local internet user discovers young people age and is very mad about it More seriously, I'd argue the 2020s are more noticeably removed from it's preceding decade than a lot of others because, y'know... A massive plague happened on the very first year of the decade. Culture has shifted in a lot of ways since then and if you haven't noticed then like, I kind of think you just haven't been paying attention.
It's all a matter perspective, I guess. Many of my favorite Sonic games came out in the 2010s, and I was generally having a fantastic time as a fan. Honestly, I felt quite a bit more comfortable being open about my fandom, because I wasn't worried about other fans tearing me apart for "enjoying Sonic wrong." I didn't feel like what I love about Sonic was under attack, but I often do now. On the other hand, I distinctly remember seeing fans who enjoyed things I don't really care for (serious stories, the old 3D games, Shadow, etc) come into community spaces back then and get torn to shreds, themselves. And I wished people would stop being so ruthless and vindictive. So from their perspective, that was probably at least as rough a time to be a fan as right now sometimes feels to me. I wish more people would recognize that you can enjoy the things about Sonic you like without tearing down the parts you don't, and that not everything the series does has to be to your tastes. I think most fans actually do know that, but the few that don't make it worse for everyone.
While online toxicity is still a major problem, one of the things I enjoy most about the shift in this era is how normalized and mainstream sonic fandom has become again. I'm an older millennial, but keeping up with Sonic content is now one of the surprisingly specific ways I can keep up with Gen Z and people younger than me. If I wear a cool piece of merchandise, it gets lots of compliments at conventions or even out in the general public, compared to the odd looks one may have gotten in the 2000s, or even the 90s. Sure, we argue about stupid things and have problems with how we treat one another at times, but the general public now treats Sonic like any other big media fandom, and that's a very good thing for us here, and the quality of both fan produced and official merch has gone through the roof. Even the worst parts of the franchise at least have people who can take them in good humor and just make memes endearing about them (06, Shadow 05). Cringey or bad behaviors now come down to specific acts from specific people, not a general love of the character. I now enjoy being an adult fan of the brand more than I did as a teen. That will probably fade with time again as the movie bump drops off, but it will settle to a much healthier spot as time goes on.
Sonic is actually pretty good when you don't have a bitch in your ear telling you that what you like sucks actually.
Yeah, thanks for the shot of positivity. I'm not saying I always or even often feel depressed that the things I like are being attacked, but when you're hit by a video that's like, "That period where you were happy was an EMBARRASSING WASTE," it does tend to knock you down for a second. But hey, that's exactly why I normally do my very best to stay away from that sort of rhetoric. Or to put it another way... Couldn't have said it any better!
Very late response, but we're not even halfway through the new 20's yet. Granted, the output has been pretty slow, but i think we should wait a few more years and we have a bit more content provided to us before we start properly rating this generation. Edit: You know what, let me throw my own two cents on 2010's Sonic while im at it. If the 2000's era might have become far too experimental for it's own good, the 2010's represented a shift in the pendulum where everything became far too stale. Generations was very good and Mania was excellent, but even these two games felt very formulaic and were clearly playing it safe, although for the latter it was very clearly a case of studio interference. Everything else aside from a few of the spinoffs im very eh on. Didn't care for Colors, Lost World was very average, Forces was mediocre, and Sonic Boom existed. I think Sonic Team is slowly trying to break out from the staleness if Frontiers is anything to go by, but they're still a little too trapped in their comfort zone considering how safe Superstars (i know Arzest were the primary developers but ST still had a role too) was as well. I'm hoping that SxS will be another step forward in breaking out of that zone and becoming far more ambitious with their game design.
