Viewpoint Age in RP

[lizardanya]

Looking at the demographics on this site kind of lead me down an interesting thought process and I thought it could be an interesting discussion to have.

This website is majority adults, and I understand why: part of it is the fact that this is a forum, and most people still hanging out on forums or actively looking for them are usually those who witnessed the time of the internet where forums were a big thing, before most people moved to social media and such. I know that's the experience for me: when I was growing up, my primary internet activity was on a forum (one that's long gone now), that's where I started rping. The reason I looked for a rp forum in adulthood is because I grew up on one. But this leads to an strange demographic bias, resulting in this place not really being a space accessible to minors.

I completely understand this as well, I am 20 now and I know that's still young but I'm just not comfortable rping with minors, especially with how many rps are romantically oriented. I honestly side-eye any adult willing to do a romantic rp with a minor. I think I'd be more comfortable rping with a minor in a group setting, if there was a large amount of adults in it as well, but even then I completely understand why those making group rps make them 18+ anyway. As a facilitator, it's partially your responsibility to ensure the space you're creating is safe for minors if you're letting them in, and I completely understand the people who don't want that kind of responsibility. Also, I'm sure my comfort with interacting with minors on the internet will change as I age, as I said, I'm still fairly young, so there's a big difference between someone my age talking to a 17 year old and someone who's, for example, 35 talking to a 17 yo on the internet. It's just a natural aspect of aging.

At the same time I can't help but sympathize with any minor who's wanting to rp: even I sometimes get frustrating when seeing "21+" on rps, thinking "well, I'm only one year younger, what's the difference?" but I completely understand that a line has to be drawn somewhere and that as I age I might very well also be uncomfortable interacting with 20 year olds on the internet one day. It just seems so hard for minors to find community and participate in a hobby like this, a hobby I probably would've never gotten into if I didn't start young. I find forums like this so useful specifically because it's designed for a niche, and it's much harder to find or carve out the same kind of niche on a platform not really designed for it.

This brings me to a larger point: adults kind of inherently have an easier time making their own spaces for hobbies because they're the ones who have the disposable income, time and organizational skills to make websites, forums etc. In order to make a space like this for minors, some adult would have to dedicate their time and effort for it, and it's much harder to do that, because creating a space for minors means you have to bear the responsibility of making it a safe space for minors. It requires more moderation, more motivation, considering it can't really be something you do for yourself and your community, really. And I completely understand people who don't want that kind of responsibility.

I got into rp specifically on a kids forum: I was around ten, rping with other ten year olds or people in my age group. There were adults who's actual job was making the space safe for me to be in. The forum died off with its lack of popularity and need, really, and so that space was gone. This happened to a lot of forums aimed at kids. It's kind of a shame, really, how minors no longer really have dedicated spaces for them to speak to other minors and specifically, engage in rp with other minors. Social media nowadays exists as a space for anyone of any age group to inhabit, and I think this hurts both parties: instead of having dedicated spaces with people whose job it is to make sure minors are safe, individual adults now have to set boundaries and ensure minors aren't coming to their spaces. This forum isn't really for minors, and as an adult, I'm okay with that. But I also can't help but feel sad that minors can't really have niches for themselves anymore.

Anyway, that was my long diatribe on how sad it is that kids forums and such are dying out. What are your guys' thoughts?

 

[Ayama]

Hadn't really thought of it that way before, but I can definitely relate. I also grew up on forum RP on a site (long gone) specifically for kids. It didn't occur to me that, given how dangerous the internet is for minors, I was really lucky to have been able to start this hobby in a safe space with other people my age and adults dedicated to keeping that space safe, before I grew up and was ready to progress to sites that were more, well, 'grown up' (for lack of a better word).

I've definitely seen threads on here before made by minors who were frustrated that most or all of the RPs they wanted to join had an 18+ only rule, so I see the frustration. And like you I can see why most adults would be uncomfortable feeling like they have to be responsible for the safety of minors in an online setting like this. That being said, RPN has explicit rules banning erotic content and mandating content-related age limits for RPs, so I do believe the site as a whole to be set up in way that's designed to make age-appropriate RP accessible to anyone.

