How do you feel about the modern fictionkin community? Do ever feel like a lot of them are just making it up?

This is really two separate questions for me. I for one, don’t think that there has ever been a time where more or fewer people were ‘making up’ their identities as fictionkin. I think for the most part the number of people who are either deliberately faking either for attention, or just to feel good about themselves, and the number of people who feel an attachment to an identity who will later ‘grow out of it’ is largely stable.

Communities like this will always have people who fake things, just to be part of a community. To feel wanted and secure. It happens in all kinds of support groups- of so Fight Club tells me at least. I don’t think we’ll ever really be ‘rid of’ fakers and hangers on, and I don’t think there’s anything to be done about them. My philosophy is to believe everyone is sincere, until they start acting really stupid, or telling me they made it all up.

As for the people who grow out of it, I really think we need to stop, as a culture making ‘it’s a phase’ such a dirty idea. A lot of adults use it in order to belittle or negate the identities of their children, and that;s terrible. We *need* phases, all of us, to try out different ideas and ideals, different personas and philosophies, or else how can we know what’s right for us? I don’t see any harm in believing that you’re fictionkin for a while, and then moving on—as long as you don’t belittle and demean the community after you do so.

As for how I feel about the modern fictionkin community, frankly I find it hard to connect with. Not necessarily because of a communication disconnect but because we’re so scattered. Back when I was active I could name just about every other active fictionkin. That’s not true any more and it makes me sort of sad.