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What are you no longer a fan of?
As the title of the post asked, is there anything that you are no longer a fan of/support?
Feel free to share any experiences you have that made you change your mind on something. These could something smaller such as deciding to no longer support or engage with a brand due to store clerk being a bit rude to you in one interaction, to you disliking the actions or direction taken by a corporation/creator/franchise.
I did want to note that while this thread can obviously veer in to the negative based on the question, it doesn't have to be. You could no longer being a fan of something could be due to your tastes changing over the years, or a life experience making you decide you want to change your habits.
Pink Floyd
I used to listen to them religiously in high school. I went to laser lightshows. I would listen to their discography on repeat to go to sleep every night. I even saw their reprisal tour in 2006 with Roger Waters.
I cannot stand them now. It's been about 15 years of being unable to listen them. Some of it I'm just burnt out on, but most of it I just find shallow. It feels very "I'm 13 and this is deep". Nothing will get me to change the radio faster than the intro base riff to Money. I just can't anymore. I think it also reminds me of being in a phase of life where I was trying to reflect an identity, rather than build one.
Other than that I still love all the other classic rock from that era, including bands like Foreigner or other psychedelic groups. I even love modern day psychedelic rock, like Kind Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. The only other band that lost face in my opinion was Led Zeppelin (just because they ripped off a ton of music from black artists) but I still enjoy so much of their music.
I feel like this about a lot of the music I listened to in high school. Its because I’m still listening to it from the perspective of my 16 year old self and I cant listen to it without that bias. Who I was back then was shallow and undeveloped so I hear the song with that lens.
Money hits different for me as an adult, once I get past my young selfs anti capitalist interpretation of it and come at it as a part of the machine myself. Now I’m in the machine, playing the game, and Ive made it just like they did. Money.
Huh! Pink Floyd! Interesting.
For me this was more “my dad’s music” which I did like, but maybe because I was so young (pre-teen) that I may have liked anything he showed passion for. Either way, while I liked it, it never had a formative influence on me. I “get it” more now as an adult of course. I occasionally listen to Wish You Were. I guess I never overdid it with Pink Floyd to get sick of them.
There were, however, some bands that did have a strong influence on me, and I have mixed feelings about them. I’ll generally avoid them these days because they remind me of a time I was pretty unhappy. Yet sometimes they have the opposite effect and I find them soothing. I think it depends on my mood.
Do you play guitar lefty, know how to do 5x or 7x rubiks cubes, and have bad allergies that cause nasal congestion all the time?
What got me thinking of posting this thread was seeing the new Pokémon trailer that was recently posted. I haven't been interested in paying for the new games for a while due to becoming a parent and having less time/money for games, but I'd still look at some game play or think "that'd be fun to play". This was the first time seeing a mainline game that I had no interest in playing. I wouldn't say I've grown out of Pokémon entirely as I'm still interested in playing ROM hacks or some fan made games that look interesting, I'm just not the target market any longer and that's alright.
I also mentioned in another thread that when I was younger I used to be fairly in to Star Wars. Not the most dedicated fan out there, I didn't get too deep in to the Expanded Universe, but I loved the movies and playing Star Wars video games, had action figures, etc. I was actually somewhat optimistic when Disney acquired Star Wars and thought we'd see some new movies. When they said that the Expanded Universe was no longer canon, I actually wasn't that upset since I could see directors and writers for future movies feeling constrained by existing lore.
After the Last Jedi I lost interest in the franchise. People have complained enough about the sequel trilogy over the years, so I won't list my own complaints. Rogue One was decent, but I've had no interest in new Star Wars things. I've heard great things about Andor, and I'll probably watch it eventually, but I'm not in a rush to see it. I still plan to go and read some of the Expanded Universe books that you hear people recommend.
I do like to think that my tastes could change again in the future, and something new in those two IPs could draw me back. There are so many great things out there to explore that a franchise moving in a direction I don't personally like just means I can go and find something that I do.
I hear this. I was also somewhat of a mild Star Wars fan. Enjoyed the movies, enjoyed the games, even somewhat enjoyed the prequals as they released. But these days? Completely over it. Feel like Star Wars has been jammed down my throat and I just cannot possibly care anymore; feels like absolute slop.
