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                   Post-Waifuism: Not A Manifesto

i. Why Waifuism Sucks, or: An End, A Beginning.

It's not news to anybody that the waifu community (that is,
waifu*ism*) has failed. I'm not sure what the cutoff point or the last
straw was -- maybe the KF thread -- but the rot has been there since
the start of the whole endeavour. The longer-running waifu communities
have no or very few older members left, and new communities pop up all
the time (because of the ease of creating one on reddit or discord)
only to be gone the next day, like comets streaking off into the
distance, never to be seen again.

I tried to save it, as some misguided link to the good old days --
first as a moderator on 2dl (the 'better' waifu community), then as a
manager of my own community, then as a philosopher from afar. I
started and aborted two projects (the Pygmalinomicon and the Final
Waifuism Explainer) in trying to save what was left of the old ideals.
I've now "learned" what I probably knew all along: the whole thing is
fucked, and no matter how good an essayist I became, I wasn't saving
it.

What the fuck happened, then? Why am I now so pessimistic, that I
think it never could've worked? It all comes down to the one
fundamental axiom:

You can know no one's sincerity but your own.

Once you take that as a given, the dominoes fall, and you suddenly
know exactly why it keeps happening.

Dickheads policing who is and isn't a casual? Because they can only
know their own sincerity for sure.

Trolls infiltrating the communities? Because we can't tell whether or
not they're sincere.

People you thought were cool turning out to be braindead coomers? Now
you know why.

I first articulated this thought in "The Last Waifuist", but that's
less an essay and more a ramble; here it is in black and white. The
only person you can ever know is or isn't serious is yourself.

What, then, do we do with this information?

The first step is to leave jumping-on points for those that come after
us. People will still be falling in love with fictional characters
long after Reddit, 4chan, and Discord go out of business. Text is the
universal interface, so I'll put some words to that effect in this
document.

The second step is to abandon the communities. Some will stay,
especially the younger waifuists. Some have already left, especially
the older waifuists. I think it is best that everybody leave, however.
Put a disclaimer up, linking to this document perhaps, and log off. Go
outside (at least once this fucking virus goes away) and make friends
there; or at least put your best friends into a little friend server.

The third and final step is to let this failed experiment fade back
into the dust; another old internet curiousity, perhaps only to be
unearthed sometime in the future by a washed-up YouTuber as a curious
relic of a forgotten age.

    I met a traveller from an antique land,
    Who said--"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
    Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
    Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
    And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
    Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
    Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
    The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
    And on the pedestal, these words appear:
    My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
    Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
    Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
    Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
    The lone and level sands stretch far away."

        -  "Ozymandias", By Percy Bysshe Shelley

                                              - chameleon, 2021-09-09