(This is really belated, but I've been meaning to write one since forever and I want to know everyone better so please don't hate me…)

[helcchi 942]

(Before that, I’m so sorry the length of this introduction reads like an essay but please bear with me ><)

 

I have many interests, but let’s talk about visual kei as this is the one constant that has taken up most of my life.

 

2009 was a time of change for me and visual kei. Ameba launched its virtual community Pigg, which instantly sucked the life out of me and as it turned out, so many vk bandmen had no life as well.

 

t's embarassing to talk about it now, but as teenagers with nothing better to do with our time, my friends and I would send as many friend requests as we could to band members and ‘stalk’ them whenever they logged online. Suddenly vk had become so much more intimate as we could interact with vk bandmen in real-time like never before.

 

But pigg was more than that. Some of my fondest memories have been the designated VK showroom where you could stream youtube videos to a crowd, meeting new people in the club rooms who share a common interest and of course having to witness the silly antics of some of those bandmen. I got to know a lot of bands that I would otherwise never had found out about, had conversations, learning about their personalities and interests. I also got to learn that some of the musicians in the darkest and heaviest bands have the cutest personalities behind the keyboard, fawning over the colourful array of virtual fashion items pigg had to offer. 

 

(Asanao from lynch. case in point)

Spoiler

 

It was a fun and unique experience. And at the same time, information was not only more accessible than ever before, but more abundant as well, and keeping up with blogs, news, forums, and playing pigg consumed every moment of my every day which back then, I had the time and youth to do so.

 

But eventually, I burnt out.

 

I attributed my losing touch with vk to information overload. It’s been more than 4 years since I stopped going on pigg and ameblo for good, but those few years of intense dedication, even today, felt like an aeon. 

 

I used to make a lot of parodies of bandmen, and loved deduction and connecting the dots - which bands had photoshoots at which set and making 6-degrees of separation connections between members of different bands and loved hearing stories from the past.

 

I also had a enthusiasm for drawing, having drawn over a ton bands over the course of 2 years between 2011 and 2012, but suddenly it’s 2016 and all I have are 3-year-old drafts and unfinished sketches. 

 

Everything had been halted because life kinda got in the way… shattered-tranquility had long stopped being my home page and my internet’s search history doesn’t remember vkdb.jp anymore.

 

Hmm.

 

So in that gap between about 2012 and now, I had the mother of existential crises, questioning whether I was really going to follow vk for life.

 

But my passion in the music is genuine and still alive.

 

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ve been disconnected from the community that I love for far too long, and I don’t want that. I don’t want to forget the memories I’ve made, the bands that I’ve followed, the stories I’ve heard and the things I’ve learned along the way - be they good or bad. I don’t want my interest of VK to die, and I don’t want to stop making funny content about VK forever.  

 

(And most importantly, I don’t want to be the only VK fan in Australia that I know. So if you’re from Sydney, please hit me up so I don’t feel lonely :3)

 

I want this to be the place where I can share my knowledge about vk so ask me anything and I hope to relearn what I’ve lost these past few years. And once again, I’m astronomically sorry about the length of this introduction (I hope it was bearable).

 

Merry Xmas btw

Edited December 25, 2016 by helcchi

[IGM_Oficial 1964]

21 minutes ago, helcchi said:

which bands had photoshoots at which set

Wow, that's interesting.

 

Merry Christmas for you too!

[helcchi 942]

@IGM_Oficial Thanks! The amount of set un-originality these days is kinda overwhelming lol. One day I might start a thread

[Komorebi 2193]

Your story is quite touching, I guess many people here can relate to it.

I hope you find more fans in Sydney!

[TODORA 18]

Nice story!
I can pretty much relate to it (except maybe for the Ameba part, since the fun I could get there was strictly limited due to my lack of japanese skills :'D)

But I really hope you will have a good time here aswell

[Mamo 1172]

That was quite an amazing story I'm glad I took the time to read that.