The 2010s: The Land Before the 2020s

[rhombus]

It is hard to believe that we are now less than 24 hours away (in terms of forum time) from the end of the decade and the rise of the 2020s.  Though in many ways it is an arbitrary threshold, the passage of a decade allows us to take stock of the passage of time and how we, and the forum, has changed over the previous ten years.  Though I only joined in 2013 and cannot share first-hand knowledge of forum events before then, I can share some of my thoughts and observations since then.

One memory that I have from the previous seven years is when I first joined the forum.  I was quite hesitant to join a forum for some time due to the general lack of civility in many forums and my own lack of experience in joining established Internet communities.  However once I discovered the Gang of Five I began to sense that it was different.  I lurked for about six months and was quite impressed by the community and the maturity on display by many of the members.  I finally decided to take the plunge and to join the forum in August 2013.  Much to my relief the other members and the admins welcomed me warmly and encouraged me as I slowly got the hang of being an active member of an Internet community.  In particular, jansenov, Malte, Iris, Ducky123, and bushwacked made me feel right at home.

Since I have joined the forum I have witnessed both the loss of long-standing members and the joining of new faces into the community.  As such the forum has always been a dynamic place from my perspective, with new members bringing new vitality into the community with their arrival.  This has been most noticeable to me in how many members who have joined since 2010 have really jump started activity in the various prompt challenges, the character showcase, and the numerous games on the forum, even as some older projects have been discontinued.  It is this energy and motivation from the new members that continuously rejuvenates my own love of the series and this community, and I am sure it is a similar story for others on the forum as well.

Likewise, during this time, the Internet has shifted from one era to another, with many old-style forums falling by the wayside.  Thankfully this forum has persevered through this transitional period, though it was not an easy journey.  From one migration (from Invisionfreee to Zetaboards) and then another (to self-hosting) we have our membership to thank for keeping the forum alive and thriving.  I am immensely thankful for the tremendous help that zero-point and James Gryphon have provided during these migrations.  I am also deeply appreciative of every one of you who have contributed to providing the funds that keep the forum operational. Though much has changed over the years I am confident that with your continued help this forum will flourish for years to come! 

As for myself, the decade has also been one of change.  I began the decade as an adjunct professor who was freshly out of graduate school and worried for the future, and I leave the decade as a full-time professor with much better prospects.  Additionally, through the welcoming words and assistance of forum members, I have become part of a wonderful forum community. Through this community I have done things that I honestly could not have foreseen in 2010.  Namely my creative pursuits, fanfictions, and participation in roleplays would never have happened without the forum community encouraging me in these endeavors.  Due to these developments and the building of new friendships, the forum and the people in it will be firmly ingrained in my mind whenever I think of this past decade.

What about all of you?  What thoughts do you have concerning the decade that is about to pass and the one that is yet to come?  Feel free to share those in this topic. 

[Mumbling]

What a great idea for a topic! The past decade was quite tumultuous for the Gang of Five and I am happy to have been there for most of it. 2010 was the year in which I was promoted to admin, during a time that the forum was very active. 2007-2009 had been the busiest years ever for the Gang of Five, and the early 2010s was the start of what I would call the decline of internet forums in general. Instant messaging became easier, social media was slowly on the rise, who still needed discussion boards? This can also be noticed for the Gang of Five, especially in the middle of the decade during which very few people joined and even less stuck around. I became inactive myself for a bit from 2015-2018, during which I only checked in occasionally. I'm very glad to see, however, that the forum which has shaped and helped me so much has gotten an uprising in the past few years. Let's hope that trend continues into the 20s!

During the past decade, there have been many members who have come and gone. There are a few that I would label a friend for life, even if some of them are no longer active on the forum. There are also a few members that were at some point my bestest friends, that have left a big impression on me, but decided to move on without me in their life. I am very thankful for both of these groups as they have given me so much in life, and I have learned a lot from my interactions with them. And then of course we have the enormous group of members who I still communicate with from time to time, both old and new members who continue to have very interesting talks with me on Discord, Facebook, Deviantart, and other places. Thanks for being around 

A lot has changed for me personally during the past decade. I was 16 at the start of 2010, ready to finish high school and move on with my life. I had big plans that didn't turn out the way I intended. I ended up finishing high school in 2012, then graduating from university in 2016. I've been working full-time since, initially as a translator, from which I gained a lot of experience, and now as the lead editor for my company. I went from a young girl with too many dreams and no patience to a young woman with many fulfilled  dreams and still no patience  I still have many dreams for the near future, and am still ever so impatient to move on with my life and get to the next stage. In the next decade I am hoping to buy a house and maybe raise children of my own. But let's be fair, who knows what will happen? I guess we can discuss that when 2029 comes to an end 

[rhombus]

And bumped since it is now out of the admin area. 

[Nick22]

the last decade foe me, has  seen a lot of changes. I entered it at 26, just a few years removed from college and leave it as a 36 year old who's picked up  quite a bit of work experience over the  years.  I was hired to work at a local radio station in May 2010, this May will mark 10 years at the station. i also teach tennis and during the  winters do the scorekeeping for  my local Catholic grade school basketball teams. This year, that has been extended to the high school basketball teams both boys and girls.

