Hi
@Null ,
IDK if you're gonna read this, IDK if it'll ever be useful to you, but I figure I'd respond to your essay with a few thoughts of my own. Don't worry about us. Frankly, a poster above has it right, you owe us, collectively, nothing. But since you gave me some inspiration I do feel I owe you at least this post.
You won't recognize me; this is my sixth username rotation on this site - never post for long enough under one name for people to remember who you are - but I'm fairly sure we've crossed paths at some time before. We used to run in similar circles after all. I'm about a year older than you, and every time you post something personal I can't help but think "there, but for the grace of God, go I."
A little history - Back before the days of even 4chan, the fanfiction lesbians used to host their own little proto-kiwifarms called Fandom_Wank. Mostly for mocking fandom-related autists, though there were various other offshoots. It got run off of various services and eventually ended up hosting its own version of Livejournal to prevent getting run off of another service. It slowly grew, eventually got too big because of an influx of people, then slowly wilted away as the internet nerd community shifted from the free-sprited hivemind to the consumer collective. I migrated to big imageboards, then to smaller imageboards, to IRC channels, and eventually burned out of most communities, realizing that the more a community grows, the invariably shittier it gets.
My final break with the internet as a platform came after hosting a small imageboard based around my interests for a few years, which over the course of three months was repeatedly flooded with Child Pornography and gore. I still don't understand the why - the lulz I guess. I fought to keep the site up, went through a few hosts, and eventually had to shut down.
After that, I disappeared offline, scrubbed what I could off the internet and focused on life wholesale. I managed to fall ass-backwards into a relationship that has left me happily married for the better part of 7 years now with kids on the horizon. I got the life that you crave - the caring wife, the nuclear family. The perks of not coming from an american or european culture I suppose.
A few years back, good relationships be dammed, I had a want, a need to relive my old glory days of various small communities, so I spent a good time looking at old haunts. But they were dead, or dying. The last true of the true multi-topic imageboards - Wakachan had given up the ghost, 4chan was a pale shadow of its former self, and don't get me started on 7, 8 or 420chan, and SomethingAwful was rapidly descending into ideological madness.
I found Kiwifarms, and for the past several years have either lurked or posted. This really was the last echo of those late 90s early 00s internet places, and I applaud you for keeping it running as long as you have. You've been a stronger man than I, you managed to keep this going - whereas I turned tail and ran. There comes a point in everybody's life that they need to make a choice. You're a single dude trying to juggle thirty thousand chainsaws. Whatever choice you make - do what you think will be best for you. I just want you to know that you've given at least one asshole on the internet some inspiration to speak up again in context of freedom of speech and expression. I hope the lovequest works out, and you'll find yourself a nice grill and settle down and raise some kids - if that's what is important to you.
If you shut down the farms, it won't be tomorrow, it won't be next year, but somebody, somewhere, maybe it'll even be me, will take up the mantle to actually give a shit about freedom of speech online, and carry the torch for some time until that community grows too big and topples under the weight of new influx. The endless cycle will repeat, as humanity is never able to stop punching itself in the dick, but hey, that's what makes us human.
Hey, we're gonna carry that weight.
