Reflecting on a very salty era in my life (and how I hated popular things back in 2020-2023)
So I kind of mentioned this sort of attitude of younger me in my interests section but a part of me just used to hate anything that god popular through the years of 2020-mid 2023, and honestly I’ve been reflecting on that period of time more and more, especially as within the past couple of years I got into ENA and Bugsnax and absolutely adored them even though when they came out I found them kind of overhyped. So this is just kind of a reflection of my history, my mindset, what started this, my hypocrisy, and end around this very stupid and salty moment in my life.
To start what exactly was the starting point for this mentality in my life? Well first I need to talk about the gacha community, well kind of, I’m what you would consider a “gacha veteran” been there since like 2018-2019 and still somewhat active and use gacha mods and the like, so during 2020 and me watching more gacha content, especially fandom content (well trying to find fandoms I was in) I noticed something that kept popping up, dream smp, the only thing I really knew about it is that it was related to minecraft youtubers and that was all I needed and wanted to know about it, I already found it weird to see all the shipping stuff since this was something surrounding youtubers (along with some other things) along with my already existing notion of being annoyed by seeing it so much I became pissed about its existence and not understanding why it was so popular, and this would start a chain of events where anything that got popular in that time I got pissed at and didn’t give the chance, even if that thing didn’t come out around that time.
Now while I described my mindset of why I didn’t like anything that got popular around that time to an extent, that being the I was kind of annoyed from seeing it mindset (which honestly, I think it’s just a popular reason for why someone would hate something popular) though another aspect was jealousy, you see as you know from me I tend to fixate or get interested in things that 1. Aren’t as popular as they used to be or 2. Things that are niche or obscure, one specific game I was really into was Everhood (and I’m still into it, alot…) to me I felt like it was deserving of getting some sort of fame and the like and that it was an underrated masterpiece (I still think so but honestly I’m not that salty anymore about it not being that popular, honestly it’s for the best), though obviously that never became the case and instead other things like amongus, fnf (though I did like fnf, though only really the vanilla game), and poppy playtime, which I think just added more fule to the fire, basically believing that anything that got popular didn’t deserve it or was overrated and this garbage in my eyes.
Though I wouldn’t be lying if there wasn’t some hypocrisy when it came to my mentality and mindset, especially with me being a fan or stuff that got popular/repopular around that time, all with their own reasons, but mainly it just boiled down to “they were the good ones”, the list and reasoning includes:
Friday night funkin: idk I think I just had a huge crush on Senpai which I think kept me going with my enjoyment
Welcome home: I got into it before it blew up in popularity
Mandela catalog: Got into it before it was popular
Omori: It was an rpg maker game that reminded me of another one I liked so that was worthy of me checking it out
Walton Files: Got into it before it was popular
Any other analog horror series that got popular: I like the genre
Inscryption: My friend got me into the game (also probably because alot of people who happened to be Everhood fans in the early days were also Inscryption fans)
Fnaf: Was into it even before its resurgence, though I admit I was kind of annoyed on how afton family just seemed to have flooded gacha fandom content
Cookie run: Was introduced through a friend
Danganronpa: Idk I just saw a meme video and got into it through there
Various music artist: I don’t treat music fandoms the same way as other media fandoms
Deltarune: I was already a fan and I really enjoyed chapter 2, especially Spamton, now I’d argue deltarune doesn’t fit in this section since I feel like its height in popularity started with the release of chapter 5 (or 3 or 4 idk) and is likely going to get more popular with each release, which idk how I feel about please I’m not ready to get sent death threats or be put on everyones dni again from rabid hatedoms and for my rejection sensitivity to be absolutely obliterated again TmT
So as you can see I’m a massive hypocrite but honestly I think we all were as some way when we were younger, though now back to the timeline. Around mid 2023 I think I just kind of stopped feeling cynical and having that “new=bad” mentality, I think another thing was I kind of just decided to focus more on enjoying the things I love more than shitting on other media because something I like didn’t get that popular, I mean that mentality was still there in early 2023 when I got pissed at Garten of banban, but it wasn’t as intense compared to the past. Fun fact: around this time I also started getting into Arcadekittens work more and I’m 99% convinced her games helped me become less salty and cynical and just focus more on enjoying the stuff I like so thanks to her I guess -w-
So now that I’m no longer going new=bad for everything popular I saw now you may ask, how do I look back at media from the time 2020-2023 and is there anything I feel like I overlooked or didn’t give a fair chance. Well I’m going to be honest, most of that stuff still doesn’t appeal to me (as in stuff I’m not already into) I just don’t hate them anymore and I’m cool with people who are fans of said things (except dsmp, depending on who you support at least). Though with that said there were two things that I did give another chance, both of which I’m very fond of and feel very bad about looking over them.
ENA: well kind of, ENA is special in that I didn’t hate it, and I did give a chance, I just didn’t really care about it that much, even when I watched the series I was just like eh. This wasn’t until 2025 when ENA: Dream BBQ came out. Out of curiosity I decided to check out the game, enjoyed it, and then decided to give the series a chance again and also enjoyed it alot aswell.
Bugnsax: I’m going to be for real and say that I thought this was stupid, idk maybe I saw people describing it as a kids horror game and thought of all of those “oh look at this cute piece of kids media thats actually fucked up” genre, along with kids horror games and I think that kind of soured my perception of that. Of course I realized a few months ago when I gave the game another chance there's way more (and I feel like handles its horror better than alot of other kids media in the horror genre/with horror elements) and it’s not really like that and honestly I was very pleasantly surprised with the game, not only being very fun but being very engaging in its characters and story. And honestly I think this game was my favorite thing to check out this year (though I haven’t checked much, would like to see movies like backrooms, obsession, and buddy but I’m often very lazy when it comes to checking out shows and movies).
You know something I realise about both is that I feel like even younger me would have loved these, I mean I really enjoyed surreal media and I think I would have enjoyed ENA’s style of humor, I also would have really loved ENA like I do now. And for Bugsnax I’m even more surprised because I love games that involve catching or collecting cute creatures, such as Viva pinata, pokemon, yo-kai watch, ect. And I also feel like I would have gotten invested in its story and characters aswell. So it kind of baffles me on how I just didn’t really give them that much of a chance.
I guess if you want a moral lesson from this, I think its fine to be annoyed at something being popular (as long as you don’t go make it other peoples problem, especially shaming and harassing fans, and as long as you don’t make hating it your entire personality as it can get unhealthy) and that just because something is recent or popular (or both) shouldn’t detract you from seeing if its worth your time (that is if it’s something you might be interested in, don’t force yourself to like everything thats popular or new).