I would like to share Star Wars with my kids when they get older, and it will probably be with the various film preservation projects and with some of the older video games and books if they're interested. If they want to engage with the newer content that's up to them.
This comment feels obligatory since it crops up whenever someone talks about star wars, but if you're a fan of the star wars universe you really should hurry to watch Andor.
I see all the positive mentions of Andor, and based on my brother recommending it and other people I know I'm sure I'd find it enjoyable.
I just don't consider myself a fan of Star Wars in particular anymore and with all the other shows that I want to watch, and I've been planning to watch, Andor isn't getting any priority on the watch list. Based on how fast I watch other shows these days I'll probably get around to this sometime in the next 5-10 years. With how popular it is I don't see Disney taking it off their streaming platforms in that time frame.
I’m not really a star wars fan but I watched Andor and then re-watched it because some of the scenes just hit me really hard in the context of the united states going through what its going through and the idea of having to fuel a rebellion when it seems like theres nothing left to save
i would say, if you like tv, you should watch andor. it's one of these once in a decade shows. everything just comes together perfectly. passion, style, pop and something real to say.
This is the eternal Star Trek vs Star Wars take… I grew up watching The Next Generation way before I saw any Star Wars stuff. I watched some older anime series and some 90s cartoons all before seeing Star Wars. Once I finally did, I was quite disappointed. I didn’t get what the big deal was. I did end up watching most movies, most of them no more than once. I played a few of the games. I think Jedi Outcast on PC was fun. And pod racer. I much preferred Battlestar Galactica, The Expanse, probably a lot of other sci fi over Star Wars. I never felt the characters to be super relatable. The plot was mediocre in my opinion, the robots too dorky especially that golden one. Data from Star Trek is a far more interesting character than any of these robots in Star Wars. Sorry, I’m not even a Trekkie, I just don’t see the mass success of Star Wars. Maybe I just had to be there to get it, and not experience it X years later.
The republican party. I turned 18 in 1996 (first year to vote) and my view started shifting slowly with medicinal marijuana passed in California, then shifting quicker during W. I'm very more centered now and quite despise most of the figureheads of the party these days.
Roller coasters. I grew up scared to death of them, but mid teens I managed to swallow my fear, scream really loud, and learned to enjoy (maybe even love?) them. Then after a long hiatus reaching my early 30s, I rode a few at Cedar Point (not worth visiting Ohio for) and got such a killer headache and didn't really enjoy any. At all.
Beavis & Butthead. I've obviously grown up enough to realize how stupid they are. The old stuff that I've re-encountered is still moderately amusing (probably due to familiarity), but the 2022 reboot had me cringing so much, just like when I hear kids singsonging "6-7". (GET OFF MY LAWN!!!)
Beets. I loved canned beets as a kid, but never encountered the raw version. But now, the smell makes me retch, and it's difficult to stomach the fresh stuff, usually encountered on salads or my FiL's stewed version (went over to their house, walked in, told them we had forgotten to go shopping and left for a couple more hours).
Sweets. I just don't enjoy them like I used to. I remember one easter, my parents let me eat all the candy I wanted and I ended up wishing I could throw it all up at the end of the day (and I abhored vomiting as a kid - the flu would send me into panic attacks). The sweet tooth quickly waned after that. Plus Turkish, I'm sweet enough...
Most traditional FPS games, especially war-themed and/or multiplayer
Used to be a huge player of Call of Duty, Counter Strike, Unreal Tournament, etc. I no longer get any enjoyment out of them. I've just completely grown out of it and I think most modern incarnations of this type of thing are just boring rehashes of the same stuff. Even things I would find interesting possibly (Helldivers) I just can't get into.
Multiplayer games in general
Aside from Rocket League and a very occasional co-op (or asynchronous cooperative thing like an ARPG guild in PoE for trading, etc), I generally stay far away from anything multiplayer. I'm just not interested in interacting with any random people through games anymore. Even on Rocket League, I have all "typed chat" turned off- quick chats only. Never voice chat (unless its with a friend external to the game)
Alcohol
Gave it up completely a couple of years ago. It's not that I hate it across the board, so I guess from a distance I could still be considered a "fan" of whiskey or whatever, it's just that I chose to move on. Decided even a single drink is no longer worth it. I don't like being around (or talking online to) people that are heavily under the influence. It all just gives me a vibe that no longer works for me AND also it's just bad for me to have at all (big headache trigger, even when drinking just one serving a day).