As a group roleplayer whose RPs never have a romance-heavy focus beyond the sort of thing you would usually see in a PG-13 movie, I've never personally felt the need to set age limits in my RPs or look specifically for 18+ only, however I definitely understand and approve of any adult RP creators on here who, for reasons related to content &/or safety, choose to put those limits in place. And even though I believe some people do it more for reasons of comfort than anything else, and that as a minor it's frustrating to be cut out of things you wish to participate in, having people on here be perhaps overly cautious or sensitive about such things is definitely better than the opposite.

 

[Dark_creativity]

You've hit the nail on the head lizardanya, children's spaces are kind of dying and it's pretty crappy. That being said, there's probably a large population of minors on the site who lie about their age in order to gain more RP partners or join 18+ threads. Especially since RPN bans NSFW / ERP content. So ultimately, I don't think there's any way to really stop it.

 

[lizardanya]

You've hit the nail on the head lizardanya, children's spaces are kind of dying and it's pretty crappy. That being said, there's probably a large population of minors on the site who lie about their age in order to gain more RP partners or join 18+ threads. Especially since RPN bans NSFW / ERP content. So ultimately, I don't think there's any way to really stop it.

That's probably true. That still sucks but I guess in the end it'd be more dangerous for minors to be open about their age especially in like, group rps that use discord for OOC. I can see that being a really easy gate way for predators. Still sucks that people violate others' boundaries like that, but in the end it's really hard to actually control these things

 

[Dark_creativity]

See and that's the problem, if you identify yourself as a minor you've basically put a target on your back. But yeah, I'd imagine every website in the world is inundated with minors pretending to be adults. I think everyone growing up on the internet did it at some point. And I mean, even if you ask for ID, there's a chance a kid could just borrow their parent's, so it is pretty hard to control. Wish the stuff we had growing up was still around because then there would be a more obvious solution. I used to actually RP on an app as a minor that got overrun with adults and a loooot of kids and teens had to leave. Today's teens have tough choices to make when using the internet.

 

[lizardanya]

That's so true. Honestly, I believe in solutions that target the problem rather than try to put in more gatekeeping. Because malicious actors will always exist, and they will always find loopholes, and putting in more and more measures will just lead to overreaches of privacy (it took me so long to give my id to youtube to view age gated content because it just seems so invasive to ask that of me). Most kids aren't malicious, most kids don't actually care that much about hanging around like, 30 year olds, if there were spaces where they could just hang around people their age that share their interests they'd probably take it in a heartbeat. The internet has been getting more and more centralized, everything runs on a for profit basis and that means every website, social media, app, whatever wants to capture as many demographics as they can. The only ones who can really carve out niches anymore are adults who have an interest in what they're making, and that leaves so many kids and teens stranded without a way to find places for them. I think that's largely the entire reason why there's been so much 'conflict' between minors and adults lately, like, the problem isn't 'nasty kids who want to intrude on adult spaces', it's not even really the adults who insist on building up presence everywhere and anywhere, it's the fact that nowadays the internet is heavily monetized and that means websites don't really benefit from target demographics anymore.

Like, wouldn't it be so much better if instead of huge social media platforms where regulating content was up to the individuals, we had dedicated platforms targeted at specific people? Adults wouldn't have to worry about constantly moderating their community to avoid minors from getting involved in adult topics, and minors could have a place to mingle with their own age demographics. It wouldn't be perfect, by any means, and minors lying about their age to get into adult stuff will exist forever, but at least then moderation wouldn't be community based.

I just hate to see how hostile the internet is becoming to minors. This isn't to say that it was completely safe in the past, but at least there was so much stuff targeted specifically at kids. I honestly from the bottom of my heart sympathize with the children that are growing up in this day and age, with the way the internet is being monetized at their expense in so many ways.

