I've had this forum for almost 21 years now, so as you can imagine, I've seen 1000s of active users come and go. And while I don't always show it, many of them have meant a lot to me, and a lot of them were friends. So with that said, I've lost a lot of online friends on this forum.

I often go through phases where I get a strong sense of sadness when I reflect on what Vizzed use to be, and the community that use to exist here. Forums are weird because the memories are freely available, since the posts still exist. Sure, the site doesn't look exactly the same as it use to, but then there's the internet archive that replicates the old experience perfectly. It unfortunately doesn't capture the old chat rooms, the adventures on the Minecraft server, the chats had while I use to stream, or the various Skype and Discord calls and conversations.

My perspective is probably a little different than everyone else, mainly because in my mind, I went from being a somebody to being a nobody. And also because I have been viewed as the authority figure on here, and having to make the right decision in situations filled with drama has always been difficult, almost to the point where it'd mess me up mentally, knowing that I have created enemies unintentionally (which I believe were mostly out of miscommunication or a lack of understanding what my intent was). And I'm not saying I'm innocent in those types of situations, but sometimes choices had to be made that would please the majority but would upset the minority, and there would be no way around it, resulting into people hating me no matter what.

Anyways, enough with the rant. A while ago I had created a Music Video, as a tribute to online friendships, which tells a fictional but very relatable story. I wrote the lyrics and story, directed it, however keep in mind that I did not compose it and I did use AI video generation to put together the video itself (which isn't as easy as what people think, especially for a consistent narrative). I did put a lot of heart and time into the music video (15 hours maybe?) so hopefully you guys enjoy it and can relate, and if you do, it'd mean a lot to me if you liked the video and even commented on it.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jek0ksKFJQo

While I am vehemently opposed to using generative AI for pretty much anything, I can definitely appreciate and relate to the sentiments that you expressed in your post and in the lyrics.

I share many of the same feelings not just about Vizzed and other online communities, but also about real-world communities and relationships that no longer exist in the same way. For example, all of my friends from high school now live in different states. We rarely see each other anymore, and the group chat that we have gets fewer and fewer messages sent in it every year.

The summer camps that I've worked at are another example: I built genuine connections and relationships with the kids that I worked with, but once you stop working there, you're expected to just forget them and never see them again. Same thing applies to the day care that I worked at; even though those kids were only 2-3 years old, I spent 8 hours per day with them, 5 days a week, for 10 months. I spent almost as much time raising those kids and their parents did, but now that I no longer work there, I can't see them anymore.

I can think of many more examples too, but I think I've made my point. As we go through different stages of our life, we go in and our of various circles, and the people around us do the same. It sucks, and I also feel sad pretty often when I think about the people that are no longer in my life. But, at the same time, I am thankful for the new people that are currently in my life that weren't in the past.

The passing of time affecting our relationships is no easy thing. Even today I reminisce about my best friend in early school, even today I dream about reuniting with my old group of friends I haven't talked since before covid. At times our brain wants to go back to the times where we had things "under control", or when we didn't have to face as many hardships or had better tools for fighting hardships.

I can totally relate to the feeling of being hated by people for taking the decision you had to take. It's not our fault they have their own issues which they blame us for aggravating, and you have to know when you're in the minority side and acknowledge why things didn't go your way. Sadly, an awful ton of people prefer to just throw s*** onto others than accept their own s***, I'm seeing that day after day both in my family and my girlfriend's and it drives us mad to the point of near exploding, but instead of paying it with somebody else we fight back against those using us as punching bags.

It takes a lot of energy and effort to keep pushing against your own brain's wishes. And sometimes its hard to find the motivation and drive to continue doing what you're doing, even when everything seems perfectly fine. But we somehow end up finding the energy to keep moving, even if most of the times we can't properly put into words what is driving us.

Sometimes we're grateful some people are gone, but others are sorely missed and not even the new people that enters our life will be able to fill that void. Suck, quite a lot, but we have to accept this is how things are, wave goodbye to the old times and welcome the new ones, close the doors that need to be closed and keep those prone to be opened again unlocked.