Most nu-metal, 98% of Christian music
I've slowly started shedding some of my nostalgia and find a lot of what I used to listen to in some genres/etc to be much more mediocre than I ever dared to realize. So much of the lyrics are cringey and awful and a lot of the music is mid at best. I was so bent on listening to certain things that it was preventing me from taking the time to enjoy new or better things. Nostalgia is a hell of a drug, and can easily cross a line from occasional fun to actually having a negative impact. As I left the faith, I also left behind nearly every bit of Christian music I used to listen to (and at one point, prior to being an adult- was the only thing I was allowed to listen to). There are a couple of artists I still appreciate, but it's just a past life for me I have no interest in revisiting (and often just feel uncomfortable doing so).
Some subgenres/very particular expressions of music
Some other stuff I've left behind too are just cringe / bad humor music in general. I have no idea what I used to get out of hokey "pirate metal" type stuff. Drinking at the time and playing board games around the themes probably helped it "fit" (and the fact that it was a friend's choice of music not mine), but I can't stand the stuff today and think it's awful, not funny, and really just kinda despite that it even exists as a type of music. If I'm going to listen to any kind of "folk" metal, it needs to be very genuine and not cheesy / overdone melodies / etc. Music + comedy rarely works, but there are exceptions to the rule. Comedy is a lot harder than most bands think it is.
Speaking of board games...
Used to play weekly with a group. Now, the reasons I stopped playing are more complex than just the board games. Politics/behavior were involved too. However, I did eventually burn out on playing board games in general. Just started to feel more like a chore than fun, and half way through I'd just not "feel it" anymore. After playing many hours in one sitting per week it just kinda got old, even though we kept getting new games.
A lot of bands with iffy politics / views / behavior
I used to not care at all and not even investigate bands for a split second before listening to them. Now I've done a complete 180 on that and am rather particular. I still leave some leeway for private listening, but I'm overly (and okay with being so) careful about recommending, representing (patches/stickers/etc), or otherwise promoting or providing financial support to plenty of acts that I wouldn't have thought twice about previously.
I'll say religion in general, especially Christianity, but no need for me to expand on that this time around.
Movies / TV Shows / especially Fiction, with games being the main exception to the rule
I watched movies and tv shows all the time as a kid and teen. As an adult, I don't watch any. It's only Youtube/Twitch style content, and when it's YouTube it's not fictional, it's science or trades or philosophy or technology, etc. I enjoy reading, but generally no fiction there either. I just don't get the same thing out of it others do most of the time. There can be exceptions, but 9 times out of 10 I want something non-fictional. Either educational, practical, social, political, etc. - and I understand fiction can still have something to say about these, I just prefer the directness of non-fiction.
Candy / sugary things
I like the occasional treat, but as I've changed my eating habits, I do not eat most of the sweet stuff I used to, and I have no desire to go back. 1000 calorie pints of loaded ice cream, sweettarts ropes, just pure sugar stuff. Now, if I have snacks, it's the occasional chip, or mini pecan pie, or cheesecake, etc.
I was pretty into that scene half a lifetime ago. The first concert I ever attended was dc Talk and Jars of Clay, in the mid ‘90s. My first job was corralling the CDs in a chain Christian bookstore. I was a huge Tooth & Nail fan, my tastes ran the gamut from The Juliana Theory to John Reuben to Joy Electric and The Echoing Green. Got into sound engineering running the boards for a few churches and youth groups, and rode that into broadcasting at a local Christian radio station. I spent the summer of ‘05 digitizing a huge library of the worst CCM from the ‘70s and ‘80s for an early “solid gold” streaming radio startup, now that was an interesting couple of months, ha. I had my sights on hosting a countdown style show of my own to boost new releases, hell I even made the pilot episode for that.
