I stayed up to date on ai and machine learning, including language models. I remember hearing that one learned math from language and wondering where things will go. I watched ai safety videos before they felt relevant. Then I heard Openai, which had a good rep at the time, is releasing their new model online, called ChatGPT. Having played with DungeonAI and NovelAI before I was gonna fiddle with this as well.

Then headlines broke, it became a phenomenon. Even then I figured this would be this week's Thing before getting bored, as was common with these ai.

Down the line I remembered hearing ChatGPT on a gas station ad for some travel app. That was when I realized this is permanent. People who aren't even online are likely hearing about this. Suddenly my niche hobby and hopeful dreams of the future became an actual enshittified crisis.

I don't think I need to explain how everyone using language models now is just god awful for everyone. And the attention hasn't gotten us closer to answering long standing questions of ethics, economic change, what is intelligence or consciousness. We've just got a bunch of the lowest common denominator shouting their answers now.

Deadpool.

Goddamnit yes. It’s why I’m very pro-gatekeeping. Because people who are new to a hobby because it got popular tend to ruin every-fucking-thing.

For example: flight simulator. That used to be an exclusively nerd domain up until the FS2020 version, which was released on Xbox. The result: a massive influx of new garbage payware and a decline in quality of established brands. While also making the sim worse in order to chase broader appeal. It’s gotten a bit better after covid went away and the normies dropped the hobby, thankfully.

Also: film photography. The popularity of instagram and YouTube ‘influencers’ got a lot of people into our hobby the past decade. It’s lead to increased gear prices, film being more difficult to get and the forums flooding with the dumbest possible questions, since these newcomers are allergic as fuck to reading manuals or watching any tutorial longer than thirty seconds. It’s also lead camera manufacturers to chase this new demographic by making their cameras shittier and more ‘instagram-friendly’. Here’s looking at you, Fujifilm and your shitty X-half.

Take it from someone who’s been around a bit: if you like a thing, keep newcomers away from it. Gatekeep it like the Berlin Fucking Wall, lest they completely fuck up your hobby.

Steampunk aesthetic ( 1990's ), generative art ( early 2000s )

I have several things that interested me and became popular, but I didn't hate on the new fans. At most I sometimes missed the feeling of having this thing that was a bit obscure and in case of channels on youtube, the intimacy of interacting with the creator and other subscribers was nice. But I can't hate on something I like becoming popular.

As for concrete examples, I do remember subbing to this small gaming channel with 9000 subs called Markiplier back in the day.

I subbed to OKI Weird Stories when he had like 600ish subs.

I subbed to Creepcast before it had any videos on it, but that one is cheating since both meatcanyon and wendigoon were already very popular. Still, it's been a bit nuts seeing the podcast explode in popularity. I even know people irl who listen to it.

Currently I follow a small channel, also podcast format, called The Daydream Arcade that focuses on reading reddit stories, but the hosts are two friends, who bring some warmth and personality to the format which is nice. For me, I stick around becuase I really like their friendship and their personalities. I'm also a older than the both of them and feel a bit big-sister-protective of them. I want them to grow and I believe they will because they already have 4500 subs compared to the 900 they had when I found them, but also don't like the thought of them reaching a point of popularity where the mean assholes come crawling to tear them down.

did people even read the last 3 green lines?

My ex wife and I used to take a chess board everywhere, play in cafes, parks, restaurants, pubs. It was something to do when we had run out of stuff to say to each other. It was a conversation starter, people would come up and have a sticky, or ask us who's winning. Some people would occasionally ask if they can play. It was nice. Until Queens Gambit was all the rage. Then people seemed to assume we were just following that trend, and there was a noticeable increase in people saying "Queens Gambit eh?" And we stopped taking the board out so much.

What a tragic viewpoint to take. Imagine seeing something that you like becoming more popular and having all these new people to share it with from such a perspective. Depressing.

I was a nerdy teen in the 90/00s. There's plenty I could be gatekeeping but the thing is.. I'm not special. Nobody is. All this shit is meaningless. You don't own any of it. Sorry it just all comes off so territorial and greedy in a way. Grosses me out.

I was really into punk music when I was a kid since the late 80s/early 90s, then the big boom happened in the mid-late 90s, which eventually yielded to pop punk and emo music from the early 2000s. I kid you not, I was bullied as a kid for liking punk music, before it became mainstream.

I still listen to it and I've even seen a resurgence coming as it coinciding with the 20 year nostalgia cycle, which is great in my opinion. But being a punk fan before it achieved mainstream success and after it went into decline by 2010s made me feel exactly as this post describes.

Pogs are cool little disks

Then it became a children’s verb

I'm in the same boat with a few others here when it comes to some games like Halo and Fallout. But I feel like I'm on the brink with 2 new ones:

• Doom: I played the original when I was a kid and got bullied for it (or probably being a general nerd). 2016 and Eternal were really popular and the franchise took off; but Dark Ages feels off. I played Dark Ages for a bit, put it down, and haven't picked it up since. I think Doom is going down the shitter, especially what they did to Mick Gordon.
• Mother Mother (a band): My SO and I love their music for how unique and interesting it is; and we went to one of their first concerts at a small venue when they came into town ~10 years ago ish? Must have been <500 people. Generally no one else liked their music we shared it with, so we kept it to ourselves. Now? We went to another one a few months ago and it was at a HUGE stadium; absolutely packed. I think one of their songs went viral on TikTok - My Daddy's got a gun. We're proud of what they've accomplished, but really hope they don't lose their identity in trying to become even more popular.