This video, beyond everything it tells, is that hard goodbye not many people are willing to undergo. The acceptance that some people may no longer be with you but they will have a place in your heart forever, even if they will never know it. A story that many of us should write ourselves and acknowledge what time gifts us with and what will it take away from us.

I also want to point out that I worked on it over the course of a few months, only adding to it when I felt really inspired or felt especially emotional or nostalgic to the early days of Vizzed, which ensured pure emotion went into this.

And the reason I did it from a female perspective is that females are more likely to express emotions, while men are less likely. And seeing a female going through emotions just hits a little harder for me than seeing a man go through emotion, though they both hit almost equally as hard.


tgags123 : I understand the hate for AI, and a while back I went through depression knowing that AI was going to replace all of my creative talent someday. But now I'm trying to embrace it and use it to bring creative ideas to life. The way I view it now is that I'm a director and a writer and have all these talented people working for me. There's a lot of "AI slop" out there where people put something together with very little effort, but a lot of time can be put into projects that involve AI because AI itself still needs a human to direct it (for now anyway).

It's a good point that this can be relatable beyond just online friendships. That must've been hard to lose those connections. I have a real hard time with change, and things like what you mention hit me pretty hard too.

It sounds like you're a deep caring person like myself, because I can relate to a lot of that. For example, the job I work at, it has fired half of its employees over the past year. Even though I didn't interact with them much, it's still a hard knowing that the people you spent every day with you'll probably suddenly never seen again.

With kids that old, once you're out of there life too long, they forget you because kids that age unfortunately rarely create permanent memories. Once you have kids of your own, you kinda go through something similar. Even though my kids still live with me, I look back at who they use to be and how they're really not the same people that they were when they were toddlers. My daughter is 15 now and my son 13, so they've changed a lot. And it'll be more difficult when they finally move out.

I'm glad you could end your post with optimism


EX Palen : Not being with that group of friends anymore, have you ever thought about reaching out to them or letting them know how much their friendship meant. I've always wanted to reach out to people in my life and thank them for the positive influence they had on me, but In ever know if it's considered weird or not, or if I'd just be portraying myself differently than how people assumed I was (deep down I'm an empath that thinks about everything and sometimes over analyzes).

Your 2nd paragraph is well said. I always take the approach of the middle ground in almost every situation, seeing both sides of every situation. My family is riddled with family (my family and siblings) and I'm often the mediator and sadly I often have to be the parent of my parents (which has been the cause since I as in high school). If everyone could see what others are going through behind the scenes, I think everyone would have a little more compassion with each other. Not saying there aren't truly toxic people out there because there definitely are truly evil people, but I think a lot of people are either misunderstood or never given the chance to have their side of a story shown.

Being ambitious and staying interested in something gets harder with age for me, and it doesn't help that my ADHD seems to get worst with age. Not sure if that's the case for you or not.

Saying goodbye to old things and welcoming new things definitely gets harder with age though, because it's a reminder of your own pending death, even if that's far away, you slowly become more and more aware of how little time you have left.

Honestly, you should be a poet or a song writer, a lot of good perspectives in your post.

That was great. I also feel like I can relate to this a lot:

"My perspective is probably a little different than everyone else, mainly because in my mind, I went from being a somebody to being a nobody. And also because I have been viewed as the authority figure on here, and having to make the right decision in situations filled with drama has always been difficult, almost to the point where it'd mess me up mentally, knowing that I have created enemies unintentionally (which I believe were mostly out of miscommunication or a lack of understanding what my intent was). And I'm not saying I'm innocent in those types of situations, but sometimes choices had to be made that would please the majority but would upset the minority, and there would be no way around it, resulting into people hating me no matter what."

Not to the same degree that you likely did since I didn't view the site with the same kind of ownership that you would have. Still, I felt like this was a 2nd home to me for a very long time. Especially when I didn't feel a strong connection to anyone or anything else. I could come here and hang out and it was fun.

I also miss what this site used to be.... I wish we could go back to the early 2010's version of the site. That was great.