Post by zach on Jun 23, 2020 21:14:48 GMT -8
Oh my goodness, hello everybody. I have never been a "forums" kind of guy, so when we started this forum up years ago I told myself I'd give it a shot for the community, and promptly failed at keeping up with it. And while ThatSplicingAdventure has stuck in my head from time to time over the years, today I remembered we had a forum, and realized I could finally tell the community what happened, for those of you still on here after all this time.
ThatSplicingAdventure definitely hit it's stride around the summer of 2013. We were streaming to some pretty awesome crowds, getting huge numbers of followers on Tumblr (thank you Bidoof God), made this forum, and even tested the waters of selling merch. I still remember my own hype of taking a summer trip and coordinating meeting Ryan in person for an afternoon and making a "ThatSplicingAdventure LIVE" vine where Ryan squished two Pokemon plushies together. But as the fall of 2013 hit, our lives outside of tumblr were getting busier and busier. Traffic slowed down, our own school/work/personal lives demanded all of our attention more. I know a few admins tried to get the main blog going again for a couple days at a time. But we never captured the magic of that Summer of 2013.
If you think back to 2017, there were a series of weird waves on tumblr where accounts would be deleted. I can't remember all the details, I know that sometimes it would affect dormant accounts. But in February 2017, I realized I couldn't log in to my tumblr, theimmortantbattery. The admins had a group chat and we all had the same problem. ThatSplicingAdventure and all of our other side blogs were gone for a bit as well, but they came back after a little while. But all of our main personal accounts were gone, and as far as I know, never came back. Which meant we were all locked out of ThatSplicingAdventure. As far as I know, we all have been ever since. I just checked, and all of our main accounts are still completely gone.
I spent WEEKS emailing tumblr support trying to fix it, but never got anything beyond an automated reply with no follow up. A few others pushed as well, to no avail. And I hate to say it, that's kinda where TSplicA has been ever since.
I've tried to process my thoughts about what TSplicA meant to me over the past 3 years. I remember joining the crew on a whim in spring 2012, just before the blog blew up. This community was such a weird and wonderful space to be part of, and Summer 2012 and 2013 will always be a treasured memory of mine. There are relics of that time I keep stumbling upon, like the Google Drive folder of splices I made when my old laptop kicked the bucket, and the Youtube playlist of music I used when streaming into the early hours of the morning. I miss TSplicA dearly. The people I worked with, the fans I interacted with. The hilarity of streams (BATTERY BATTERY BATTERY). A bunch of the admins spent a lot of evenings playing Animal Crossing: New Leaf online together during the Summer of 2013. And, at a time when I was going off to college and feeling more and more disconnected from friends at home, TSplicA was home to me.
But it made perfect sense that it eventually came to an end. Obviously, the momentum of our tumblr popularity wouldn't last forever; I remember the last few streams were always really quiet. But, also obviously, us high schoolers became college students and adults. We got busy. I think that, for a handful of us admins, graduating from high school put us into new environments and let us find communities we fit right into. We all grew up a bit. Plus, tumblr communities have always been notorious for having short shelf lives, which often get chalked up to members growing out of them and finding new communities over time. Plus, the changes tumblr has made over the past decade definitely haven't made user retention easy.
At the end of the day, I think the end of TSplicA was inevitable. I just hate that the way it ended wasn't on our terms. This is the closest to a goodbye I can make, and I know that so many of the fans who followed us closely years ago may never see this. But this is better than nothing. So, if you are reading this, thank you. Thank you for making Battery such a weird meme. Thank you for reblogging Bidoof God every time it showed up on your dashboard. Thank you for all your splicing requests. Thank you for joining our streams. On behalf of Sam, Ryan, Bram, Ginny, Melissa and myself, thank you for making ThatSplicingAdventure such an amazing part of our lives.
Unfortunately, I never had a social media connection with Melissa when our personal blogs were deactivated, so I have no idea what she's up to now. But I can plug some of the things that others have done in recent years. Sam started a new splicing blog on tumblr, terminatedsplicingadventure. Ryan does commentary for Smash Bros Ultimate for Tourney Locator. Bailey, formerly known as Bram, has been involved in lots of musical projects since graduating high school, check out Sloppy Jane and Fantasy of a Broken Heart on bandcamp. Ginny makes clay charms, stickers, and more on her Etsy shop, Ginny's Geeky Goodies.
I don't really have anything of my own to plug. Regulars of ThatSplicingAdventure and our streams and whatnot know I was going to college to become a choir teacher, and nowadays that's exactly what I'm doing. It's busy, but I love my job. I'm still as big of a fan of video games and animation as I was back then, but I've been teaching for three years now and it's what I'm called to right now.
Like I said at the beginning of this, forums have never and will never be my thing. They overwhelm me. So don't call this a comeback. But the community deserves to know why we disappeared, and if this is the best way to get the community to see it, then here it is. Thank you for making 2012 and 2013 some of the most fun I've had. Thank you for a community I am honored to have been part of. Thank you for all the memes.
