Did I age out of the Sonic community?

[SolidSurgeTT]

All the Sonic-themed Discord servers I joined are full of people a solid decade younger than me.

I wasn't even aware and now I'm self-conscious about it.

[GX -The Spindash-]

https://discord.com/invite/uJAsJNfn4u

[Dreadknux]

It's fun seeing people talk about all these 'Sonictubers' and content creators who are like, at least ten years younger than me. And nobody these days seems to know who I am, so I definitely feel like a granddad, haha! 

Thing is, being prominent (or even super active) online has always been a younger person's game. Not just in the Sonic community, but any community. Real Life(TM) gets in the way, for most people.

It's not so bad though. I often find that chatting with 'younger' fans (and I don't mean that in a derogatory way; I'm 38, so almost every active Sonic fan these days is most likely younger than me now!) can be quite refreshing. More likely to feel a sense of enthusiasm, that you don't often see speaking with jaded old gits like me!

But you know, if you want rock with like-aged fans, we have a Discord as GX linked... and I'll always be around (until I'm not)! 

[Phoenix]

It's funny because I have to imagine those of us nostalgic for things like the adventures have to be in their 30s. Like, if someone owned a Dreamcast, there's a minimum age there.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

I dunno. I kinda like the new younger generation of Sonic fans. They’re a lot more open to Sonic in general than previous generations which factionalized themselves.

That’s the part that makes me feel old.

Mind you, depends on the community—Sonic’s grown even larger than the days he fell back in the mid-2000s, so it’s a lot more diverse. And with that comes newer fans just getting into Sonic compared to those of us who’ve been around much, much (much) longer.

So I wouldn’t say you aged out than it is you grew up while still liking Sonic.

[Rabbitearsblog]

As an adult myself, I don't think that I aged out of the community.  Sure, I'm surprised at how many fans out there are much younger than me and sometimes, I do feel old whenever I'm mentioning older Sonic games like Sonic 1 and Sonic 3 and Knuckles and some of the younger fans don't know what I'm talking about.  But as @CrownSlayer’s Shadowmentioned, the younger generation are way more open about this franchise than we were as kids and that's probably because when we were growing up, we didn't have social media and saying that you like a specific franchise back then sometimes meant that you would be mocked for liking said franchise.  Nowadays, I find it refreshing that I can talk with other older Sonic fans like myself and not feel ashamed about liking this franchise.

[Tornado]

Zoomer Sonic fans seem to actually like Sonic. It's kinda gross ngl.

[Blazermaze00]

if you're still a fan, you're still a fan! you'll be welcome no matter what age you are! :)

[SatAMhog]

I wouldn't think about it too much.  If you like a franchise/something that you grew up with or just in general, it's nothing to be ashamed of.  Just keeping enjoy what make you enjoy life.

[regularmilo]

Unashamed Sonic fan in his 30s here. Last year I made a couple new friends at work and one of them is a girl in her early 20s who is as much of a Sonic geek as I am. I really enjoy having a younger Sonic fan around to discuss this stuff with because her perspective is so different. Her first Sonic game was Sonic 06 (she's very aware of how... Sonic 06 that game is) and she never really played the Genesis games.

 

So yeah like others have said, just like what you like! Mickey Mouse has been around and kickin for nearly 100 years now. Maybe Sonic will do the same and in 100 years we'll have people posting on the hypersphere with their super-social media accounts wondering if they're too old to like Sonic.

[batson]

I think at this point there are five generations of Sonic fans:

The oldest are those who were teenagers when Sonic was cool in the early 90's, often born in the late 70's. These fans made up the core of the first online Sonic communities in the mid 90's, but even by the early 00's they seemed to mostly disperse. There is a fansite called GHZ were some of these fossils still linger, but that's about it. I think most people born as early as the 1970's, even the nerds, didn't become internet addicts in the same way that every generation thereafter became, and also not addicted to clinging on to their childhood in the same way that the millenial and zoomer generations did (millenials in particular having been referred to as the "Peter Pan" generation, and for good reason).

The second generation are those of us who were little kids when Sonic was at his biggest in the early 90's, in other words the core demeographic of the franchise at that time, and which made Sonic so huge in the first place. Most of us were born in the 80's; I myself belong in this group. We are the oldest generation still widely encountered anywhere Sonic fans gather. During the 00's we formed the core of the "Sonic needs to shut up and not have friends" fraction of the fanbase. As mentioned previously in the thread, many of us have dropped of over the last couple of years since we are in our 30's and gotta change diapers and walk the dog and fear suspicious liver spots. But we belong to the aforementioned Peter Pan generation, and so many of us still just can't let go of our cartoon hedgehog completely. And even if only a fraction of us remains hardcore Sonic fans that visists forums and such, the thing about our generation is that most people in it with even the most passing interest in video games are Sonic fans to some extent since our childhood took place when Sonic was the single most popular video game based franchise on the planet. Especially if we're talking people of male gender, if someone born between say 1982-1989 is asked what he thinks about Sonic he will with about 80% certainty say "Sonic was awesome!". With other generations an appreciation for Sonic is not as certain. That is why we're still such a lucrative demographic to pander to, since just about any 35 year old gamer will have some interest in buying a cheap piece of merch as long as it has classic Sonic's face on it.

The third generation are those born in the 90's, the Adventure era fans. As mentioned by others posters, this is the generation that currently makes up the core of the Sonic fan community. They were the kids of the online community during the 00's, constantly being bullied by older fans for liking Shadow and for thinking child murder belongs in Sonic games. They were by and large responsible for the flood of Sonic fan characters on places like DeviantArt (although most of the individual most infamus Sonic fans during the 00's period of the internet actually belonged to the older generation of fans... looking at a certain virgin with rage, for instance). When the great 80's-baby-pandering era of the franchise started in the 10's, they were dismayed, and missed Sonic's friends and more ambitious storytelling. Many are still annoyed at just how much merch is based on classic Sonic, and how that archaic version of the character still insists on popping up in modern games.

The fourth generation are those born in the 00's. I have a hard time trying to say anything characteristic about these zoomer fans because they honestly seem very divided on what they prefer from the series. Many like the only-Sonic light-on-story games of the 10's, but many also seem very oppen to deeper stories and other Adventure-era-esque elements. Though they also seem more chill about other peoples opinions on the franchise than many members of the older generations of fans were.

Oh and also, there is the fifth generation, those actual children born in the 10's, but most of them are still too young to make their opinions heard on the internet so them I can't say anything at all about. I bet they like movie Sonic though... which makes me suspect that in another 10 years we will see hordes of fans saying they want game Sonic to act more like movie Sonic (but I wish I'm wrong about that!).

[Lytan]

I also used to think I'd aged out of being a Sonic fan, until I realised that if you like something then how old you are or how long you've liked it for shouldn't matter. Do you like Sonic? Cool, then you're part of the Sonic community!

If you're engaging only with Discord communities and not fitting in there, then it's not an issue with you but a sign you should look to other places. I think part of what's so great about older-style web forums like TSS is you get a range of ages here (if anything skewed towards the older fans, since web forums have existed far longer than places like Discord).