any experience with the old hs fandom?

i've met some of the best people in my life as a direct result from homestuck, but also some of the worst people i've ever met. so it goes. i'm tempted to say things are definitely less intense than they were now, but that's more a result of people moving onto different things. it was really inescapable back in the 2010s. it was everywhere. and as a result the people who were uhhhhh strange about it were more densely populated by rule of large numbers. that being said it was like, a very easy way to meet people. i was stopped more than once in public places for wearing homestuck merch. i had a substitute teacher who read it. online, you would see people in youtube comment sections with a dave icon and enter a long conversation with them and come away friends. all of that can still happen, but again, a smaller concentration (and hindsight coated cringe) makes it harder. i think the most striking thing is that nothing has changed about the fans and their ability to, well, read the comic. a lot of the bitterness we see now about HSBC is the same shit that was happening a decade ago, but instead of being too young to read the comic comprehensively, now people have become embittered with nostalgia. people still latch themselves to the idea of a character they have in their mind rather than the character themselves and start acting crazy as a result. i'd say nowadays people are uhhhh marginally better about the women, though.

all in all it was a lot of fun. i'm better and worse for it at the same time. kind of in such a way that it has had a net neutral impact on me, despite changing me irreparably. a process has occurred.

the old Homestuck fandom was terrible. they used to think Eridan was hot.

commenting here so i get notifications

Oh yay a place to tell my favorite oldhead fandom story lol

So the year Dante Basco read Homestuck was also the year I attended my first convention, and also the first year I had like a short, "masculine" haircut as someone who believed themself to be a girl at the time. (I was 15, we weren't there yet.)

It also happened that Dante Basco was guesting at the convention I was attending! Which was exciting for me and my other lil Homestuck friends. So my friend and I went to the signing dressed as Tavros and Dave, respectively, and it was con Sunday so I had already picked up a little bit of the con crud and my voice was a little scratchy.

So first off he was very nice and spent a lot of time picking my friend's brain about horn construction because he was thinking about getting a Rufioh look together, but when I got up there and gave my "Hey, what's up, nice to meet you," he said, "Haha, whoa, you really do sound like Dave!" Having never been told I sounded like Not A Girl before, I was inexplicably delighted in a way that I couldn't really account for in the moment. But in hindsight I think it was the realization that like, "Oh shit, so you're telling me I have options??"

Anyway that's how Dante Basco cracked my fucking egg via Homestuck. Of course it was a goddamn Dave cosplay. This is the most quintessentially 2012 Homestuck fandom thing that ever happened to me, aside from the Terezi cosplayer who surprise-glomped me with unsealed gray paint later that day, which was also pretty on-brand for the time.

I definitely think it was less volatile than it is now but there were still really immature and obnoxious fans. I had a friend who refused to read it because apparently at some convention he went to Homestuck fans were kind of destructive. Debates on different characters were always pretty heated because it's just hard to separate your emotions from the story when Hussie wrote teenagers so well. Some of the situations and ways they treated each other hit really close to home, which is a huge compliment to his character development but it didn't make the environment great for respectful discussion and analysis (I think that part was a little more civil back then but probably not by much.)

That being said, at the height of its popularity it attracted some of the most incredible writers and artists which made the fandom experience amazing. The excitement when you got online and saw people posting that there was a new update was like nothing else. Catching up and freaking out about new developments and getting to discuss them in real time with other fans was so much fun.

So at its peak the fandom was very Very big like “overwhelmed convention staff” big. The fandom also existed through different phases and shifts of fandom culture as a whole. And not everyone was very receptive to those shifts. In that way it was kind of the perfect storm for brushing up against some annoying and terrible people, but also some of the greatest friends you’ll ever have. I cosplayed Homestuck from like 2012ish all the way to my most “recent” con in 2019 (ahaha) I’ve been Jade, Meenah, and Boldir. I’ve met some of the artists of the welovefine/ffbf shirts I own and got postcard versions of the designs. One con I bought a plush erigrub and he’s my son boy allowed. I got to meet a friend of a friend at a convention and later went to their homestuck themed bday party complete with sopor (jello) pies. I also unfortunately met some people whose art I greatly admired and took much inspiration from who very muchly embodied the sentiment of “don’t meet your heroes“ I did also meet Hussie a couple times at signing events! The first time the line was so long I couldn’t help but snack and by the time I got there I was so star struck I asked if they wanted some of the mini Oreos ;A; I’m still extremely embarrassed but also it’s a kinda cute story so I don’t mind saying it.

And god yeah the upd8 culture can’t be overstated honestly like you kinda just had to be there as much as that sucks to hear. When [S] Cascade dropped and broke the internet my friends managed to watch it but I did not and had to suffer through them giggling and barely contained hype through the whole school day until I was able to watch once I got home. But even the small updates were Events. There were upd8 notifiers for a reason. Everyone had something to say about everything lol.

