I've been a part of the ABDL community for a long time.
I started blogging in 2006, on MySpace, and - after a series of unfortunate interactions with community creepers - stopped blogging a few months later.
I started back up again here on Blogger in late 2008 - I'd made a ton of friends on Aby.com, but it had begun to look like that website was about to bite the dust. I didn't want to lose all of my online connections to this world, so I registered a domain name, published a few diaper stories, posted my new link across the sites ruling the diaper sphere at the time, and carved myself what I hoped would be a permanent niche in the community.
I had no idea that it would take off and find a following of hundreds of regular readers - it was really just a place I could connect with some dope-ass people I'd met, at first.
But over the years I made a shit ton of connections via my blog. More on that later.
Our community is fragmented in a ton of different ways.
Our original sites have gone by the wayside. DPF.com, once the only place for abies to play, is for sale - I've heard that they're asking more than $100K, since hose original three-letter domains fetch a pretty penny, it seems. Aby.com may one day make a comeback, but it's been dormant for almost as long as I've been blogging, and continues to be so. DiaperSpace.com, once the rising star of the ABDL world, now sells fashions for her. RUPadded.com and ABDLC.com went to a pay model and don't seem to have much of a share in the community anymore. Diaper-Bois.com seems to be holding on strong - their forums seem to be more popular than ever - but it's tougher to connect on there, for me at least. Most of the other diaper sites that once held promise out there are essentially non-existent now, at least in my little corner of the diaper universe.
Our community has primarily turned to a few non-diaper websites for most of our community-building, really: Fetlife, Tumblr, and Facebook seem to boast the biggest 'diaper communities' around.
Tumblr is where it's at these days - endless diaper pictures and videos, all free, including some very original content from a few people without profiles anywhere else. I love Tumblr for my perving needs, and I've made a few connections there, but without the ability to search for local ABDL members it kind of sucks for making connections - if people didn't recognize me from my blog or profiles elsewhere I'm not sure I'd get many messages from local people. Am I falling in love with a diapered booty from Orange County, FL or Orange County, CA? Who the fuck knows, on Tumblr at least.
And, with rumors of porn sweeps in the future, that may not last forever, either.
I'm on Facebook, also. I have a real profile, of course, but I have a much-less-used diaper profile, as well. On the real profile, I've joined a few 'secret groups' for ABDLs - groups that aren't able to be seen by other Facebook friends who aren't members of the 'secret groups'. I enjoy checking those out on the daily, and it's interesting to see the 'real life' behind some of the diapered ass I've been checking out all of these years. I've made quite a few diaper friends on my real-life profile - all people smart enough to keep diapers out of my real-life posts, of course - but it's fun to occasionally try to throw a dual-meaning post at everyone and see who gets it.
On my diaper persona profile I mostly look at stolen diaper pictures ripped from the Tumblr profiles of the people I'm getting to know on my real Facebook profile. Very few connections made, but I have talked to some people who would never dream of connecting this part of themselves with their real Facebook or - God forbid - actually joining a diaper site.
I mention all of this drivelous info because of a recent interaction I had. I've been fortunate enough to meet someone local to Orlando, and was surprised by how little he knew about the community at large.
His view of community-based sites was based off of his first joining them as an adolescent. He was, of course, hit on by a series of diaper daddies, each one raunchier than the first, and at such a young age that was a rude awakening to us. It became apparent to me that he didn't see any value in them now, something I found sad, because I remember when I viewed them as the lifeline of our community.
He'd reached out to me on Tumblr, but barely had a profile there. He told me that he would never put his pictures on Tumblr because it was "a place where stolen pictures continuously make the rounds, and can never be deleted." I couldn't disagree with him. In his mind, Tumblr was a place where his diaper persona and his personal Tumblr could easily collide. I explained that the chances of that were slim, and he countered with rumors that Tumblr might one day introduce a 'see local posts' feature, perhaps even retroactive to prior posts. I explained that would probably be an opt-in, and he countered me by saying "probably" wasn't good enough. I was sad, again, because it occurred to me that his pictures would probably explode in popularity, and yet he was afraid to even post them.
Facebook was, for him, a place to connect with friends, family, and college friends. I told him about the 'secret groups', and even showed him a glimpse of what they looked like in my feed, but he was adamant that diapers wouldn't come close to his profile.
"What if an adult diaper ad shows up in my feed?" he asked me, horrified. I had to chuckle, because I remember that happening to me, and how, at one point in my life, just the sight of an adult diaper ad would make my face red as fuck.
