Post by K-Box on Jan 11, 2012 2:15:40 GMT -8
It's with a heavy heart that I'm announcing the official closure of the K-Box community within the week.
Truth be told, the writing was on the wall on this score for a while now, and it was simply a final straw event at the end of last year that made me realize we wouldn't be bouncing back.
The K-Box comm started eight years ago with a highly specific (overly so, in the opinions of many) mission statement, which evolved and expanded over time to cover basically any topic that me or any of you wanted to talk about, from our real lives and the real world, to fandoms for high art and pop culture alike ... plus, of course, the original subject, the one that our online fellowship was founded to discuss: The sex lives of comic book and cartoon characters.
It didn't take long for us to broaden the parameters of our sex talking to include conversations about the sexual activities and proclivities of fictional characters in general, based on both canonical documentation and our own informed and creative speculation, as well as confessions of our own intimate practices and preferences ... but, yeah, that was essentially the genesis of Radio Free KBOX Online.
Steff Osborne graciously agreed to host our Algonquin Round Table of assholes for the first four years of our existence, for which she still deserves more thanks and apologies than she ever got (from me more than anyone else), before we finally had to switch servers to ProBoards, where we've spent the second half of our online life as a community, but there are so many people who have made this such a wonderful and memorable place over the years that I hesitate to try and name them all, for fear that I'll leave anyone out.
When we were at our peak, the discussions on this comm seemed to work in reverse of entropy. Rather than having intelligent conversations that were derailed by crudity, most of our threads opened with the deliberately explicit, and yet, somehow wound up becoming thoughtful debates on politics, philosophy and the like regardless. It was like watching a dinner party break out in the middle of an orgy. And far from being the exceptions to the rule, these ... perversions of perversion itself were standard operating procedure for us.
There are a few reasons why that wave finally broke and rolled back.
As my real-life responsibilities have grown over the years, I've had ever less time to spare on all the things I should have done as a community maintainer, if I'd been serious about keeping this comm not only surviving, but thriving. You all deserved better from me, and for that, I'm sorry.
Moreover, as the media of our fandoms have grown ever more sexually explicit, I can't help but suspect that we eventually lost the competition with our own source material, in much the same way that the satire of The Onion no longer seems capable of keeping pace with the ever-escalating absurdity of the very reality that it's now struggling to parody, because if there's one thing that'll kill subtextual readings of stories stone dead, it's a generational movement of authors who go out of their way to make everything overtly ... well, text.
On the brighter side, since almost all of the folks who posted on this comm have since branched out onto LiveJournal and Facebook, and have reconnected with me and each other to carry on our correspondence through those social media platforms (and I'd encourage those who haven't to contact me), I'd argue that almost all of the same conversations that we would have had here have remained ongoing, but have simply shifted venues. As a wise man once said, the Empire never ended.
In the end, though, it was the loss of Jens that dealt this community its worst blow. He had long since become one of our most vital remaining regular contributors, and his passing has proven him to be literally irreplaceable. Michael Paciocco was able to face up to this fact well before I could, but as the New Year began, I found myself agreeing with his assessment that the lingering ghost of Jens' presence, through those last comments of his that we can never answer and have him hear, made this former online home of ours feel more like a tomb.
I'm leaving these boards open for posting through the end of the weekend, for those who would like to wrap up whatever loose ends they might feel are left and to say their final goodbyes to the place. After that, I'm soliciting your input as to whether this forum should stay up, but be closed to new posting, or if it should simply be deleted outright.
It's sad to close the book on a community that introduced me to so many people whom I now count among my closest friends online, but as much as I hate, more than anyone else, to admit when things should be allowed to run their course ... it's time.
But you know what? Fuck it. For eight years, we had porn and fun, and apologized to no one.
... And with that, I honestly don't know what else to say.
Truth be told, the writing was on the wall on this score for a while now, and it was simply a final straw event at the end of last year that made me realize we wouldn't be bouncing back.
The K-Box comm started eight years ago with a highly specific (overly so, in the opinions of many) mission statement, which evolved and expanded over time to cover basically any topic that me or any of you wanted to talk about, from our real lives and the real world, to fandoms for high art and pop culture alike ... plus, of course, the original subject, the one that our online fellowship was founded to discuss: The sex lives of comic book and cartoon characters.
It didn't take long for us to broaden the parameters of our sex talking to include conversations about the sexual activities and proclivities of fictional characters in general, based on both canonical documentation and our own informed and creative speculation, as well as confessions of our own intimate practices and preferences ... but, yeah, that was essentially the genesis of Radio Free KBOX Online.
Steff Osborne graciously agreed to host our Algonquin Round Table of assholes for the first four years of our existence, for which she still deserves more thanks and apologies than she ever got (from me more than anyone else), before we finally had to switch servers to ProBoards, where we've spent the second half of our online life as a community, but there are so many people who have made this such a wonderful and memorable place over the years that I hesitate to try and name them all, for fear that I'll leave anyone out.
When we were at our peak, the discussions on this comm seemed to work in reverse of entropy. Rather than having intelligent conversations that were derailed by crudity, most of our threads opened with the deliberately explicit, and yet, somehow wound up becoming thoughtful debates on politics, philosophy and the like regardless. It was like watching a dinner party break out in the middle of an orgy. And far from being the exceptions to the rule, these ... perversions of perversion itself were standard operating procedure for us.
There are a few reasons why that wave finally broke and rolled back.
As my real-life responsibilities have grown over the years, I've had ever less time to spare on all the things I should have done as a community maintainer, if I'd been serious about keeping this comm not only surviving, but thriving. You all deserved better from me, and for that, I'm sorry.
Moreover, as the media of our fandoms have grown ever more sexually explicit, I can't help but suspect that we eventually lost the competition with our own source material, in much the same way that the satire of The Onion no longer seems capable of keeping pace with the ever-escalating absurdity of the very reality that it's now struggling to parody, because if there's one thing that'll kill subtextual readings of stories stone dead, it's a generational movement of authors who go out of their way to make everything overtly ... well, text.
On the brighter side, since almost all of the folks who posted on this comm have since branched out onto LiveJournal and Facebook, and have reconnected with me and each other to carry on our correspondence through those social media platforms (and I'd encourage those who haven't to contact me), I'd argue that almost all of the same conversations that we would have had here have remained ongoing, but have simply shifted venues. As a wise man once said, the Empire never ended.
In the end, though, it was the loss of Jens that dealt this community its worst blow. He had long since become one of our most vital remaining regular contributors, and his passing has proven him to be literally irreplaceable. Michael Paciocco was able to face up to this fact well before I could, but as the New Year began, I found myself agreeing with his assessment that the lingering ghost of Jens' presence, through those last comments of his that we can never answer and have him hear, made this former online home of ours feel more like a tomb.
I'm leaving these boards open for posting through the end of the weekend, for those who would like to wrap up whatever loose ends they might feel are left and to say their final goodbyes to the place. After that, I'm soliciting your input as to whether this forum should stay up, but be closed to new posting, or if it should simply be deleted outright.
It's sad to close the book on a community that introduced me to so many people whom I now count among my closest friends online, but as much as I hate, more than anyone else, to admit when things should be allowed to run their course ... it's time.
But you know what? Fuck it. For eight years, we had porn and fun, and apologized to no one.
... And with that, I honestly don't know what else to say.
.
