I logged back into my online forum space for the first time in 10 years.

I’m beginning to wonder if my hobbies will ever change at any point in my life, or will I be subjected to account recovery emails for eternity as I try to access sites I’ve not logged into since 2015.

A few days ago I woke up to a email from myanimelist saying they weren’t able to recover my old account, as the email address attached to it is no longer in use and as I had changed my username across other platforms I currently use, they could no longer verify I was the same person. I considered this to be an irrational set of terms for dismissal considering my age and veteran status as a anime fan. They for some reason, expect me to still have an email address called ilikesugarcookiies@/hotmail.co.uk to give myself access to my old myanimelist account called axyamiishiilovesanimex. Of course I’m livid, because I specifically selected “MAL support” instead of “Account Recovery” in the hopes that I wouldn’t be sorted into a pile of rejections by their AI algorithm, and instead have my pleas read by a real customer support person.

To no avail, clearly.

The issue with a lot of sites like myanimelist is that they never anticipated a time where the kids using their platforms would log off for the last time in 2014 and not return until they’re in their late twenties, trying to fill the void that yearns for digital social spaces that social media drove away. 2 factor authentication be damned, these sites are built for their time. If you don’t have access to your email address, it’s over.

Luckily for me, my desire to regain access to my accounts is stronger than their AI sorter, and after a lot of begging, I was able to at least regain access to my alt account. A fair compromise, considering the 7 years that have passed since my last log in.

As we enter the 30 something consecutive day of rain in the UK, with friends wanting to stay indoors to avoid the bitter weather or risk spending £87 on a single day out, I’ve been feeling that void grow exponentially. I finish work, visit the gym, then come home to indulge in my hobbies. My phone doesn’t buzz once, I’m bored. I wonder if life has always been like this, if I’ve always had no friends due to my tendency to be a fucking weeb, when reality hits. It’s always been like this, but back then, I would enjoy my hobbies with other people through online forum spaces.

There was something about the landscape of the internet around 2008-2012 that spoke to my generation of elder gen-z’s. There were seemingly endless little pockets of the internet created for people with the same passions as me. It’s not a stretch to say that era of the internet made me who I am today. If I hadn’t searched on youtube for that one Kingdom Hearts OP, I may not have discovered Utada Hikaru, leading me to JPOP, then KPOP, and eventually to forums like Soshified, Hello!Online and Stage48, specifically designed for talking to idol fans. I wouldn’t have found myanimelist to document the 100’s of anime shows I’ve watched (wow), and I wouldn’t have discovered fanfiction.net to stay in those worlds a little longer.

To the elders of those sites who raised me and kept me safe from weirdo’s, thank you. x

These spaces are so far removed from our current reality, so set in a time that is filled with nostalgia for me, that I feel slightly tight-chested whenever I use them. There is also a feeling of embarrassment. Surely I’m too old to be indulging in these weeb hobbies, surely I’m too young to not be using social media the right way. That’s what everyone used to say. But now they’re telling me to get of social media and have a curated, intentional online space. Now they’re posting all their weird card collections and figures and gaming set ups even though we’re 25+ and shouldn’t be doing that. I try to use social media the right way, but the joy I get while using forums is something my life has been missing, clearly, as I yearn for the days where I would come home from school and immediately jump online to catch up with my online friends.

Don’t get me wrong, back then I had many school friends, and now as an adult a different friendship groups stemming from various parts of my life. It took a while to realise that this feeling of loneliness is extremely common, and my way of dealing with it was through forums. It was a comfort to me to have somewhere I could go. In a way, these online forums became my third space.

Back then, the forums were your community and you built lifelong friendships through them. Branching out into your own clubs on the forum was common, but you all had a shared passion that was grounded by the site you were on. Now, a platform like substack is created, and you must build your own community with enough social standing to have success, or join someone else’s in the hopes you make some friends. It’s still nice, but when everyone is talking about commonplace journaling and then suddenly we’re talking about heated rivalry, then junk writing, and wuthering heights, and also how to be non performative, and men, it just becomes a little bit harder to find a common ground with someone and truly connect with them.

I struggle to find a space on substack, but I think it’s because the idea of season for people like me is too exhausting of a task. I wonder why they can’t just appear, read my articles and comment on my notes, and chat as if we’ve been friends since nursery. I struggle on social media too, having separate accounts for my “weeb” hobbies and another for my personal account. In reality you could say my personal account is my ‘public facing’ one, and my weeb account is my personal, but that’s another article.

This weekend, I spend my time indoors relearning how to BCCode for my old Myanimelist club, Rewrote a cringe fanfiction I wrote when I was 13, and reconnected with some old friends on Hello!Online. In all honesty, my hobbies and passions never changed. I still adore Kingdom hearts, I still use those online forums, and I still keep in contact with most of my friends I made there. I wonder whether I will be subjected to account recovery emails for eternity as I try to access sites I’ve not logged into in years, but if it means I get to revisit the online spaces created for me on the internet, I’ll gladly put up with the inconvenience for another decade.

13/02/26 - a week later, myanimelist support team reached out and allowed me to have my old account back! I’m very grateful to them for being so understanding. It’s small things like that which make me want to support older online spaces so much x

If you’re into anime and manga and would like to talk about it more, feel free to join my chill anime club or message me on my MAL profile ^^;

Thanks for reading, if you enjoyed this article, check out some of my other ones :)

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