Well my career went in a very different direction and, I guess, I got old. It seemed like all the new music was either obnoxious scene kid screamo or absolute brainless worship sludge. I guess people’s musical tastes tend to anchor to whatever they listened to in high school… I knew it wasn’t for me anymore. I stopped keeping up with that world. Eventually (many years later) I lost my faith as well, and now I look back on my time in that culture as a sort of nostalgic curiosity. I wonder where I’d be today if I hadn’t changed career tracks.
From time to time I’ll look up bands I used to like and see what they’re up to. I’m kind of relieved that Five Iron Frenzy’s still playing shows. Most of what I see is tragic. I was shocked that Skillet went full MAGA but I guess most of them did. Newsboys too, but of course that’s all overshadowed now with the ongoing Michael Tait bombshells, which I grimly suspect could become the Epstein files of the Nashville CCM world. There’s something really troubling happening there, being kept under wraps, I think. Feels like the whole Christian recording industry is rotting, it leaves me feeling empty inside.
I’ve long wished I had the resources to make a “where are they now” documentary about the CCM scene I remember. I just want to catch up with people who were in it then, and either walked away or were pushed out. I want to catch up with Jennifer Knapp, Amy Grant, Ray Boltz, David Bazan, Ja’Marc Davis, Derek Webb… anybody who tasted that fame and controversy’d out. I just want to hear their stories.
I don’t listen to much of that music anymore, but there are definitely times when nothing else scratches the itch.
Spent a lot of time in Christian bookstores as a youth. Went to a Jars of Clay show myself early on. First CD I owned was DC Talk's Jesus Freak. I got deep into Solid State and Tooth & Nail releases. Went to small local punk and metal shows in a heavily religious town. Got into almost every genre outside of super benign radio CCM junk, started my metalhead journey in the Christian music scene first, first exposure to rap was Christian rap, etc. Later on was into the more extreme metal side of things. It's interesting looking back for sure, but putting on any of that music transports me to that era pretty quickly mentally and I don't like that feeling at all. These days I still listen to most genres, but completely outside of (or even adversarial towards) the Christian side of things.
I similarly lament a lot of what I've seen with many of the acts going super right-wing. Demon Hunter / Clark brother stuff went that direction too IIRC. I similarly think that entire scene is rotting. Like a comment I saw elsewhere said one time "I wonder if the Christian music industry is just a distilled form of all the more negative/toxic aspects of the church in general"
I am glad to see a number of artists that made it out, many of whom have good politics, or even have plenty of members that left evangelicalism, etc. Underoath are no longer believers. I am a massive Bazan fan- he has very publicly broken up with the faith and made that clear through his music and documentary (and is probably my favorite musician of all time). Love most Pedro The Lion and Bazan records. He wasn't shy even decades ago about really challenging the faith from within. Zao are no longer religious and still kick ass (and have good political views). There are quite a number of similar trajectories for bands from that era- so I'm glad to see not all of them remain trapped in that disaster. meWithoutYou later revealed some members weren't religious, others had varying faiths, etc. I was a HUGE fan of MXPX. I don't enjoy them as much now, but they also distanced themselves from religion quite a bit. Lead singer of Hawk Nelson no longer religious.
A Where Are They Now documentary about all of that would be so interesting. I'd be into that for sure
Huh. I was a big fan of UnderOath when I believed and am pleasantly surprised that they're not Christian anymore. Lead me to look up my other favorite band of that era, The Devil Wears Prada who also claims they're not Christian anymore according to their Wiki. I was at the last For Today show that was played in NYC but they split up a while ago. I think the lead singer from that band is still a Christian.
Yeah. I do find it somewhat amusing that I find Underoath's music was better when they were Christians, but that's just a matter of preference. But it's just funny to me that I like their views better now but their music a lot less. That said, neither era of Underoath is really my thing anymore, but glad they've taken the personal trajectory they did
Loved your answer. Big list kept going!
I’m with you re: alcohol. I stopped 8 years ago. It had become diminishing returns and stated feeling the negative effects on my health, both mental and physical. I was gaining weight too. One of the best decisions I ever made for my health was to ditch alcohol completely.
