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I'm someone who used to post here a couple times a day and have fallen off to maybe once a month recently (if that). But the funny thing is, look at the date of the first post in this thread. It was 3 years ago, someone resurrected the thread, and now people are still talking about others dropping off. It's something that just happens. At the same time, I have seen a lot of new people here, or at least people I don't remember seeing before, when I used to read and post a lot. So it's mostly just the cycle of life.
For me the lack of visits and posts has been a combination of things. The biggest is honestly probably COVID, because Scandal, like everyone else and despite obviously trying really hard, just haven't been doing as much as they were doing in years past. To be honest, their slowing down even before COVID - and most of this was just business stuff before that - has made it a little harder for me to maintain the level of excitement about them that I used to have basically all the time. In those earlier years, there was almost never a time when *something* new hadn't just come out and something else wasn't already announced as coming out within the next few weeks or months. And there'd be TV appearances, tours, and all sorts of other stuff happening in between. I mean, they were prolific, and they got a lot of marketing push for a while.
There's just less tangible stuff to talk about now. Yeah, there have been a few things, and of course I'm still buying everything they put out and I'm sure I've made a comment on all their recent releases here. I know they have little videos they make for YouTube or whatever too. But the momentum they used to have hasn't really been there lately - though again, this is not under their control. I've had a hard time maintaining excitement about *any* band lately. It's not as if I replaced Scandal with someone else.
And to be *totally* honest, I did like the image they had better when they were younger. The contrast between how they looked and how they played was one of the coolest things about them to me; that was very unique. And let's face it, a lot of what they did wasn't unpleasant watch. I feel like they've gone a little deep into mom jeans territory lately. Their music is still great, and they'll always be a great live band, but there's not really any more "I can't wait to see what they look like in their next video!" or whatever, for me. It's really just about the music now, which is probably intentional on their part, but they were really a lot more of a visual band for a while and my *favorite* bands are those that mix both. (Though I certainly *like* plenty of bands that have basically no image at all.)
Lastly, I used to go to Japan a lot (hopefully will start again at some point), and I managed to see them on those trips something like 4 years in a row. That goes a long way to maintaining excitement. But it's been a couple years now since I last saw them (in NYC) and combined with not having been to Japan in a few years either, I don't feel that immediate connection to them that I used to feel.
Anyway, so this is probably my one post for this month. I'll keep checking back in, though, to see what's going on. Sometimes I do see stuff here that I didn't even know was happening. But I do admit to being not quite as obsessed with them as I once was.