Not that my presence means anything to any of you. I don't really know any of you, and you don't know me. Maybe I can remedy that a little bit.
Who am I? Some sort of personal stuff first, my name is Devin. I'm in my mid-20s and I like to be handy when I can. I like to tinker with computers (of which I have many) and cars (of which I have one). I do some woodworking on occasion, but that's very rare. I am a homeowner as well, and I've got a lot of projects in the works, that of course I'm doing myself. I don't have the money to pay somebody else to do this stuff, not in this economy.
I was on here way back in the golden years of this site. It was during middle school when my DSi was my only real access to the internet. I pretty much just lurked, and worked on my profile. I'd jump in the chatrooms every now and then, when they were always popping off. I was like 10 though so I wasn't making any real waves or anything. Eventually I grew out of my DSi and just forgot completely about this place.
A few years ago (2022), the job I was working was 4:00a - 4:00p for 5 (sometimes 6) days a week. Somehow in my sleep deprived, overworked state I remembered this place. Even more impressively, I somehow remembered my login information. Again, I did a lot of lurking. I met a few people on here, talked to them a little, mostly in private.
Why I left
In late 2022, I had something happen in my personal life that made me start to scrutinize everything I was doing in my life. I found *Paint to be a vice, a waste of time, a waste of mental space, and ultimately just something I should remove myself from. I deleted my account.
Now
It's been a few years and my life is very much in an entirely different place. While I still feel that way about this place (don't worry, I feel that way about the Internet as a whole), I'm where I should be now and I can feel okay wasting a bit of time online. I've been feeling the need to be more creative. I've started working on my website again, but also I've started to write some things on here too.
I appreciate *Paint because it's a bit old-fashioned. Modern social platforms are very much just trash autogenerated content to keep you glued to your screen as much as possible. The content on here is thought out and (usually) creative. Not to mention that it's text, it isn't inherently addictive. What keeps people here is the quality of said content, which is how I think we should grow the site. Just improve what you're putting out. We don't need gimmicks.
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