abunickabhi
Member
I have been observing the cubing world since 2008 and the cubing community from 2011ish. It used to be a beautiful experience to see puzzle solving happening in small pockets with very less exposure or resources. Cubers used to be helping, selfless, curious, explorative, not so rich, college students who had the zeal to enjoy speedsolving to the fullest. Breaking records was just the consequence of being long enough in the community. No one took pride and escalated their ego while holding a national record. Records used to be broken by big margins and often but the community was development focused or journey focused. Rather than being cut throat and result focused. Cubers used to just know each other online and would look forward to in person interaction and getting to know personalities of each other, while enjoying the same activity. Online identity used to not be fake or concealed, cubers were fine in disclosing their identities as they respected that proper communication can happen only if trust builds and there is no sorts of anonymity. Cubers used to introspect more and find their own weaknesses, rather than point weaknesses in others while being super confident and blind about themselves. The goat of that cubing era was just Feliks Zemdegs who has one of the most impressive personalities, showing humility can exist in such a dominating speedcuber. Cubing rivalries were fierce but there was no bad faith between cubers and their fanbases. Putting videos on YouTube used to be an art with discussing ideas being the agenda rather than collecting views and being the show off king. Active cubers were less, and most of them did not have a plan to continue giving time to it after life would get busy, which is perfectly reasonable.
Fast forward to today, many top cubers are talking about mental health and cubing. I feel if they choose the right approach of being competitive at that level and have the right mindset, the question of mental health disappears. Due to lack of attention span, and the culture to remain anonymous, hate, miscommunication, disrespect, acting without context, writing without thinking are enabled. The community's average age is smaller, which also breeds immaturity. The information age has made most overconfident about their knowledge base which leads to less meaningful exchange and groupism. Young kids in today's age are also more insecure which makes them impulsive and dismissive. Gaming and cubing cultures have also come close to each other which makes slangs, usage of cuss words, ghosting, blocking, online bullying seem ok and just. These activities are enabled by many cubers with gaming mindset ganging up and creating a illusionary net to justify their line of actions. Fake framing tactics like victim card play, drawing conclusions prematurely, gaslighting situations, selectivity, manipulations are how conversations go bad in today's age. Rather than resolving things in private with good faith and good soft effective communication and mutual respect. Sometimes I do feel if I did not have the stubborness to understand 5-cycles fully, my way of cubing would have been inclusive with today's cuber, but I feel the issue is agnostic of my personal pursuit to map of interesting cases and mnemonics.
This thought process is written just with an hour's thought of mine. I have a lot more to add to it, especially the transition period when I felt cubing culture started to get sour. I did not put these thoughts into gpt as I wanted to express how my brain exactly feels. I won't be quitting cubing anytime soon even if the toxicity keeps on rising and becomes truly unbearable.
I might be wrong about observing this downfall, but I do feel it is starting to get harder to find the willpower to continue with immaturity being a "majority" in the community.
Fast forward to today, many top cubers are talking about mental health and cubing. I feel if they choose the right approach of being competitive at that level and have the right mindset, the question of mental health disappears. Due to lack of attention span, and the culture to remain anonymous, hate, miscommunication, disrespect, acting without context, writing without thinking are enabled. The community's average age is smaller, which also breeds immaturity. The information age has made most overconfident about their knowledge base which leads to less meaningful exchange and groupism. Young kids in today's age are also more insecure which makes them impulsive and dismissive. Gaming and cubing cultures have also come close to each other which makes slangs, usage of cuss words, ghosting, blocking, online bullying seem ok and just. These activities are enabled by many cubers with gaming mindset ganging up and creating a illusionary net to justify their line of actions. Fake framing tactics like victim card play, drawing conclusions prematurely, gaslighting situations, selectivity, manipulations are how conversations go bad in today's age. Rather than resolving things in private with good faith and good soft effective communication and mutual respect. Sometimes I do feel if I did not have the stubborness to understand 5-cycles fully, my way of cubing would have been inclusive with today's cuber, but I feel the issue is agnostic of my personal pursuit to map of interesting cases and mnemonics.
This thought process is written just with an hour's thought of mine. I have a lot more to add to it, especially the transition period when I felt cubing culture started to get sour. I did not put these thoughts into gpt as I wanted to express how my brain exactly feels. I won't be quitting cubing anytime soon even if the toxicity keeps on rising and becomes truly unbearable.
I might be wrong about observing this downfall, but I do feel it is starting to get harder to find the willpower to continue with immaturity being a "majority" in the community.