Oh no, my computer hasn't been plugged in while typing this. BATTERY BATTERY BATTERY BATTERY BATT-
ThatSplicingAdventure definitely hit it's stride around the summer of 2013. We were streaming to some pretty awesome crowds, getting huge numbers of followers on Tumblr (thank you Bidoof God), made this forum, and even tested the waters of selling merch. I still remember my own hype of taking a summer trip and coordinating meeting Ryan in person for an afternoon and making a "ThatSplicingAdventure LIVE" vine where Ryan squished two Pokemon plushies together. But as the fall of 2013 hit, our lives outside of tumblr were getting busier and busier. Traffic slowed down, our own school/work/personal lives demanded all of our attention more. I know a few admins tried to get the main blog going again for a couple days at a time. But we never captured the magic of that Summer of 2013.
If you think back to 2017, there were a series of weird waves on tumblr where accounts would be deleted. I can't remember all the details, I know that sometimes it would affect dormant accounts. But in February 2017, I realized I couldn't log in to my tumblr, theimmortantbattery. The admins had a group chat and we all had the same problem. ThatSplicingAdventure and all of our other side blogs were gone for a bit as well, but they came back after a little while. But all of our main personal accounts were gone, and as far as I know, never came back. Which meant we were all locked out of ThatSplicingAdventure. As far as I know, we all have been ever since. I just checked, and all of our main accounts are still completely gone.
I spent WEEKS emailing tumblr support trying to fix it, but never got anything beyond an automated reply with no follow up. A few others pushed as well, to no avail. And I hate to say it, that's kinda where TSplicA has been ever since.
I've tried to process my thoughts about what TSplicA meant to me over the past 3 years. I remember joining the crew on a whim in spring 2012, just before the blog blew up. This community was such a weird and wonderful space to be part of, and Summer 2012 and 2013 will always be a treasured memory of mine. There are relics of that time I keep stumbling upon, like the Google Drive folder of splices I made when my old laptop kicked the bucket, and the Youtube playlist of music I used when streaming into the early hours of the morning. I miss TSplicA dearly. The people I worked with, the fans I interacted with. The hilarity of streams (BATTERY BATTERY BATTERY). A bunch of the admins spent a lot of evenings playing Animal Crossing: New Leaf online together during the Summer of 2013. And, at a time when I was going off to college and feeling more and more disconnected from friends at home, TSplicA was home to me.
But it made perfect sense that it eventually came to an end. Obviously, the momentum of our tumblr popularity wouldn't last forever; I remember the last few streams were always really quiet. But, also obviously, us high schoolers became college students and adults. We got busy. I think that, for a handful of us admins, graduating from high school put us into new environments and let us find communities we fit right into. We all grew up a bit. Plus, tumblr communities have always been notorious for having short shelf lives, which often get chalked up to members growing out of them and finding new communities over time. Plus, the changes tumblr has made over the past decade definitely haven't made user retention easy.
At the end of the day, I think the end of TSplicA was inevitable. I just hate that the way it ended wasn't on our terms. This is the closest to a goodbye I can make, and I know that so many of the fans who followed us closely years ago may never see this. But this is better than nothing. So, if you are reading this, thank you. Thank you for making Battery such a weird meme. Thank you for reblogging Bidoof God every time it showed up on your dashboard. Thank you for all your splicing requests. Thank you for joining our streams. On behalf of Sam, Ryan, Bram, Ginny, Melissa and myself, thank you for making ThatSplicingAdventure such an amazing part of our lives.
Unfortunately, I never had a social media connection with Melissa when our personal blogs were deactivated, so I have no idea what she's up to now. But I can plug some of the things that others have done in recent years. Sam started a new splicing blog on tumblr, terminatedsplicingadventure. Ryan does commentary for Smash Bros Ultimate for Tourney Locator. Bailey, formerly known as Bram, has been involved in lots of musical projects since graduating high school, check out Sloppy Jane and Fantasy of a Broken Heart on bandcamp. Ginny makes clay charms, stickers, and more on her Etsy shop, Ginny's Geeky Goodies.
I don't really have anything of my own to plug. Regulars of ThatSplicingAdventure and our streams and whatnot know I was going to college to become a choir teacher, and nowadays that's exactly what I'm doing. It's busy, but I love my job. I'm still as big of a fan of video games and animation as I was back then, but I've been teaching for three years now and it's what I'm called to right now.
Like I said at the beginning of this, forums have never and will never be my thing. They overwhelm me. So don't call this a comeback. But the community deserves to know why we disappeared, and if this is the best way to get the community to see it, then here it is. Thank you for making 2012 and 2013 some of the most fun I've had. Thank you for a community I am honored to have been part of. Thank you for all the memes.
Oh no, my computer hasn't been plugged in while typing this. BATTERY BATTERY BATTERY BATTERY BATT-
Aerodactyl 