Same with candy, recently I’ve started avoiding it as much as I can. Dessert after dinner? Not for me. Maybe a tea or a coffee instead. Candy from the corner store? Pass. Sweets as gifts from a relative? I take the box to work and leave it in the kitchen for others to enjoy. If I want sweet, I’ll aim for fruit.
Movies and TV Shows, I’m having a very hard time lately to find any of them really interesting. There is the occasional show and movie that I watch and find moving or memorable, but they are few and far between.
Thanks! Yeah for alcohol I used to drink heavily about once a week, then in the recent past 5-10 years maybe a couple drinks a week max. And lately even that small amount, just enjoying a single whiskey, would sometimes give me instant headaches, or make me feel awful, mentally and physically. A lot of the time it just consistently led to feeling bad in some way or another. I look back at it like "I had my fun, I had my moderation, now it's time to leave it behind" and I'm so glad I did.
Tea and coffee are huge parts of my life now and also take the place of a lot of sweets / other things for me too. Also go for fruit sometimes. If I do have candy, I have individually wrapped small pieces that are only a couple of grams of sugar each, and that's enough friction to control my portions and keep my daily added sugars at a minimum. I do still intake some sweetness/sugar via condiments, but I try not to go overboard there either (at least then it's on top of food that has fiber/nutrients/etc).
America. It amazes me how American media, politicians and businesses keep getting this wrong. Sure, the tariffs are bullshit, but I don't care about that. A convicted felon pedophile threatened the sovereignty of my country and it's a fucking joke? I have a friend who died and know other Canadians who died alongside Americans because they were attacked and we were there to support our ally and that's a fucking joke? America can get fucked. They have destroyed their relationship with Canada. I will never give that shit hole country another cent of my money as long as I can manage. I could be over the border in less than an hour and it will be too soon if I ever have to go there again.
Lots of things, mostly bands?
Used to be very into Melo-Death Metal, bands like Dark Tranquillity (yes, that's spelled "correctly") and some early Death Metal like Death. I'm pretty much over those things in general. I really very much enjoyed Melo-Death, but Death as a band is something I felt like I had to like, rather than genuinely enjoyed and I'm kind of over that now.
Multiplayer games: After I had my kids, I was still trying to play multiplayer games. I was deep into World of Warplanes and World of Tanks at the time. I kept trying to play them, but would get angry whenever I needed to stop playing a match to attend to my children. It was then I realized they just weren't compatible for me anymore and I stopped completely; since then, I've totally lost interest in them and multiplayer is never a selling point as it once was when I was a teen/20-something.
Fast cars: There was a time, again in my teens and early 20's where I really wanted a fast car. It was important to me that I could beat other guys my age in a stoplight race. I regularly tweaked and souped my vehicles to make more power, as well as took them to the drag strip to race against myself and see how I was doing.
Somewhere around 23 or 24, I realized that there was really no point in this and that I was generally a pretty slow and cautious driver. I sold my last fast car and bought a Honda Civic for the gas mileage and never looked back. I still like cars; I still repair and modify them, but I'm far more concerned with utility and comfort over anything else. I would so much rather have my ancient minivan than any of the fast cars I used to drive.
I really hear you on those particular genres of metal. It genuinely feels like an age thing - go to an extreme metal concert and the age of the crowd always trends quite young, average seems to be like 20-25 even for older more classic death and melodeath bands. Goes for black and other genres too. I think it's because it's a significant subculture for those growing up with that music, diving super deep into identifying with the music, but growing up and aging even just into one's 30's, you don't usually dress like that anymore, and start to be just fine with looking like everyone else because it's just more comfortable. 90% of the stuff I used to listen to was metal, nowadays it's barely 10%.
Facebook (transition from semi-private space for friend interactions to external stuff constantly being "recommended"...and various terrible things about it in the news over the years)
Reddit (API-gate)
Magic: the Gathering (I still like the game itself, but hate the crossovers with other IPs, and feel that my favourite competitive format Modern was made significantly worse by direct-to-Modern sets that bypassed Standard. Have always hated their gambling 4 kidz business model)
Anime. It’s not that I won’t watch it, it’s that it must be exceptional for me to spend any time watching it, and almost no anime meets the minimum criteria for a watch. It has to meet three main requirements.
