It’s been most of a year since I began my journey into TRON fandom.

In many ways it’s been wonderful.

But one thing that’s jarring, and painful, is how many of the people who were active at the beginning are now… gone. Either mostly or completely.

It’s happened in various ways. Some have just gone quiet, or mostly quiet, on every forum where I saw them. Others have actively removed their online presence, either by deleting social media, or by blocking and unfollowing down to a smaller number of people they now interact with.

Some have made it clear why. Some have just ghosted, without explanation.

But from the variety of circumstances where I’ve seen it happen… it seems like there really isn’t one single cause.

Many different, unrelated ones have come up, with different individuals who have vanished. IRL problems, busy jobs, mental health issues, shifts in personal interests, fandom conflict, social overwhelm, a desire to separate themselves from places and people whom they associate with experiences they no longer want any reminders of.

But regardless of causes, it’s a loss that’s felt very sharply in such a small fandom, especially for someone like me whose interest focuses on a particularly small part of the fandom.

And since this is the first time in many, many years that I’ve been active in the social part of any fandom… I really have no reference point for how normal it is.

It feels very unlike my long-ago experience with Star Trek fans… but is that difference because TRON is a smaller fandom than Trek, or because of some difference in fandom culture, or because the whole world has changed in the long gap in time between my experience with the two?

It’s a very lonely feeling, in any case.

I miss lots of the fans I started this experience with. I accept their individual circumstances, even when I don’t totally understand.

But I also really, really appreciate all of you who are still around. And I am so very happy whenever I’ve made contact with someone new.

You all matter.