I am 100% in agreement with you. One just hits a certain age, and one knows what one thinks. One becomes more confident, more certain, and one focuses on different areas of life. It becomes hard to think only about the issues of youth–rampant IR, PUA, etc.–because one eventually moves on. Of course it’s still important, but we just concentrate on different things, things that are much more relevant to people at our stage of life.

Thanks for your comments!

Now, I’m a mother of a 10-month-old baby who’s half-Korean and half-Filipino. At this point, I probably outgrew the IR talk, and are more concerned with other issues like becoming a conscious consumer, raising a kid who’s culturally aware, and hearing about other relationship dynamics between AA couples. And all this PUA discussion wasn’t helping either.

In the end, I sought out sites that I had more in common with. It’s similar to dating, I guess. Back when I was in my 20s, I was open to meeting different people with different backgrounds, POVs, etc., even if it was a bad combination. I’d chalk it up for the sake of experience. Now that I’m older, I know what I like and what’s best for me, and I gravitate towards these attributes.

Perhaps when I have time, I’ll go back to 44s and reply to that thread…

I was actually looking around at the AA blogosphere this morning, and I saw this site: Asians Not Brainwashed by the Media. If you look at the forum section, they actually link to a lot of 44s posts. There’s also a Facebook page where lots of discussion takes place. Maybe this is just the 44s passing the torch to a new generation. (The founder of the ANBW Facebook group was a member of the 44s for a little while. I liked the guy, but he was a bit too young for the graying 44 population.). Virtually ALL of the ANBM discussion points have been mentioned on the 44s, the same way almost almost everything we on the 44s have said had also been said by Frank Chin in one form or another during the 70’s. It’s not original, but it’s a discussion that should take place among young people.

I met one of the old-time 44s in NYC this past summer, and he was a huge Asianguy contributor, as was the aforementioned “Seoulbrotherno1,” who was also a huge 44s contributor back in the day. We talked a bit about Asianguy–I don’t know the whole story, but the old-time 44 does. Asianguy was an awesome site, but as you mention, it probably just expanded past its useful life. Maybe the saying is right–empires come and go.

I totally remember Asianguy.com. I can’t believe you mentioned it, because I thought I was the only one who knew of that site (which may be why it’s no longer). When I visited that site, I thought to myself, “This is the way the AA internet presence needs to evolve into: subverting racism through humor. Transmuting negative experiences into positive.”

But I would imagine it was too much for this one guy to do. We’re all kind of going at this on our own, and this is partly why blogs and YouTube channels stop producing.

Militancy is great, but it only takes you so far. Wars were not meant to be protracted affairs. Even Malcolm X came around in the end.

I agree with you. I think that was the central issue with the 44s–do we grow with it, or do we just be thankful for all the awesome things that happened before? I also agree that it’s not the end of the world if a group comes to an end and we just remember it as a legacy. Actually, that was one thing I loved about the mini-dramas in Japan–they tell an awesome story, and then they just end. They know when to call it quits. It’s not like “90210,” which should’ve died permanently on the day Brenda left!

One thing that I thought I mentioned in the post (but somehow forgot) is that most readers of bigWOWO are older. Most of us are in our thirties or forties, which creates an entirely different atmosphere from the younger sites. I think the readers and commenters here helped shape my writing and thinking during my time off. So maybe this site is the next step in my own evolution. I guess being able to evolve is not a bad thing.

Anyway, good to see you here!

And FWIW, what you bring up goes for a lot of activists growing older. Even the ones that don’t get kids… it’s like something kicks in at middle age where you’re like, “eh, I don’t feel like going out and changing the world. I’m much more comfortable in this environment that I’m already familiar with.” Human instinct, really, nothing wrong with that. It’s just a matter of figuring out how you want to pass the torch with 44s, or if you’d rather have it remembered as a legacy.