The main criteria is that the explanation of the plot summary can’t make me cringe. What makes me cringe? Most anime plots. To give you an idea, I have watched all the way through three shows in the past two years: The Fable, Dan Da Dan, and the last season of The Devil is a Part-Timer, which I originally watched when it was released, then like nine years later when they finished it.
I’ve genuinely tried to watch so many other anime that have been critically acclaimed and highly recommended, and none of them have hooked me. I can’t explain it, but it’s one of those “when I like it, I like it and when I don’t, I don’t.”
I just can't with anime anymore. Someone will recommend something, and there's some gross or incel-y shit within the first 5 minutes. I'm aware that there's more than that, but I can't seem to find a community that caters to my tastes.
Agreed! Nothing makes me nope out faster than gratuitous fan service. These days, even heavy violence is enough to turn me away.
What really kills me is when the fan service creeps in halfway through a show. It is devastating when you're immersed in the story and world, and then the writers/animators can't keep it in their pants any longer and you have to bail out. Hit it enough times that I just wrote off anime altogether, unless it's clearly something chill/vetted ahead of time by a friend.
Yeah, Dan Da Dan I had to hold my nose for a lot of it, but once Grandma Seiko shows up it's a lot more watchable if for no other reason than she's the funniest character on the show. It's one of those shows that should've had a lot of bounce-off for me but had enough interesting secondary and tertiary characters that I kept watching.
The Fable happens to hit a particular niche for me, and I put it on the same level as other favorites like Grosse Pointe Blank, 2 Days in the Valley, Johnny Mnemonic, the TV show Barry, Pulp Fiction (Jules & Verne's story specifically, I mostly don't care about the rest), Collateral, In Bruges, Reservoir Dogs, Nobody, John Wick, Casino, The Irishman, Goodfellas, Gangs of New York, The Departed, The Untouchables, Cop Land, No Country For Old Men, Heat, The Town, Layer Cake, Logan Lucky... I don't know why but I enjoy movies centering hitmen, criminals, heists. It's all my favorite stuff. Probably why I love GTA4 and GTA5 so dang much, too. I don't think any of them are good people, but the stories are fascinating.
Edit to add: oh yeah, I love independent detectives like Monk, Columbo, Poker Face, Murder She Wrote...
I have a similar feeling with anime. For a bit in College I had a friend who was a huge fan of anime, and we would pick out 8-9 different seasonal animes to watch with the idea that we would pretty ruthlessly cut down on the ones we'd watch throughout the season.
So many of the plots just have zero interest to me, and since my kids were born I've only very slowly watched older anime. I'm sure there are great ones that come out, but with how limited my time is I'd rather just watch these older times that I know for sure I'm interested in than look into newer titles that I may be interested in.
There were three events that occurred around 2003 to 2005 that just made me go "nah, I'm done" and I ditched anime for around 5 years after that.
First was Fullmetal Alchemist. My favorite character was killed (a certain Lt. Colonel) and then The Godforsaken Chimera just depressed me too much to push on.
Second was Naruto taking a pause for some long race thing they did because the manga needed to catch up to the anime somewhere around 140-150 episodes into the show. I never got back to it after that filler arc, I just lost all steam and have never been able to pick it up again.
Third was watching Bleach. I was really into the substitute Reaper story line, and then they introduced the main villain and the big stakes and immediately it wasn't fun anymore.
The first anime I watched again was some of season one of Tiger & Bunny in like 2011, but when they revealed Blue Rose it made me not only lose all interest in anime, it made me cancel my streaming service which I think was Hulu at the time.
I didn't try any anime again until One-Punch Man season 1 in 2015, which I loved. But season 2 turned me off so bad I didn't try again until last year, where I watched Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (I was better prepared this time), Trigun Stampede, Dan Da Dan, and The Fable. That's about it.
I had friends that liked it but never managed to get into it myself. Other than Fullmetal Alchemist, the only two shows I can remember watching and thinking they were decent are Gurren Lagann and Gun x Sword. But I can’t recall the plots and have no idea how they’d hold up now.
Shoutout to DB / DBZ for the lolz watch.
