearly fewer active members nowadays, and even some of our historically active members are posting less and less. How much of that is due to people being drawn away to other online venues, how much is due to "the real world" demanding more of people's time and energy, and how much is due to people simply losing interest in H!P and/or J-pop, I couldn't say.

[Zunu]

What killed the fun of H!PS is thin skin, cry babies, and political correctness aka known as PC.

I figure we get at least one dumb question a month, right? So...what's PC about H!PS? Or to phrase it differently, what's a politically incorrect aspect of halcyon H!PS'es that is now sadly missing?

but also a decline in activity on the forum in general. There are clearly fewer active members nowadays, and even some of our historically active members are posting less and less. How much of that is due to people being drawn away to other online venues, how much is due to "the real world" demanding more of people's time and energy, and how much is due to people simply losing interest in H!P and/or J-pop, I couldn't say.

I find that in general I'm less interested in the participatory aspect of the internet in terms of voicing my opinion about stuff. For various reasons, the reward for doing so is much less compelling than it used to be. I remember when I first started posting on Facebook, I treated it like it was going to be like a personal blog. I'd post long personal opinion pieces about topical events and thought that I would receive lengthy, thought-out responses. Until finally one of my friends was like, "Zun, what are you doing, this isn't deep, just post something brief and keep it moving. Nobody's got time for reading a book." So, basically, the internet now is just a big scrapbook with video, plus little quips and burns to keep it spicy. If you want people to pay attention to things you write, you have to sound really angry and self-righteous, better if you can claim allegiance to an aggrieved group of some kind. I don't have the stamina and interest in that any more. But "drawn away to other online venues" is definitely also true. Basically 40% of my online time is AV consumption Netflix/YouTube/Hulu/Spotify etc., 20% is reading articles online, 20% is visually-driven participatory sites like Facebook or Instagram, 10% is shopping or downloading, and 10% is other participatory sites like here, reddit, hacker news, etc.

[erilaz]

I'd post long personal opinion pieces about topical events and thought that I would receive lengthy, thought-out responses. Until finally one of my friends was like, "Zun, what are you doing, this isn't deep, just post something brief and keep it moving. Nobody's got time for reading a book."

The mere existence of "TL;DR" speaks volumes.

[esm]

^^ I didn't say that. It was erilaz.

I'd post long personal opinion pieces about topical events and thought that I would receive lengthy, thought-out responses. Until finally one of my friends was like, "Zun, what are you doing, this isn't deep, just post something brief and keep it moving. Nobody's got time for reading a book."

The mere existence of "TL;DR" speaks volumes.

A friend of mine was a TA for an undergrad class, and some kid in the class had a "TL;DR" section in his response for a homework assignment.

[resop2]

What "killed" H!PS is the fact that all of the H!P idols are perfect angels who don't deserve to be kicked off of an island, yes, even your favorite idol.

[TotallyUncool]

^They are. They're perfect angels. Even Maachan. She's just a little confused about how to be an angel.


I think that the actual format of the internet tends to fragment people's attention and shorten attention-spans. It's like a huge conduit full of trivia and distractions, with a few heavy-duty and even profound things mixed in. I know that it's affected me that way. I still read a lot of books (mostly non-fiction printed books that pile up everywhere ), but I tend to read them in small chunks, rather than a large section in one sitting. In a lot of ways, I think I prefer the Internet as a social medium, rather than a forum for ideas or opinions (not that there's any shortage of online opinions at all ). It is a pretty good place to hang out with people, say silly things, and watch amusing videos - and given the choice between that and its other current high-visiblity function (as a free-fire zone for propaganda, disinformation, and untterly hellish attempts at mass social manipulation) silly social fun and amusing videos sound like a pretty good deal.

[Celedam]

TL;DR – We're old and tired.