Does anyone else feel almost bereaved at this point? I swear this isn't a doompost, but more of a general observation about what is going on. I already intended to make this post before the events of the other day, but now it feels a little more relevant.
The gradual slowing of imageboard activity over the years--and more recently the loss of abdlstoryforum and the Patreon purge--has left me a little crestfallen about how ABDL community is doing online. Allow me to present a contrast.
On the one hand, the irl ABDL "scene" is bigger than ever. Meetups are common, diapers are selling like hotcakes, the fetish is popular on bluesky, recon etc., and--at least anecdotally--it's easy to find other diaperfags to play vidya or rub diapers with. However this is not reflected by what I see here on 8moe, where posting activity has slowed dramatically from the peak days of original 8chan. OC is posted, but slowly. People don't really even just post pics they fap to so much anymore--aside from uncanny AI stuff which is (no offense) just not there yet. I check this board daily, and usually I am disappointed to see a large share of posts being people just begging for paid content or being too stupid to figure out links to said pirated content. It often feels like it's either that or culture war bullshit, which I come here to escape.
Consider how it was 4-5 years ago, a time I remember well due to being a carefree retard in college. 8kun had several active threads daily. One was just for Asians in diapers. Another for Asians in thick diapers. And another for girls in diapers but with guns. Certainly I share some small share in the blame, since I am no longer a carefree retard and don't have as much time to post, but I deeply want to see this place become vibrant and make an effort to post stories as I write them. I'm deeply grateful for every good post I see, and I wish I had made more of them.
Some level of this could be my own nostalgia, but whenever I head back to the husk of 8kun and compare the threads and posts I know something has changed. Yes, losing that site fragmented the community. Yes, not everyone could be expected to trickle over here. But where else did everyone go? Diaperfags don't just disappear, and I heavily doubt they all went to r/abdl or whatever.
Am I just insane? If not, any thoughts on why the change has occurred or what can be done?