The dormant person feeling is a feeling I find myself having on the Internet often. Casually browsing the Internet, I find myself reading through threads and websites that don’t look like they’ve been updated since 2009, or 2010, or ${currentYear - 10}. Profiles that haven’t posted in so long either.
When I see just how long ago their last activity was, it gives me the feeling, which I can only describe as a mix of concern, curiosity, and empathy. In my head, I go “I wonder how they are doing now”, and “are they alive and well?”. Sometimes I find myself “investigating” them or looking them up to see if they are still alive just so I can satiate this feeling of mine.
Do other people experience the dormant person feeling too? Is it wrong to have such a feeling? But hey, if I feel the dormant person feeling, it does show that I do have empathy for strangers, a good quality, I suppose.
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I sometimes get that feeling when I run across someone’s personal blog, and it hasn’t seen updates in quite a long while (yeah, like in ten years or so). However, as with most of the other replies here, I tend to just assume they’ve lost interest and moved on.
I’ve had some blogs like that myself, and I’m certainly still alive (I hope, lol!) Some of them already gone with the sites themselves like Multiply, if you ever remember that, also, Friendster blogs—all this in the late 2000’s and early 2010’s. Then there’s some Wordpress blogs I used for a while back in 2015~2018. I just got lazy, lost interest, and so left them in the dust.
Thus, yeah, I simply assume they’re doing just fine, and have just moved on with their lives.
However, there’s a different feeling for when I browse the blog/social media profile of someone I definitely knew has already passed on. It hits different. It’s like a frozen snapshot of their life. Their final post just there. A lot of times, the final post doesn’t even indicate anything. Their lives just went on as normal until it didn’t, and it just hits me differently than someone who I would just assume have just stopped posting.
I dont. I get a sense of happiness when I read through old threads and blogs because I’m basically looking through a portal to that year. Its like reading an old book it gives you perspective of how people felt at that moment in history.
I used to get that feeling now and then, not a need to “investigate” them, but a small sense of lonliness seeing that a place that was bustling with conversation and community isn’t anymore.
I think it lessens as you age though.
There are countless situations in life that can cause people to move on from a group, hobby, social circle, forum, etc. I’d argue that most of them are perfectly normal and healthy, like having kids, moving, finding new hobbies, changing jobs, life events changing free time, making new friends, finding a new partner, etc.
Sometimes people find their way back, sometimes they don’t.
People don’t stay the same forever, so their interests and how they spend their time won’t either. I think life would be very boring if that wasn’t the case.
I don’t. I assume they’ve gotten older and have less time to fuck around online and prefer it that way.
I do this with old musicians. I listen to a lot of Indy type stuff and ill see they haven’t released in years… It makes me wonder. At the same time the entertainment industry and life is pretty bullshit so good on them if they left it.
Also old YouTuber before things were viral and completely soulless.
Yes I also wonder about some musicians. Sometimes they had success with one album, release another and then silence. Sometimes only one album exists. For example Gotye, but I found a video of him basically saying he didn’t like the business and just stopped.
On the Youtube Side, I hope Jake Roper of Vsauce3 is doing fine. He had cancer then I think it was better but now it’s been a year again since his last video.
I’m really big on indie musicians too, can relate. One indie musician I found had their last release in March 2024. YouTube put one of their in my feed from 8 years ago (which made me investigate). I told another indie musician I know about the person and it turns out that they have cancer. They are still alive and battling it, and I really hope they get better soon.
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I come across ancient threads all the time when looking up tech problems. Sometimes you find still working solutions amidst the broken links and defunct profiles, other times it’s DenverCoder9.
I’ve got ancient blogs and comments left on ebaumsworld from when the internet and I were still children. Every now and again I like to revisit the site and see the ghosts of the era. It’s probably been 5 or so years since my last visit. It’s a particular feeling for sure.
I bet the Germans or the Japanese have a word for that feeling that can’t be translated in any other language.
In Filipino, it’s usyoso
That’s just the act of lurking, it doesn’t say anything about the feelings you get while lurking.
I am a Tagalog speaker too (but I had to look usyoso up in the dictionary lol)
Interesting. It’s both the feeling and the act for me.
The way I’ve been using (and heard it being used) is more about the act. For example: “Nakiki-usyoso ka pa dyan! Pumasok ka na nga!” (“You’re even spectating over therel! Come right back in, you!”)
There’s another word, usisa, which I would characterize as more like “to investigate, to look into” but is also akin to usyoso in a way I just can’t put my finger on. I think it got conflated with usyoso as the colloquial uzi (from usisero/a, “someone who is overly-curious”) took hold (example: "Uy! Wag ka ngang uzi! Kita mo na ngang nag-aamok na yang si Mang Torio eh. Pumasok ka na dito, bago ka pa madamay dyan!" [“Hey! Stop being an onlooker! You already see Mang Torio running amok. Come back inside before you get involved.”])
I’d use neither to refer to the feeling of “wanting to find out about someone I’m spectating on” though. Personally, I’d just use something like na-intriga (“got intrigued/curious”). For example: “Na-intriga ako dun sa nabasa kong blog kagabi. Ano na kayang nangyari sa kanya. Huling post nya 2020 pa, tapos depressing pa yung post.” (“I’m curious about the blog I read last night. I wonder what happened to them. Their last post was on 2020, and the post itself was depressing.”)
