Published on 12, July, 2020
People frequently resurrect old threads which began with someone who is no longer on the forum asking for help or saying how unhappy they are with their life. These are often years old.
I wonder how these people are. Did they get the help they needed from the forum and move on to better things. Did they give up. Are they alright. I hope so.
As someone who spent a lot of time online and on forums/online games over the years I always keep thinking back to various usernames and where they are now. I like to think their lack of online presence is a good thing and that they're just busy and moved on to living happy lives. As popular as the Internet and social media is today it's still a minority who are actually routinely active so it's not like being inactive is a bad thing... However, knowing the amount of people I've interacted with that have had their own difficulties and life problems I do get that sinking feeling that many of them could no longer be with us.
What makes me somewhat sad over them is knowing how when I reach lows (and almost attempted suicide) I withdraw a lot from even my online communities. Although many of these people may still have online presence, just elsewhere. For example I made a friend who was decently active on Twitter and then seemingly nothing but really he mostly moved to a more personal one less connected to the username and hobby we had met through. He seems to be doing well, so I like to think anyone else I lost touch with went on a positive journey like he did.