It feels kind of surreal to say it. Okay, more than that, it feels... well I don't know how to describe it, really. I honestly never imagined a Lion King internet forum I joined ten years ago would have any kind of impact on my life today. But here we are, and as the second person to join MLK after Moka, I feel compelled to make a speech of some sort.
I've said it before but I pretty much grew up on this site. I joined this forum a few weeks shy of my 12th birthday the summer before I was to begin middle school. Today I am 22, have just graduated from college, and am about to start my first post-graduate job in the biomedical sciences. I've certainly gone through changes and matured a lot ever since my very first post in June of 2008... or at least, I like to think I did.
It's been a wild ten years. I watched Moka build the site up from next to nothing in 2008. Within a couple of years, MLK went from being a tight-knit, albeit small, community of mostly people who migrated over from TLKPF, to one of the largest TLK fansites on the internet. At its peak, we'd have hundreds of people online at once, the chatbox was very active, and the View new posts page was always flowing with new posts. With a community of that size, of course there was bound to be drama, and boiiii did we have that in spades. People argued about the size of sigs, whether Kopa is canon, the removal of the chatbox, the overuse of MLP images, removing the World Issues forum, the Staff Elections, and various questionable decisions made by the MLK staff, to name a few. The drama was always there and often got really stupid, and admittedly I was usually involved one way or another.
I've made friends and enemies, had former friends become enemies, and former enemies turn into friends. I've been warned/banned more than a few times, trolled newbies, and gotten into many fights. I've also seen some of the worst things this fandom has to offer, such as predators and obsessive stalkers, that have truly turned me away from online fandoms in general. At the same time though, I've had some truly great moments here. It is on MLK that I've met some of my best friends ever, some of whom I'm sure will remain lifelong friends. You guys know who you are.
The MLK community is great too. Whoever you are, whether I've met you or not, you've contributed something here that makes MLK what it is. I appreciate the members that try to make this place active again and I do still enjoy posting whenever an interesting thread pop up. There are the posts that make me cringe of course, but I do get a laugh out of those too at the end of the day.
I have no idea how long this site will stick around, whether it'll shut down next year or several years from now. As much as I'd like to think I'll have moved on by then, I think today's anniversary proves that I'm stuck here till the end, whenever that is.
So, yeah. I have 10 stars under my name now and that means I am better than all of you
kthnxbai
