I got in around 2013 when I went to an art day camp that had "costume fridays" where an overwhelming amount of people would do homestuck cosplay. I think I missed a LOT of drama from not being super active in online social spaces and never going to conventions or meetups or whatever (strict STEAM parents). I lurked a lot and was in some smaller groups that had a lot of fun.

Mostly I remember that there was an unbelievable amount of art being made, constantly. Fan art, cosplay, fan fic, as well as quirky projects because there were so many different people with really varying talents. There was also a much more appreciative and active audience, it felt like. Nowadays it's harder for things that aren't easily sharable on social media to get as much traction - which is why I'm really appreciative of FRAF to be a place for Homestuck stuff to flourish, as opposed to hoping a post essentially breaks containment on twitter or something. I think there was a nice boom again around the epilogues with some REALLY interesting fanworks and the PGenPod creating an amazing intellectual/discussion fandom scaffolding that petered out again as HS2 did (and as infighting became increasingly intense and targeted).

TBH I think one's experience in a fandom space is always going to be what you make it. It's more volatile now because it's been waning a good bit in popularity (with some occasional booms and busts) but something being BIG big means that there are a lot of people in it more for clout and everything is under a lot more scrutiny. And especially with a lot of teenagers it's gonna get a bad rep pretty quickly, when teenage antics become labelled as fandom antics.

TLDR: I agree with Jake plus it was racist as fuckkkkkkkkk