why don't people roleplay anymore? and by roleplaying, I mean roleplay roleplay.

when I got into the cute hobby, people were dedicated to their characters and left as much of their ownselves aside as they could. that's what roleplaying means, playing a role! being completely somebody else! I feel like it has changed. nowadays roleplaying means that you are yourself behind another face and just chat around, barely making any actual roleplaying effort. in my opinion it needs a bit more than just picking the face and knowing their backstory. for example, I love thinking of what their personality is like and showing it in the way they talk and do things and react to things. it's exciting and not at all the same as picking a face that then has the same exact personality as the roleplayer.

I remember when I first discovered kpop roleplaying after having discovered kpop fanfiction. I already thought that it was cool writing stories but now I could write it with multiple people! it was so much fun! by this, I hope the ones who only know the current roleplay culture understand what it was like before. it was about writing stories between characters.

and I want to make sure that I'm not here to bash anyone and I don't want the culture to die. I think it's a great way of making friends but it's also bittersweet because I feel like that's what is has become. "making friends." back in the day we strictly played the role, not getting it confused with our own feelings and life and such. we might have become friends between the roleplayers. but what happened in character, stayed in character. and vice versa. and then we wrote more story for the character. I believe that there's a negative side to what it has become now instead. like I said, people are playing themselves behind another face and so they also get personally offended and might cause ooc drama. it's not roleplaying, in my opinion. back in the day a little ic drama wasn't bad because it was "scripted". no roleplayers' feelings were actually hurt. I mean think about it.. if you basically roleplay as yourself, with just another face, and somebody rejects your love you would take it somewhat personally. "what is wrong with me?"

I'm just missing the "good old times".. maybe I'm the only one. I don't even wish for much. just that the unnecessary chat culture would step aside a little and make space for the actual roleplaying and memory-making and character development. and especially the mixing of ooc and ic together... I mean, I face so many roleplayers not knowing at all when to put things in brackets or such. the character and the roleplayer used to be two completely different things. we would sometimes get to know each other a bit by using the ooc brackets and sometimes we discussed about our characters and plots and such in ooc brackets too. just like it used to be that the acts were expressed in between the stars ** or // or other marks. it all used to be clear. now it feels like moving more and more towards a chatting forum type where people just anonymously chat with each other. anyone else thinking the same way..?

also, I want to clarify that I don't myself like using paras but I would prefer them too over the chat culture. by this I mean that I wouldn't even ask much if I could change something. I just miss making the memories between characters by actually roleplaying, not sending each other memes...

thanks for tuning in to my ted talk haha! this was just an opinion that I felt the need to express and to probably find somebody else who felt the same way. I understand that the world changes and surely there's space for all kinds of roleplayers. if only I could choose a place that was more "old-fashioned" but they all seem to be the same now.