I haven't been involved in fandom since I was in college, so I am not really the target audience for this.
But what's interesting is that as I was reading it, it reminded me of a Facebook group for Canadian Expats living in the US that I joined years ago. I thought - gee, this will be awesome, it will be a bunch of people from home, who are all on a similar journey to me - having left our country of birth and moved to the US, where the language may be the same, and the culture is similar (especially given our exposure to US tv growing up) - but it's not the *same* and those differences can be jarring occasionally!
And within a few weeks, I realized that 90% of the posts were about all the things people missed about Canada. At first, it was kind of fun, to reminisce about foods that I don't have (easy) access to any more, or restaurants or shops that I don't shop in. But over time I realized that it was not a healthy group - the tone was not "huh remember that?" but it was overwhelmingly "That was BETTER and my life here in the US can Never Be As Good"
So many people were using this group to complain about how awful their lives were in the US, how they were just counting the days until they could figure out how to move home. How they made no friends in the US and were just focused on "the good old days" when they lived in Canada.
I think I lasted a couple of months and had to leave the group - it was just so negative and all I wanted to say to these people was 'you are wasting your lives - either move home and be happy, or figure out how to be happy where you are!'
Anyway - this is obviously not that, but it did make me think about that group, which I have not thought about in ages! I hope those people figured out how to focus on the present and the future and let the past go, a bit!
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But what's interesting is that as I was reading it, it reminded me of a Facebook group for Canadian Expats living in the US that I joined years ago. I thought - gee, this will be awesome, it will be a bunch of people from home, who are all on a similar journey to me - having left our country of birth and moved to the US, where the language may be the same, and the culture is similar (especially given our exposure to US tv growing up) - but it's not the *same* and those differences can be jarring occasionally!
And within a few weeks, I realized that 90% of the posts were about all the things people missed about Canada. At first, it was kind of fun, to reminisce about foods that I don't have (easy) access to any more, or restaurants or shops that I don't shop in. But over time I realized that it was not a healthy group - the tone was not "huh remember that?" but it was overwhelmingly "That was BETTER and my life here in the US can Never Be As Good"
So many people were using this group to complain about how awful their lives were in the US, how they were just counting the days until they could figure out how to move home. How they made no friends in the US and were just focused on "the good old days" when they lived in Canada.
I think I lasted a couple of months and had to leave the group - it was just so negative and all I wanted to say to these people was 'you are wasting your lives - either move home and be happy, or figure out how to be happy where you are!'
Anyway - this is obviously not that, but it did make me think about that group, which I have not thought about in ages! I hope those people figured out how to focus on the present and the future and let the past go, a bit!