 

[nerdy tangents]

See I always find topics like this baffling. Because I started roleplaying at 18 on a site aimed at 10 year olds.

The site was even stricter than RPN but also had no problems with predators or toxic behavior.

As such it was perfectly fine for adults and children to roleplay together because roleplaying wasn’t sexualized. Much like this site you couldn’t do erotic roleplays, although again the rules were even more strict than they are here.

So by the time that site kinda dried up (not necessarily because it shut down, they just didn’t have a large roleplay section) and I went out into other sites I realized that there are a lot of people sexualizing roleplay in the broader internet.

That’s when I started to see the whole “I like to write with X age over Y age” thing. It was because people had this idea that roleplays were inherently sexual in nature (and to be fair the site I went to had massive amounts of erotic roleplays on it, so they weren’t necessarily wrong).

But that’s ultimately what pushed me out of that site and had me track down this one. I feel like it’s a nice mix of “No writing porn on our website” and “You can use curse words if ya want.”

So it doesn’t feel quiet as juvenile as my first site but it isn’t a toxic hellscape like my second site.

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Which is my long winded way to say I think this is actually a pretty kid friendly space.

In terms of kids being welcome to write here and safe in the knowledge there aren’t any pedophiles lurking behind the computer to lure them into writing porn.

No the real problem folks is a lot simpler : we are getting old.

I am literally old enough to have children in their teens. Their parents are my age mates.

So yeah I’m not writing with minors. Not cuz I have anything against them or I’m worried about romance or anything like that.

I am a middle aged woman with middle aged woman interests. I don’t know a lot of youngsters that want to write about the international education system or sustainable farming. But hey if a 14-17 year old does want to write about those things, hit me up.

 

[lizardanya]

So yeah I’m not writing with minors. Not cuz I have anything against them or I’m worried about romance or anything like that.

I am a middle aged woman with middle aged woman interests. I don’t know a lot of youngsters that want to write about the international education system or sustainable farming. But hey if a 14-17 year old does want to write about those things, hit me up.

yeah i never said it wasn't a 'kid friendly space'. it's perfectly fine for kids to be here and rp on here. i said it wasn't accessible for kids. that is not because the website is designed for it to not be, it's because the community it harbors is adults who don't want to rp with kids. which as i said is perfectly fine. but if 90% of rps on the website say "18+, i don't wanna rp with minors' it's not accessible to minors. yes, a huge part of this is because general interests are largely affected by age and people just naturally find it more satisfying to mingle with people in their age group, but that doesn't change the plain fact.

for a vast majority of minors that go onto this site it's extremely hard to find a rp, because they will scroll through pages and pages of adults looking to rp with other adults. that means it's not accessible. simple as.

 

[nerdy tangents]

yeah i never said it wasn't a 'kid friendly space'. it's perfectly fine for kids to be here and rp on here. i said it wasn't accessible for kids. that is not because the website is designed for it to not be, it's because the community it harbors is adults who don't want to rp with kids. which as i said is perfectly fine. but if 90% of rps on the website say "18+, i don't wanna rp with minors' it's not accessible to minors. yes, a huge part of this is because general interests are largely affected by age and people just naturally find it more satisfying to mingle with people in their age group, but that doesn't change the plain fact.

for a vast majority of minors that go onto this site it's extremely hard to find a rp, because they will scroll through pages and pages of adults looking to rp with other adults. that means it's not accessible. simple as.

By that logic it’s not accessible to adults either. As the vast majority of adults aren’t finding partners for various reasons either.

It can be lack of shared interests, lack of time, etc.

It’s not a phenomena that is specific to minors. It’s a phenomena that is kinda of tied to roleplaying as a hobby.

Everyone has their own particular niche interest and it’s a long slog to find someone who shares your particular interest.

And it’s not like people aren’t talking to children on the forums or ignoring them in groups. As a general rule the only time age is an issue is in 1x1s specifically.

And that’s a crap shoot for everybody. It’s not like me being 30+ automatically makes it easier for me to find partners than someone under 21.