Yeah. I actually watched a metric shitload of stuff with an anime club in college, and even ran it for two - good group of people, and we curated it well to do good crowd watch stuff at first before tapering off into the more niche stuff. Zero regrets, of course, I watched a lot of formative stuff. But the second I dropped out of college it was really rare I'd actually stick with watching any anime. Even JJBA, which I've watched parts 1-4 a good 2-3 times very happily, I just kinda dropped in the middle of 6 and don't regret. Feel like I'll need to eat my veggies and finish it before I watch Steel Ball Run.
I think a lot of it comes down to formula? Not just genre or "the anime tropes" but that there's kind of an interplay there where people who "like anime" tend to like certain things; it's kinda baked into the demographic, and I feel like I've seen too many shows which didn't want to show something outside of what the audience expects to want. So I ended up with a massive distaste for shounen, and the second I hear people recommending certain things like JJK I completely tune out. It's zero judgement or offense intended towards anyone who likes them, of course, I know some of these shows are legitimately solid. I just can't.
Plenty of exceptions, though. Bocchi the Rock is the best fucking TV I've watched in like a decade; it got me to pick up the bass again. I also loved Umamusume: Beginning of a New Era last week, which is a wonderful movie about sports, self-doubt, and why racing throbs in certain people's hearts. Also, y'know, horsegirls.
It sounds like you just have particular tastes. For my part, I haven't seen any of the three you listed, and the only one I might even consider is The Fable. People have different preferences, but I don't think anyone could fault you for that.
Harry Potter - For reasons that should be obvious. JKR and her hatred won't get another penny out of me.
Tales series is the first thing that came to mind, feels like after Vesperia and Graces the series nosedived.
Atlus too just occurred to me, I love Devil Survivor, Etrian Odyssey is one of my favorite series, but I think I got burnt by SMT and how often Atlus remade/remastered games. Persona was a gateway drug to SMT, which was a gateway drug to both EO and DS.
I guess I’m inclined to say Pokemon since it was mentioned but it’s more apathy than dislike.
Consoles, I feel like they peaked with the PS360 era, and since it’s been a downhill. Handhelds died with the Vita imo, it was the last “real” handheld to me, the Switch is more of a portable console than a handheld.
Kingdom Hearts, probably. KH1 was a foundational game for me, and formed the core of the first online community I was ever part of. Now about 23 years later, I don't think I care about what KH4 is about. It's unlikely to be similar to the game I feel in love with, but I think I'm in the minority there. It's a bit sad.
Pokemon, specifically the games. While many other games have evolved in each iteration, Pokemon has mostly stayed the same. And that's not inherently a bad thing, but there are just too many other games competing for my attention, and most of them don't involve grinding.
I also am not a fan of Nintendo anymore for a variety of reasons, but primarily the Joy Con drift issue. Offering replacements is not a full solution - they should stop putting faulty parts in their consoles and peripherals to stop it at the source.
It blew my mind when the new Pokemon trailer came out, and I realized that the last time I'd been excited for a game in the series was back in 2011.
I echo that. I have a hard time imagining myself buying back into Nintendo's ecosystem.
Star Wars. Yeah I get it, it's popular to hate on now, but it had formed such a core part of my identity for a long time. As a youngster in the late 90s/early 00s, I devoured every book in the expanded universe I could get my hands on. I aspired to be like the characters I saw and read about - people who were larger than life, heroes to me. I loved the idea of a world which was larger than I could ever imagine, the escapism from my reality, the retro futurism, the idea that though things might be grimy, there was always hope for a better tomorrow.
I get that I see the past through rose colored lenses, but even I picked up on the fact that the prequels weren't what I wanted from the series. I eventually came to love them, in a way. The same love that you have for someone you never were close with yet still have a shared history with. My heart has and always will be with the period after the fall of the republic and the victory of the rebellion.
I think that's really what it was for me - a beacon that we can effect change against what seems like a monolithic institution. Something which seems unending, unyielding, unbreaking. I want to believe in the ideals Star Wars - the original series - espoused to me. Triumph, loss, redemption. The trilogy.
I eventually came to love the prequels in a "this is campy and silly but it still feels like star wars" way. I cannot feel the same about the new trilogy. Don't even get me started on the expanded universe.