 In regards to the forum, it is nothing short of remarkable that we are entering our third decade of existence. To put it in perspective,  this forum predates both Playstation 3 and 4, and Playstation 5 is coming out this year.  With the retirements of  Petrie and Malte, I became the longest tenured admin on the forum, I'm literally the last of the old guard. this year will mark 15 years as a administrator here for me .
While I'm not nearly as active in posting as I once was( a few hundred a year vs several thousand a year in the early years) I'm still posting pretty regularly, the vast majority in the roleplaying section.

 I have made a good numbers of friends here- Iris, Rhombus, brekclub, Serris, Lettucebacon&Tomato, Belmont2600, Starfall- and there are others who are no longer here ( Kor, Drake) that I wish would return someday. Theres always hope I suppose

 To everyone at the GOF, thank you for keeping this community alive for so many years. We are a rare breed, especially in these days of social media where forums like ours are old hat or which have faded away entirely. I'm hoping to be here when the 2030s start, and have 10 more years of memories at this wonderful place under my belt.

[OwlsCantRead]

I kept putting this off and off for the longest time... poor admins, the thread was left in the dust.

I can't say I speak for everyone about how the GoF was last decade as I only really joined at the tail-end of the decade, right on the cusp of a renaissance and revival of fresh blood on the new site. Yep, I've never saw this place when it was hosted on the former Invi/Zetaboards forum, but I can sorta guess the layout of free-to-host forum sites, so in a sense I really have no right to say that I know how it was.

So I guess that I'll talk about the past ten years as a whole. I came in 2010 as a fresh student in secondary/middle school, and I'm coming out of 2019 as a first-year student pursuing a Bachelor's in Information System... coding and computers was my former passion, .not necessarily my dream job, but I'll see where this takes me in a few years or so. I was a study-oriented person, so I only really had reliable broadband access to the internet at the start of last decade, and I started to really interact with internet folks in 2013. I was quite self-centred as a result, and many of my mistakes and regrets lie locked behind a different username.

I'd discovered Land Before Time in 2014, but only really joined in 2018 and given the change in my mental state in those four years, that's probably for the better. Somehow in the timespan from when I joined the GoF has become a reliable centrepiece and fixture of my life, something which allows me to look forward to the day ahead. I've made quite a number of close friends on GoF once I poked out of my very thick hide, and I hope the next decade continues those bonds of friendship!

[StardustSoldier]

I graduated from high school in 2007 and then spent the next couple of years working around at various odd jobs, before I decided to return to school, so much of my 2010s was dedicated to my post-secondary. I spent a good seven years at college. I took General Studies in my first year, as I didn’t really know what area specifically I wanted to focus on. After that, it was my father’s idea for me to enter into Multimedia Production, which took up my focus from my second year and onward. Multimedia Production was only a two-year program in itself, but due to the high work load, my dad and I felt it would be best to extend it to three years for me, reducing a bit of the course load per semester. Then I picked up another part-time job in the meantime, so I decided to extend it further to four years.

It was in my fourth year of Multimedia Production (and fifth year of college overall) that I ended up failing one of my courses. So thus, I ended up doing one more year and had to re-do that course; thankfully that time I did pass it, and I finished off the rest of the program and got my diploma! After that, I went back to college for one final year, taking General Studies again. At that point it was largely just for the fun of it. I did consider doing more courses after that, but by that point I was burnt out on college and wanted to turn my attention to other things.

I used to post on forums quite a lot from 2007 to 2009, but I had numerous unpleasant experiences there, so it was a pastime I eventually drifted away from. Similar to Owls, I have a long list of mistakes and regrets which are buried behind old usernames. Thus, I didn’t really have a big online presence throughout much of the 2010s, as I was disillusioned from all my bad experiences. I have been a regular visitor to TV Tropes since 2011, which has a set of forums of its own, but even there it was mostly the wiki and editing side of the website where I was active. It wasn’t until this forum itself when I began to re-discover the fun of online communities.

My one-year anniversary with the Gang of Five is coming up before too long here (on March 29th), so I’ll save the rest of my thoughts for when I do my anniversary post. But I can say without a doubt that this is the best online community I’ve ever been involved in. I’m so happy I found this place, and I hope to be a regular here for a long time still to come.

[Petrie]

My post will be pretty short, but I know my interest in LBT had been waning for a while and it certainly pretty much disappeared save for the amazing qualities of the first film.  So in the 2010s, I can't say LBT had any real impact on me as I was working full time, trying to keep my head in the game, and exploring other things more deeply than I had previously (namely the furry fandom, which I had been quasi in since 2003).  The original LBT will always have a spot in my heart. 

[StardustSoldier]

My one-year anniversary with the Gang of Five is coming up before too long here (on March 29th), so I’ll save the rest of my thoughts for when I do my anniversary post.

Ah, I never did get around to doing up my anniversary post. Oh well, I may still do a belated anniversary post sometime.

[Silver the Pterosaur]

I'm very late, but.....


Ahh, the 2010s was quite an adventure. I wonder what the 2020s will hol............
*2020, Coronavirus/George Floyd international protests*
 

(Just so you know, I am for the protests to end systemic racism, but so much violence was involved.)

[Compsognathus]

The start of 2010s was very bad for me, I suffered a lot in years 2010-2012 with my mental illness. After that it slowly became better, I finished High school in 2014, and even though I did not succeed at studying university, my life started to get more normal in 2014. I had a lot, lot of good time by playing chess whole decade. I also started running regularly in 2016. In 2018 I started to work part-time as a security guard, after that a post office worker, and then I returned to the same place as security guard in 2019, where I am until now.
Since 2015 I started to watch again LBT, and since 2016 I started to make more effort to learn languages.