 

[lizardanya]

By that logic it’s not accessible to adults either. As the vast majority of adults aren’t finding partners for various reasons either.

It can be lack of shared interests, lack of time, etc.

It’s not a phenomena that is specific to minors. It’s a phenomena that is kinda of tied to roleplaying as a hobby.

Everyone has their own particular niche interest and it’s a long slog to find someone who shares your particular interest.

And it’s not like people aren’t talking to children on the forums or ignoring them in groups. As a general rule the only time age is an issue is in 1x1s specifically.

And that’s a crap shoot for everybody. It’s not like me being 30+ automatically makes it easier for me to find partners than someone under 21.

that's not what accessibility means. it is inaccessible specifically because they are excluded on the basis of belonging to a specific demographic. "accessible" =/= easy. being fundamentally and explicitly excluded from 90% of content on a demographic basis =/= finding it hard to find something that matches a varied set of criteria.

 

[Megatron2024]

more young people roleplay then old people.........
they mostly do it on minecraft..........
and on gta5 online..........
and in vrchat..........
and in applevr rpgchat.......

 

[Jannah]

We've reached a point in society where children are often seen as a burden more than anything else. I could go on an entire rant about that, but I digress. I do think it plays a role, though, in why not a lot of spaces strictly for minors exist. It's not really something I thought much about myself either as I'm old, in my 30's, and I started RPing on a site that was not even strictly dedicated to RP (Neopets).

This being said, though, I think it's natural for RPers to prefer sticking to their own age group. They're more likely to find partners with common interests and life experience that way. I think a lot of the 18+ rules are not so much because of R rated content necessarily, but because there may be underlying themes in the story that are complex and beyond the scope of life experience for most minors. This is often the case with my own RP's as I don't even enjoy writing smut (not that I would on this site anyway as it's against the ToS).

Is there an easy way to remedy this problem? I'm not so sure as you said yourself that setting up dedicated spaces for minors takes resources, such as money. On the bright side, however, few group RP's have 18+ rules. Those are usually safe for minors to join if they're struggling to find 1x1's.

 

[lizardanya]

more young people roleplay then old people.........
they mostly do it on minecraft..........
and on gta5 online..........
and in vrchat..........
and in applevr rpgchat.......

this is true but none of those spaces are really designed for roleplay nor is it easy to build/find a dedicated roleplaying community on there

 

[Megatron2024]

this is true but none of those spaces are really designed for roleplay nor is it easy to build/find a dedicated roleplaying community on there

if you say so?

thats how young people roleplay in todays times.........
young people have changed roleplaying in 2024..........
just go to youtube and search 'gta5 roleplay' or 'gta5 police roleplay'
or do the same with the other games.......


and don't get me started on nintendo roleplaying games, like animal crossing......

 

[Steve Jobs]

Kid-friendly spaces are dying out, mostly because kids don't make money. Compared to earlier years where you had tons of MMORPGs, fan forums, guilds, and avatar creator sites, the current landscape is void of any dedicated, quality writing communities. Anything that's still around has been enshittified or lacks an active user base (Neopets, Quotev, etc) so minors have to often go on websites that cater to an older audience like Tumblr and Twitter or trawl through random forums. You can look to Discord sure, but even as an adult you gotta pray that a server isn't full of weirdos.

When you mix that with the demographic itself getting older, I can empathize with their frustrations. I think the answer to this problem is fostering an active, sustainable community. Whether that means starting a website, Discord server, or simply more roleplays, forming connections helps with longevity and growth.

In my recent experience, this forum and GaiaOnline appear to be the only forums with a fair number of minor friendly RPs so if nowhere else, this is a good place to start.

 

[Megatron2024]

Kid-friendly spaces are dying out, mostly because kids don't make money. Compared to earlier years where you had tons of MMORPGs, fan forums, guilds, and avatar creator sites, the current landscape is void of any dedicated, quality writing communities. Anything that's still around has been enshittified or lacks an active user base (Neopets, Quotev, etc) so minors have to often go on websites that cater to an older audience like Tumblr and Twitter or trawl through random forums. You can look to Discord sure, but even as an adult you gotta pray that a server isn't full of weirdos.