On the rp front of things the tumblr specific fantroll rp community was noooot good in a variety of ways ranging from annoying/rude to “how did you not end up in jail” but I mean. Tumblr. There were multiple different chat clients to match you up with a random person, had some really cute stuff that way. I drew up an entire furry ref sheet as jade’s in-universe fursona Specifically for those things and almost everyone DC’d immediately. Cowards. I was part of a Pokestuck rp forum that I ended up becoming admin of after the original admin couldn’t keep up. Met one of my bestest buddies through that rp we still talk to this day. Another bestie I still talk to and found via rp was through this rotating sburb session rp group we were both part of. IC took place via pesterchum and ooc/organization via skype. It occasionally dipped into original Non-sburb settings but also because it was usually the core same people between different rps we could do post-scratch worlds or make the new world that was created and play their session or have recurring Big Bads. And then the whole thing imploded around me specifically even though I didn’t do anything which is kinda funny. Basically the main guy got a new partner who didn’t like me for ?? We don’t know and when it came time to start up the next rp they wanted a smaller group so first X number of replies gets in. I got in within the limit. Then it was Also suddenly based on your activity in the prior rp and I was ousted for that and anyone with eyes was like “Autumn was one of the Most Active people she just missed some main plot points because of classes” and based on what my pals told me it caused such a sour atmosphere the rp fizzled out in record time. So It Goes. Real shame too because I’ve never been able to find a squad that could fully complete One rp storyline much less multiple in a row Since then…

But uh yeah my general “how to enjoy fandom” philosophy is the same now as it was back then. Block freely, don’t shit talk people publicly that’s asking for trouble, and gather yourself a cozy little friendgroup to jam out with and the Nasty side of fandom will seem a bit further away. Still there but not a fandom on this earth is free from having bad apples. It’s keeping friends close and staying out of petty arguments that keeps the feeling fond and bright

Homestuck was my introduction to conventions and greater fandom culture circa 2013. Cosplay and fandom culture was incredibly different back then, and for Homestuck specifically it was even crazier. In-character "Ask the [insert beta/alpha trolls/kids/dancestors/whatever here]" panels were nearly guaranteed to be at every con, with varying levels of hilarity/awkwardness ensuing. You can probably still find a few recordings of them on youtube, but for the unaware, they were groups of cosplayers lined up at a table, answering audience questions as the character they're cosplaying, playing games like truth or dare, etc.

Alongside panels, there were also huge cosplay meetups. Older fans would hold "barstuck" meetups at conventions with hotel bars. I'm under the impression that these were much more chill compared to the hectic all-ages meetups. Cosplay meetups weren't necessarily limited to conventions, either. Depending on your local community, people organized meetups for 4/13 or even just random dates at parks, ice rinks, malls, amusement parks, etc. I'm insanely jealous of California Homestucks, since they're really the only ones having meetups or events these days. Promstuck 2025 especially. What other fandom goes "fuck it, let's get dapper" and has a whole event about it. I went to two promstucks, one in 2014 and another around 2016, both held under random park ramadas. At the first one I was still a young babbystuck cosplaying Roxy with my friend as Nepeta. A really nice Jade gave me a piggyback ride, and we danced around with her and a cute Feferi. It's difficult to briefly convey, but as crazy as they could get, Homestuck meetups were genuinely pretty magical. I've never had an experience since then that felt like entering a space full of friends you've never met.

There was also unfortunately a toxic side though. The Homestuck fandom already had a bad reputation due to crazy convention stories, videos of people doing stupid shit, and just how weird it was at the time. Inside the fandom, it could get really cliquey and toxic with infighting, interpersonal drama, and general cruelty. At one point there was a dedicated tumblr page for posting shitty Homestuck cosplays and criticizing them. This was around the time that Steven Universe and Voltron fandoms became huge, and fandom culture gained a really odd aggressiveness to it for a while. In tandem with the general declining popularity of Homestuck, the change in fandom climate ended what I consider the "golden age" of the Homestuck fandom.

Having new updates coming out, new merch, seeing new fans getting into it, and literally posting on a forum about it: we're truly in the renaissance/revival era. It comes with all the good and the bad, but live it and enjoy it all. Don't worry about missing the old times. Make this era your own!!

I am also old.

Hussies formspring was always funny to keep up on.

I'm not an oldhead but I cosplayed Karkat a few months ago and I got a couple "holy shit, I used to cosplay Eridan!"s from dudes who were dressed as like beefy warrior characters.

genuinely the homestuck fandom back in the day was pretty fucking awful lol. i find it both fascinating and totally insane how new homestucks will post about wishing they could have experienced homestuck back in its early 2010s heyday. to be clear i did have a lot of fun back then! homestuck helped me connect with a lot of people, is the reason i got into cosplaying, and was just all around a huge source of comfort and escapism for me as a kid back then. going to big 413 mall meetups and homestuck cosplay convention panels are some of my fondest teenage memories. buuuut the fandom definitely sucked majorly. lots of really fucking weird and awful people in the community, and being an adult now and looking back on my time in the homestuck fandom from ages 13-16 im mortified LOL. i will always have nostalgia for that era but it definitely wasnt as great as ppl make it out to be

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