Christ, it's been really ten years, huh? I have no idea where the time goes. You see a Markiplier video advertising the SCARIEST GAME IN YEARS!!!, next thing you know, you're plunged deep into a community of friendly folks, incredible talents, screwy troublemakers, and all sorts of other wacky characters, all revolving around a funny bear. Feels like only yesterday I was sat on my laptop listening to Gravity Falls covers and working on my cool stickman fangame that was bound to set the fandom ablaze with how cool it was, or getting caught up in some kinda mod voting thingy in /r/fnafb, or watching the release date for FNAC 3 get set back further and further, or God forbid, getting caught up in a "hack attack".
I have a lot of nostalgia for the first two years of Five Nights at Freddy's. The excitement drummed up fron the wait for those original five games is unrivalled, I dunno if there'll ever be anything like it again. Nowadays, the mainline series has taken a drastically different direction, and though I'll always have a passing interest in what they're cooking, I don't really think it's for me anymore. You can take your Laps and Pits and Mimics or whatever, it's just not fully my thing. In spite of it all though, FNAF is still a very important franchise to me because of the people I've met. The subcommunities I've joined, the memories I've made, the art and games and memes I've produced. I still have fond memories of moderating the Freddit Discord, waiting for FNAC 2 to release, and joining these exciting new projects that, even if they weren't seen to completion, still introduced me to new people I would still be friends with to this day. I guess you could say the real Five Nights at Freddy's was the friends I made along the way.
There's been some ups, there's been some downs......like, a LOT of downs.........but I don't think I'd trade the friends I've made for the world. It ain't the prettiest one out there, but I love the FNAF community, and even if I'm not as active or involved in some of the larger areas today, I don't think it's something I'll ever fully leave. So here's to a good ten years of being entrenched in this bullshit. Isn't it just nuts.
0 comments