When you mix that with the demographic itself getting older, I can empathize with their frustrations. I think the answer to this problem is fostering an active, sustainable community. Whether that means starting a website, Discord server, or simply more roleplays, forming connections helps with longevity and growth.

In my recent experience, this forum and GaiaOnline appear to be the only forums with a fair number of minor friendly RPs so if nowhere else, this is a good place to start.

gaiaonline is still active with Bartor Town roleplay forums???

 

[ScatheAriiasqDrayceon]

I'm gonna be honest I wasn't actually expecting someone who wasn't a minor to like. Actually talk on this topic. I'm kinda surprised you guys even noticed, actually.

I can see a definite sway here with the age of this specific thread so I'm gonna speak my own experience.

I've been rping with people 20+ years older than me for years, and have only ever had a problem once I migrated here. Interests change as you age, yes, but at some point they do intersect (I'm in the same fandom for the same reasons as people that are my parents' age). And I mostly think that's because... no one on the forum I used to go to even so much as acknowledged the fact we had ages. We weren't doing romance rps (certainly not erp) it was just a silly superhero roleplay, and no one really even noticed difference in maturity cause we all had basically the same writing level.

The Host moderated the thread and kept everything in order (which I understand is a uniquely Group RP experience), and the general rule was: "don't ask; don't tell." 'Cause that was the state of internet safety at the time. Don't say anything on the internet that would give away even the tiniest bit of your demographic, and honestly those were some of the best rp years of my life.

I outgrew the site as I slowed down writing and moved here when I couldn't keep up, and that was actually the first time I'd even seen age mentioned in an interest check. Honestly, I was kinda surprised you guys even talked about your ages or being people off-screen.

The reason I say this is to illustrate how much of a slap in the face it was to suddenly be barred from what I saw as my community from something I'd never experienced before and to outline kinda where I came from. I don't hold it against the people who want to rp with people their own age, I mean I get being uncomfortable rping with a minor with the current state of the internet, and I've never lied about my age in a way that would impact another person (jokes like "oh yeah I'm like 40 and work an office job and you should see how many papercuts I got from our printer having a seizure today" notwithstanding), because that's just... needlessly mean.

What I find odd is that you guys even know whether someone's a minor or above drinking age or whatever. Like, where I came from that was just... not information we had. We didn't want it. You write okay and jive with the group? Cool. You're being annoying? get out. That was just the way things worked.

And yeah, being a minor on this site is really, really hard, actually. I don't even open the 1x1 threads unless I'm feeling particularly bad about myself because there are so many people in there I'd love to RP with and talk about their character philosophy, but I just can't so I don't even check. Even group rps are getting some of the age bar people. I noticed a strong uptick in it a few months ago and it's since died back down, but that was the first time I'd seen a 18+ harry potter rp, certainly. I know it's nothing personal, and I'm not really getting to my point, but it's... weird. I know internet predators are a severe problem, but even just identifying yourself as a minor is already giving it away, so honestly I find there's not really any point in even saying what age group you're even in, and the disintegration of "don't ask; don't tell" I think is a big reason the 18+ markers even exist. I checked back on my old site and they've spread there, too. I'd never even seen that before.

I agree that adults need their own spaces on the internet. I think it would be good for the ecology. But I don't necessarily think that most of the internet should have an 18+ anything on it. Like... RpN is for all intents and purposes, teenager friendly, it's just the way the community works that makes it... less so. Really, making an age-segregated space in general is kinda... odd to me. Like, it's not bad to be cordial with a minor, that's just. Talking to a person who doesn't really have rights yet.

Anyway that was my somewhat-winding ramble. I find the 1x1 forums strange, and somewhat hostile, but some of your 18+ guys are spreading over to Groups and it's a little bit annoying especially when you're doing a rp literally about teenagers, but who am I to stand in the way of someone's comfort?