Lutga said:
I have to admit, I do wish I got 'into' anime earlier - but then equally, the other part of me is glad it didn't come until I had a job etc. and could actually afford to fully fund my habit. I feel I might have burnt out otherwise too, as a lot of my other teenage passions did after a few years.
I sometimes wonder if this is the reason AUKN seems to have a relatively high average age. We seemed to have a few younger members when I first joined, but a lot of them have long since disappeared. Those who stayed have perhaps built a community which, as IncendieryLemon's comments might suggest, younger members or those new to anime might feel a bit out of place in. I hope not, because it's always nice to see new people here, but I get the feeling there are other commnities (MAL perhaps?) which better cater to what a younger demographic wants from an online anime community.
Personally though, I love forums like AUKN. I think they have a better sense of community with more opportunity to actually get to know members than social network style sites, which I come to dislike more and more every day for the impersonal, throwaway nature of the interaction. The trend seems to be for wider and weaker networks rather than smaller and tighter knit communities, and I'll take the latter any day.
