/fur/ - Furry★

Honestly as much as you won't want to hear it, that era of the Internet is pretty much dead, murdered brutally through social media. The closest replacement we have IS Discord, but you'll never get something as organic and welcoming as the earlier times, simply because people are a lot more guarded on the Internet now, which tends to lead to the more well-formed cliques. (This also means moderation tends to be taken a lot more seriously/with bias, as a side effect).

If you want to get in with a group, you'll have to play the politics of displaying yourself as a contributing member of the community. Sad but tru.

>>77472 (OP)

There really isn't anything better that I know of. We've hit a point quite close to cultural homogeneity on the internet. In my experience you can join basically any discord and be up and running in minutes because it's just imageboard culture with cliques. It's the same memes, the same tendency for all discussions to devolve into shitposting. It basically turns every poster into the same person, which is presumably the safest way to be since as >>77476 says people are more guarded nowadays.

One reason I don't think people are as open, which would apply even if people hadn't been disillusioned by having their rosy vision of the internet shattered by /b/ crashing their Zelda forum, is that it's just not novel anymore. In the 90s, the idea I was actually having a conversation in near real time with someone all the way in Australia was itself a huge draw. Hell, being able to hold a conversation with a stranger the next town over would've been mindblowing. Now? There are 20 million Australians online. Why should I care? Odds are I could talk to a North Korean if I really wanted to, and even that wouldn't really be a novelty. Once the novelty's gone, why engage in the small-talk necessary to start a friendship?

I don't buy your theory that people are "more guarded", if anything both normies and "nerds" have became the opposite, with everyone using their real names on Facebook, posting pictures of them on parties, their house and when they're going for vacation as well as every weird interest they have all the time.

Remember how careful people used to be about revealing any IRL details online, even their location with no other info? You're considered the odd one for using a psuedonym and/or not showing your face nowadays, and there's a whole aspect of the Internet that's gotten lost because of it.

>>77488

Nobody can embarrass you with your name alone unless your surname is Gaylord. Admitting to genuinely enjoying something without irony, however, can make you vulnerable even on an imageboard.

Remember how people used to post their interests without 16 layers of post-meta-trans-modulated irony and an obligatory HE DABBIN?

Social media is cancer, but it's a cancer that's choked the life out of most of the old internet. As other anons have said, DIscord is your best bet. Just avoid servers that are too small if there's a whiff of active moderation. No way I'm posting my server list here, but there are a few that only moderate you if you do something that might get Discord staff involved. It's still shitty, but I've never heard of anything better.

>>77492

This.

However discord can be really cancerous...

>>77472 (OP)

IRC, been trying to use Matrix recently.

>>77639

this is literally everywhere furries congregate

Probably Steam is your best bet.

It has to turn around eventually, but it doesn't seem to be happening fast.

Imma be honest, your best bet is to get a server and host the service you want off of it. Better yet, own the hardware, even if it's shitty. The reason all the current services suck is that they're huge, and are designed for the masses. And they have rules that make the masses happy. If you're on /fur/, you aren't part of the masses, and no service for the masses, even if it gives you the illusion of freedom (Discord) will ever do what you want. Own up to it, and host your own. use IRC, write your own version of AIM, or find someone to do it for you. The old days were good because they weren't centralized through moralizing gatekeepers, and the best way to bring them back is to forge the future we want ourselves. On the internet, at least a few hundred people will gladly join in on whatever you do, if you have the will to do it.

I can't stand cub, but I've got a lot of respect for everyone involved with the start of IB, because even though their tastes are shit, they made their own haven instead of whining about how nobody was giving them what they wanted. I'm following suite in my own way, with something unrelated to /fur/. The more of us make old school weird-ass enclaves, the harder it is to shut us down and the less likely we are to drawn the normies down upon us, like a million yipping poodles.