Quackity b4 he became part of MCYT,,,
I used to watch him play with aksually all the time, as well as do a lot of raiding streams (Hell, I was even PART of one of them. I was part of his yellow-penguin 'piss on animal jam' raid)
Exactly what the title said. What popular and mainstream things were you (and still are) a fan of before they hit the mainstream and exploded into popularity?
I'm admittedly curious about what things you guys are the OGs of.
Where do I start?
Mlp. I had been a fan since g3 and I watched the first season of g4 before it became famous.
Fnaf. I had came across the FNAF wiki back when it was just the first game out. It was the truly first horror related thing I was into.
Moomins. I liked it before the new series came out.
Watership Down.
Warrior cats. I started reading and roleplaying them(on the playground) when I was a child in 2004 🥴
Downton Abbey still isn't exactly huge but I've been a fan since I was eleven years old, and no one really seemed to care about the show until the sequel movie came out in 2019 and was recently released on Netflix. Still obsessed with the show LOL, new movie is coming out soon and I'm hyped!
I've also been watching 'The Crown' since the first season. I was eleven years old back when it came out as well! So I'd call myself an OG fan, as it wasn't half as popular back then! Both these shows were introduced to me by my mother, so we always watch any new content of it together.
I was nostalgic for tamagotchis and furbies the moment they fell out of style in maybe 2001 or so. It took the rest of the internet 20 years to hit that nostalgia timeframe.
What does that say about me? A lot of sad things probably, haha.
FNAF! As a person who was there from the beginning, I can tell you with confidence that it didn't always seem this chaotic /lh
Anime/manga
It's sorta surreal that it's everywhere now and it's so much easier to watch it on valid streaming services and even get merch! When I first got neck deep into anime/manga at 13-14 the only real "legit" way (for me in my country at young teen age) was through DVDs in HMV. Crunchyroll wasn't streaming legally until 2010, if you decide to try getting the manga of an anime you liked that was a gamble too, I remember going to that teeny tiny graphic novels section in a bookstore and hoping to find one of my favourites amongst the random selection. In some ways, it becoming popular has helped the negative impression on anime/manga fans but I admit I am glad more anime is being translated now and streamed so commonly. It has opened up the door for new fans especially when it's even on Netflix, now. Hell, the manga section in bookstores has grown FAR bigger than when I was young...it's crazy how times have dramatically changed.
FFXIV
Again, very surreal for me. I remember when it had far less of a playerbase and was known for it's failure before A Realm Reborn. Seeing it grow and bloom the way it has almost makes me teary-eyed. There have been many problems fixed, new ones have arisen but the fact this game is capable of changing and growing is part of the reason why it has survived this far.
Danganronpa
Might be because I am not up-to-date on trends but when did this sudden boom happen? Lol. It's sorta crazy to see all these people with Danganronpa icons and doing so much fanart right now my goodness. xD
Faeries, as in the non-Tinkerbell kind. I was so excited for the faerie boom in YA literature as a teen until... well, until I read ACoTaR and TMI. Kind of put me off of YA novels about faeries and faerie lore and I'm not sure I'm into adult faerie romances, especially since I solely read M/M novels now.
Of course, faeries have always been cool, but not mainstream. Elves technically were since LotR but one subset of Scandinavian and Germanic faerie mythology doesn't count for a whole mythology, right?
I'd like to say werewolves but they've always been mainstream so I'd have to've been born just as black-and-white movies were being made to call myself an OG fan.