So, in other words, no Facebook.
He'd contacted me on Tumblr, from a practically-blank profile. I'd been suspicious straight away, and asked for his "other profiles," the question that lead to his explanations about why he'd abandoned the community sites and didn't use Tumblr very much.
He did tell me that he'd reached out to me when he was a member on Diaper-Bois, and we'd talked there at length. My messages aren't saved forever, and I couldn't remember it.
He also claimed to have emailed me from a now-defunct Gmail. He couldn't remember the account. That actually happens to me a lot - I even have friends on Facebook who created an email account, messaged me, deleted it later, and still recall the details of the conversation. I've had hundreds of email convos over eight years of blogging, so for me the memories don't come as quickly.
He also thought he may have liked some of my stuff on Fetlife, but couldn't remember if he'd liked it or just viewed it.
With all of this in mind I started searching. I went through my Fetlife as far back as I could. I searched for all kinds of terms in my email. And I for old Diaper-Bois notifications in my email, too. I was determined to figure out my history with this kid.
I never did figure it out. But as I scrolled, I had a realization - I've missed a LOT of connections over eight years of blogging.
I looked through email conversations that started off deep and just trailed off, either because I was too busy to keep them going or because we ran out of things to say and I, despite having authored hundreds of blog entries through the years, couldn't think of a sentence that might keep the conversation going.
Worse, for me: I found profiles for at least two people on Fetlife and Diaper-Bois who I realized I'm friends with on my real-life Facebook profile - people I've thought I'd like to get to know better a few times - and then realized that they tried to get to know me better on these different diaper sites and, because I was busy or just slacking, I'd left them with the impression that I wasn't interested. Or, in one case, meant to respond to their message but never did.
As I read through more and more I was sort of amazed by the number of messages I've gotten over the years. I searched my Gmail for "Orlando" and there were messages from dozens of people - people who live in Orlando, people who were visiting Orlando, and people who would be visiting Orlando in the future. I almost replied to one message and then saw that it was from 2009. Who waits seven years to reply to an email? I put that one in the 'missed connections' column, and was sad by how many others I saw that probably had the chance to become amazing friendships but instead just became a conversation that, eventually, trailed off.
Some of the best friends I've made are members of the ABDL community.
I've met many in real life. Some now have 'little brother' status.
Others I've gotten to know online, either via their 'little' personas or their real-life ones, or both.
And that's where the community fragmentation comes in.
I'm 'abysitter' almost anywhere.
So many people in our community have a different name nearly everywhere.
As I researched my online past trying to find glimpses of my conversations with my new friend I was surprised to find conversations with people I'd forgotten I'd even had.
People I click 'like' on Tumblr all the time. People I see in my Facebook secret ABDL groups on the daily. People I talked to via email in 2011, 2012, 2013 and - because they switched to Tumblr, perhaps, or because real-life Facebook adds wasn't something people were doing yet - lost touch with.
Someone who is DBoy05 on Diaper-Bois, but who is OrangeCountyDiaperBoy on Tumblr, and "Joe Smith" on Facebook, and - you get the idea.
I met someone who is dope as fuck this past week.
I met someone who is dope as fuck this past week.
He lives less than 20 minutes from me - but I would have never found him by performing local searches on the diaper sites.
Probably would never find him on the diaper sites at all.
It turns out we’ve actually talked for nearly half a decade. But where? And under what usernames?
Who knows.
Talking with him made me look back to my own conversation history, though - and realize that he is far from the only dope-ass little dude I nearly missed out on meeting.
Missed connections probably happen way more in our community than any of us realize.
How many people are out there - maybe states away, or maybe just up the street - that we’re missing out on meeting?
Some of the people who have the most in common with us, and we allow things to get in the way of us making contact.
Missed connections.
If you’ve ever had one of these with me, I apologize.
I know from my email inbox that’s far too many people.
If we had a meaningful conversation in the past, hit me up again one day.
And for anyone who’s ever been talking with someone dope in the ABDL community and found that, for whatever reason, the conversation may have just trailed off?
Reconnect.
Hit them up today. See where it leads.
The connections that we make in our community are some of the best connections we’ll make in our lives.
I’m reminded of that fact every time I hang out with my ‘little bro’, and each time I have a long phone conversation with my ‘Canuckistanian nug’. And each time I get into a text war with - well, you know who you are.
And each time I make a new #ABDL friend.
Missed a connection at any point in the past?
Last week? Last month? Seven years ago?
Try to make it up today…
Diaperboys... We're Everywhere...
