Why do people leave ILX for good?

humorless disingenuous posting

ILx is so much more relaxed these days.
10 years ago this place scared the fuck out of me.
whereas now i believe it to be the best online collective there is.

i enjoy and learn a lot from the board and lord knows when I first joined I deserved 98% of the scorn I got but there was a period of time this place cut me deeply......i originally came back only for the metal board.

After eight years of Usenet this place looked like a model of civilised discourse back in 2001.

well hell compared to Usenet a punch feels like a kiss

I only regularly lurk on one other message board which seems to consist mostly of chill normies but reminds me semi-regularly of how awesome ILX is at correcting against oh I dunno saaaaay fairly overtly racist posts and posters (tbf, said board is pretty good at bringing the hammer down when these things do pop up).

the funny thing about Usenet is that I posted in the Slayer and Metallica Usenet boards in high school between 1995-1999, and there was a guy who went by M1k3 M0sh, who was a relatively respected scenester dude who occasionally went a bit OTT and got clowned for it.

Around 2014 or so, I befriended an older dude named M1ke at a metal show and...a year later, realized it was him. and he still goes by "M1ke M0sh" as a pseudonym.

I considered leaving ILX for good just being on internet/social media so much and having it occupy so much of my mental space was starting to make me feel like a saddo force-feeding himself depressing streams of useless information and that there were probably better ways to spend my time. Ultimately I came to the decision that for better or worse a significant part of people's lives are lived on-line and that with some conscientious moderation there's ways to stay connected without being sucked into a vortex of evil marketing and misinformation and bullshit designed to make me unhappy. but I've never been on Facebook, I don't have an instagram, I deactivated my twitter account and I'm just trying to better manage my time on the internet. Seems like at long as I'm at work at an office-job there's always going to be some value in a place as de-commercialized and generally all-encompassing as ILX, which is just a good resource for laffs and information. seems like there's many a much worse place on the 'net I could be spending my time.

^^ rings true for me too

Shakey otm

I guess I was also questioning the value in general of posting a bunch of shit over decades. Like, looking back on all those posts, I was thinking who reads anything I have to say and why would I think it mattered? What was there ever worth getting worked up about, arguing with the same two or three dozen people for over a decade (often about the exact same topics)? But people missed me apparently, so that was some nice ego-validation.

and then I just waited until someone suitably evil died lol

best comeback since Elvis 68

Almost jacked it in over Option #1, recently. Not imago, I hasten to add.

xxp otm again!

You waited until a suitably evil ilxor died to take his handle? That's harsh man...

Like, looking back on all those posts, I was thinking who reads anything I have to say and why would I think it mattered?

Arguing with friends in the pub helps you develop your ideas, learn new things and change your own mind and those of others. There are more people here than want to talk about music, politics and comic books in any of our IRL lives.

Also, grocery store item recommendations.

the older I get the less I think anyone really learns anything significant or has their minds changed tbh. Everyone just seems to get stupider and more set in their ways as they get older (not saying I'm exempt from this phenomenon, to be clear)

but yes I have learned a lot about music and books and comics from this board, so that's gratifying.

Shakey, I want you here when Poppy Bush dies.

lol

I already bought a good bottle of wine, ready to uncork

Agree w shakey, save that I can never post from work and so my time here is limited to the few evenings or bus rides in between doing chores or tending to family. I’m finding that at this point in my career a “regular” workweek is about sixty hours, and I’m just out of moments to rank Argento films or bicker with a stranger about bicycle etiquette.

I love my job, but I do have moments of lifestyle envy for people who work 36 hours and can browse the Internet or post here while they’re doing it. I want to have more of this time, because DO I value the pub convo aspect... but I can’t imagine it happening again.

sic otm, that entire sentiment is uplifting

I don't have a companion, children, or feelings. Y'all are stuck with me.

same

lol

looking back on all those posts, I was thinking who reads anything I have to say and why would I think it mattered?

One thing that's made it easy for me to stick around for so long is I figured out pretty quickly that nothing I said mattered.

Moodles just beat me to it. I don't ask myself questions any more about if anything I say on here (or in the pub, for that matter), matters at all. It's a great relief tbh.

Conversely, everything I post is of enormous consequence and tbh it is a strain

Been thinking about leaving ILX and registering an account with city-data.com.

https://i.imgur.com/5NGlsp6.png

If you see me on the other side, just remember that you only know me up to the point where I became not me.

A lot of what shakeup said rings true for me as well


Still, I’m headed to the bodybuilding forums

little known migo

Man... I bet a lot of my friends think I have failed in life.

shakey otm, pretty much what my break revealed to me too

in unrelated news i deactivated facebook today

nice!

So all my guys from the mra/mgtow recruitment are leaving us for the sw0le lyfe?

Brad - I’m glad you’re back

Brad and Οὖτις both

really wish Lex would come back

brad

who will like my youtube full album links

xp Lex and Ronan. But I'm pretty sure we lost both for good. Good on them tbh.

Shakey and sic OTM. ILX is the only online haunt where I ever write anything at all. I check FB like maybe every couple weeks to check if anyone has posted anything at me (usually not). With respect to how internetting impacts my well being, the combo of a) purging social media from my life and b) getting to a place where I post here without really concerning myself with what it's all about or whether my presence is impactful or particularly well-regarded has been a boon. I get some solid laffs and chew the fat with solid folks and hone my questionable writing chops on the reg. I don't need or expect it to be anything more than that.

I've generally disliked most online interactions apart from a few UseNet/NNTP groups 25-10 years ago, and this place. I think it's the care that people put into their posts and their interaction - there are a lot of genuinely funny and very smart people here, and there's a feeling that what we write will linger (a key feature of ILX of course) and so everybody takes a little extra care, and people who don't get nudged or bounced. I've recently been through the breakdown of my 20 year marriage and that makes my face to face interactions much more complicated, so ILX has been a place where I can talk about interesting stuff with interesting people without having to wade through trolls and shitheads, or distant family members and acquaintances friending you and forcing you to decide what level of sharing you want with them, blah blah blah, anyway I love you all (sobs, is helped from the podium)

in unrelated news i deactivated facebook today

― flamenco drop (BradNelson)

congrats

i hang around here because y'all are big music nerds and i'm a big music nerd. it helps that most of you aren't assholes. i sometimes wish we could talk more about music though. there are so many great records that i listen to but don't have time to post about it! and i know a lot of y'all are the same way! but what is there to say about "nine suns, one morning" by the silence other than that it rules?

brad: leaving facebook means you have to bump the fallout boy thread at least once a week. PROMISE ME

20 years ago I was scared of this place and people called me damaged goods for liking tori. Now it’s chill

Going through years of cd booklets..

That’s me.

That post saying I could never be respected as a tori fan tho

Not twenty but you get the point. Place is much chiller

ILX is not 20 just yet