It doesn't help that oldfags try to cling to an idealized version of "the good old days", despite the fact that no community will ever stay in those good old days forever without stagnating into irrelevancy, and eventually dying as the users get older and stop using the site due to real-world circumstances. The world isn't the same as it was back in 2013, it's inevitable that most communities would also be different from how they were back then, especially a community that continues to grow at an exponential rate.
The idea of immersing new users in the community and trying to get them to fit into the site's culture only works as long as old users outnumber the new users. Although this is the case on some parts of the site, there are other parts that are mostly newer users who differ vastly from the oldfags (like the majority far-right Thunderdome, or the majority-female Beauty Parlour). People that only use parts of the Farms are much less likely to adopt the site's posting culture due to being less immersed in it, and may even actively resist doing so if they think that the oldfags who uphold said posting culture are "out to get them".
It doesn't help that KF has a really broad scope in what it covers. As the Farms expanded from being almost entirely focused on Chris-chan to covering more and more varied lolcows, it was inevitable that those new lolcows would bring in new users who didn't really care about the older cows, but were really interested in the new lolcows - most users here only really signed up because there was a specific cow that interested them, or a specific section of the site that drew them in.
As these cows are from vastly different communities, the people they draw in will naturally be vastly different as well. The people joining the farms because of lolcows like Ethan Ralph are going to be completely different than those joining because of Dream or Kevin Gibes. Furry lolcows attract furries to sign up, fandom-related lolcows attract new users who are in those fandoms, lolcows from specific countries often interest people from those countries, that sorta thing. These various groups often come from all sorts of sites, and often bring some amount of their posting culture with them, ranging from treating KF as an extension of their original site and not changing how they post at all, to mostly adopting the Farm's culture but keeping some degree of their original site's culture.
Even in the most 'assimilated' users, those who've been posting here for years and years, you can often tell the difference between one who mostly used 4chan and one who mostly used Tumblr prior to joining KF.
For sure.
One thing that's a major driver here is the changing of the internet itself. Some of the most popular figures that were around years back have gone dormant by their own will, settled into a comfortable routine where there isn't that much to discuss anymore (dudes like DSP), or in many cases been forcibly removed from the internet.
Unfortunately a massive contribution to that issue is the rise of Twitter, so now instead of being forced to make videos and whatnot, dudes like Chris just tweet all day (when not in jail of course).
You get entire threads of almost all tweets like Jonah Bex, Zinnia Jones, Moviebob, etc. where once you learn the basics of their life there's not that much more to them. They're people who sit around talking big all day while doing absolutely nothing, just like 99% of Twitter users. Twitter is like crack for narcissists, once they get that first hit everything else in their life falls to the wayside.
Although one major beneficial factor I think is worth mentioning is specifically Josh's involvement. He's always sort of lurking in the background watching most of what goes on, which is nice I think; online there are too many people in charge of things they couldn't give a shit about. He's mentally grounded enough to be reasonable and competent for the most part, but still insane enough to be willing to run an internet forum. That's unusual.
Idk, in my opinion so long as someone doesn't mechanically shit things up, means well, and shows a little respect to the staff that keep things running (yes, they're all definitely weirdos in real life, but that's just how moderators are. You don't have to kiss their asses or act like everything they do is great, but don't go out of your way to screw with them either) it doesn't matter.
It's an internet forum, it's kind of absurd to make it into some big deal that requires years of research just to participate.
In defense of the Troon hate, the issue in society has grown and grown to the point that you're either for it or against it. The way it's being pressed into classrooms, legislation, etc. is all very real and gets reactions from every sort of user. It's a hot button topic and a rather important one, not like when it was just Tumblrinas putting pronouns in their bio.
I get the feeling this is something that depends on the area. Tbh where I'm at I think I've encountered one or two trannies in the last 4 years, it's 100% an internet thing, while there are a lot of people here who seem to have one or two people
they personally know who've trooned out.