Andor, rogue one, and to a lesser extent the first season of Mando felt like star wars - wonder, whimsy, and grit. It's still not star wars, though. I think the biggest problem for me is that I feel like the universe I grew up with was so casually discarded like trash for corporate interests.
I hate to say it because I feel it’s not a good thing, but I’ve grown increasingly tired of having to setup tech and tweak things. It started around 2016 when I moved from Android to iPhone. I used to love customizing my Android phone with launchers and whatnot. I haven’t built a PC since around 2012. Been on Mac. I don’t think it’s a good thing in general because it’s good to control your devices rather than be controlled by them. I definitely still manually adjust all the settings I can, but I rarely go out of my way into deeper customization. On one hand there is a desire to spend less time in front of screens. On the other, a resistance to just accepting what the device defaults to or what apps are popular. I remain aware of data privacy and still opt for options that don’t gobble up my data if I can. Thanks to Tildes, I discovered Kagi for example. I use a VPN. I don’t have Facebook. Back in the day I was dabbling in Linux and used a Linux laptop for several years in university. These days I kind of want to ditch Apple, but I don’t know if I got it in me to dive into Linux again. I still remember spending hours just to get a network driver to work.
I've come to be fairly similar actually. I was a big Android nerd from like 2015-2021 and would agonize and argue with others about specs and features. I was one of those weirdos that would genuinely call Apple users sheep. I installed custom ROMs, launchers, app icon packs, even used KWGT to build my own widgets. However, as I grew, those things mattered less and less. My phone became less a part of my identity and more of a tool. I've slowly gotten caught into Apple's vendor lock-in since 2021 with an iPhone, Macbook, Watch, Airpods, and for a while, an iPad too. I've even started using some of their services and apps like Safari, Maps, etc. I'm very much an odd-one-out here on Tildes as I don't use Kagi, don't use a VPN except for my torrents, I have Facebook and use their products, but I do try to be privacy-conscious from time to time. That being said, I am the ultimate big-tech corpo dream as I really value convenience over most things.
I do recommend trying Linux again over a weekend. I actually currently use Ubuntu on a Thinkpad and I've been enjoying using it. Linux has really come a long way on laptops. My previous Linux laptop experience was in 2019, also with Ubuntu, but on a Dell XPS with discrete graphics and that was a bit of a nightmare. Nvidia GPU drivers meant my battery life was reduced to just 4 hours and sleep was broken. As I was a university student at the time, these two things were the most important things to me so I went back to Windows and eventually switched to a Macbook.
Nine Inch Nails
This kills me, in my teenage years and early 20's I lived and breathed NIN. Every release, all the singles, bootlegs, videos, t-shirts, everything. I believe that between Pretty Hate Machine, Broken, The Downward Spiral, and The Fragile there is not a single weak track. The whole works is amazing.
And then [With_Teeth] came out. It's a pretty decent album, some quite good tracks. But also some not so great tracks, especially the With-A Teeth-A thing. Still went out of my way to go to both the Seattle and Vancouver shows that tour and it was still awesome, also saw them at Coachella around that time.
Then I heard 'Capital G' on the radio and it was downright terrible. I actually did not even listen to that album at all, what was it, Year Zero? And then I never listened to anything Trent put out ever again, except on recommendation Ghosts I-V, that is good stuff. I decided this last summer that I was going to be brave and go back and listen to all those albums I never listened to. Maybe I was wrong. Honestly I wish I never did it. This music is no longer for me.
Elon Musk. My respect for him had been eroding, but the thing that convinced me that he's genuinely evil were his actions with DOGE in cutting USAID funding for life-saving medicine going towards the poorest people in the world. Hundreds of thousands of people have and will die as a direct result of his actions. And the worst part is that it was all for nothing since it didn't even move the needle in slowing down the US debt or government spending, which was his claimed excuse.
The final nail in the coffin is that he doesn't even show the slightest bit of remorse! He could help fund a project to save millions of lives and his net worth wouldn't even budge. The richest man in the world is directly responsible for the deaths of a deciHitler's worth of people and it was all done for no good reason.
It's not just that I'm no longer a fan: I won't let a conversation where his name is mentioned go by without bringing this up.