I've also been feeling that Hot Topic phase creeping in on Orthodoxy (as a subculture). Not just in the sense of content creators churning out formulaic content, but I'm also seeing more people locally who just seem to be here for the "vibes". They might have been around for a couple of years, maybe less, but have absolutely no idea what the basic contents of the faith even are. Like wearing the Nirvana t-shirt but not knowing about the band kind of thing. Coffee hour is just the hang out spot that's in vogue right now. I'm not making a value judgement on that - it could go in a good or bad direction all depending on the individual person. It's just a consequence of where we're at culturally. I was playing music back during that screamo-metalcore-deathcore era. Really weird time. A lot of good music flew under the radar just due to the market conditions, I guess. Everything became about theatrics and affectation. Different style, but Protest The Hero is another good Canadian band from that era (only the first 3 albums though).

If you ever do that video game talk you have to bring in Pure Pwnage for that Canadian angle. AFAIK those guys were the first to ever make a living off of internet content. True OG stuff. Congratulations on the Logos Cinema deal. I'm liking the vision.

@Ariel Q Definitely relate to that. My godfather always reminds me that fasting is for our spiritual benefit so being a perfectionist isn't helpful. We shouldn't push ourselves to the point that we're beating ourselves up. I think that's a thing a lot of us have had to learn.

@Mano Elia I really like that idea and never even thought of it that way. Will definitely try to keep that in mind going forward.

It's my first time checking in on SOS in a while and I'm really liking the topics adressed here. I used to be called Joe Briefcase on the Discord if anyone remembers at all. This is echoing a lot of conversations I've been having recently as well: The whole issue of pharisaical niceness vs actual Christian kindness, feminism vs red pill "masculinity", closet materialism and sophistry vs true Orthodox spirituality, issues with online Orthodoxy, the list goes on. I don't want to bore you with all the details, but there was a big debate about masculinity last year in the Orthodox community here in Denmark that ended up in the biggest Christian newspaper in the country. The debate wasn't even rooted in Orthodoxy, but was really just the closet feminist faction vs the fake trad masculinity faction. Because of this, a lot of people I know revealed themselves to actually be feminists and essentially opposed to masculinity which really surprised me. I was pretty shocked to find out just how deeply some of these ideas have infected even Orthodox people.