Why People Quit Homestuck Early 

homestuck isn’t confusing if you use all of your mental capacity in your youth to learn everything about it

90% of gamblers quit before they hit it big🤤

This doesn't need a 10 minute video, it's the exact same thing every single time. Someone shows you a beautiful flash of kids going on a magic adventure across time and space with incredible music then you go and read it and it's 14 hours of kids sitting in their rooms spouting 2004 comedy at each other

I've been indoctrinating homestuck fans for many years now, most of my subjects have failed but after a while I have found the ideal method for fully captivating one of my poor victim's attention into this horrible webcomic. 1. The Hook Just like how your teachers taught you to start off with a hook, if you want to catch some fish you're gonna need a hook too.. and some bait. The WORST thing you can do is ask someone to read it UPFRONT, this has NEVER worked 100% of the time and it barely works for things non-homestuck related (when was the last time you actually took someone's movie advice??). It's important to let THEM fall for the hook instead of shoving it down their throat because then they wont want anything to do with it. This 'hook' can be whatever you want it to be, an offhand reference to a certain page in the story, a quick comparison to a character, sending your favorite song when someone asks for music suggestions, there's so many different scenarios that I would have to go over so be creative! Once someone falls for the trap they'll ask the infamous "What's homestuck?" question or something relating to that.. HOWEVER NEVER DIRECTLY ANSWER THE QUESTION.. this is where stage 2 comes in: 2. The Great Attractor Once you get done with stage 1, stage 2 is fairly simple. Whenever your victim asks you any questions relating to the webcomic, then always avoid the answer by providing relevant information that surrounds their question with EVEN MORE QUESTIONS. Once people get to this part of my plan they either skip straight to stage 4 if they're proactive and like to find things for themselves or continue to pester me in search for some semblance of closure. Make Homestuck look like a secret club that only those of 1334 sp33k know about!!1! Whatever the case is, it's important to let them satiate their own curiosity and to give them the freedom (or illusion) of choice. Once they start doing their own thing then that's where the exciting part comes in. 3. Absurdism. You have their attention by this point, maybe it's been a couple days since they fell for your bait or maybe it's been a couple of months, the longer the better. This part can always pertain to your specific situation, how your victim functions, etc. So for viewing sake I'll put this into pesterlog form: U: Remember that webcomic I mentioned a while back DEM: Yeah you were talking about the unfunny ironic dj kid that wears shades all the time and gets exposed to smuppet videos courtesy to his brother's chat bots. How could I forget. U: oh you mean the gay guy DEM: ..What? He turns gay? U: I mean eventually after he meets karkat DEM: What the hell is a karkat. You could call it recasting the bait, there's many different names, but it is important to have them asking even more questions. Bonus points if you they start asking questions that you can't answer. By this point you should have exposed them to enough media to know a couple of names by now, or key events, however you go. By the time you think you've reached this stage you can give them a little test on their current information and se what they know. And once you're absolutely sure that you have them at a complete loss for words, utterly hopelessly confused, once you make them feel like a headache is about to come on from lack of information, you.. 4. The Link. Send them the link. Say nothing. Don't answer anymore questions, make them read. If all went according to plan they should eventually get to the end of act 1 within the same day. Now you can do a little discussion with them. Any questions you can just straight up answer at this point, since they have now engaged themselves as a 'reader' you can reward them by telling them the truth instead of beating around the bush. Preferable a day after, start to mention some casual spoilers. Nothing like Cascade, Collide, Descend, anything of the sort, but mention certain things in the world like Lusus, Ancestors, The Scratch, Doc Scratch, Guardians, etc. Cool things! Not lame things. This is by far the hardest part, maintaining their interests is not easy task as there are a couple other hundreds of things that anybody could be doing at any point in the day that is much more interesting then reading the early acts of Homestuck. However if you manage to keep them interested up until around Act 3, then it would be safe to say that you have officially done it. You've made them into a self-sufficient Homestuck. This guide is a bit more short due to the character limit, I went into much more detail in my discord server. I have a guide there if any of you are interested in getting your PEON FRIENDS to join this horrible fandom. I think I'm about done here though, so good luck to those who have made it to the bottom of this rotting comment. VICTIMS: 23 SUCCESSFULL CAPTURES: 6 UNSUCCESSFULL CAPTURES: 17 > STAGE 1: Four > STAGE 2: Two > STAGE 3: Three > STAGE 4: Eight TOTAL TIME SPENT DURING INDOCTRINATION PROCESS: 4 MONTHS END REPORT.

Ok, so I'm reading Homestuck for the first time right now (I just reached act 3 like an hour ago) and I absolutely love the game mechanics stuff. I started because of the trolls, i played hiveswap first and it left me with SO many questions about troll society, but what i've read so far is just as intriguing. The SBURB mechanics and the sylladex feel weird in the same that all of the troll stuff does, which I guess is "hussian". I don't mind 10 pages of John throwing stuff out of his inventory or Rose building stairs cause it's reminiscent of when I used to experiment with new features in Minecraft after an update or explore new maps I downloaded in Garry's Mod. It's impressive that a linear story is making me feel that way

the beauty of Homestuck is you're not meant to "understand" it. just read it and enjoy whatever's happening. you can understand the plot later

New Homestuck reader that finished reading a few weeks ago here. I can understand your thoughts on the Captchalogue mechanics, but they are a huge part of Homestucks layered humor. Its not just a comic about a video game, but a comic about a video game about another video game. After all, Homestuck began as a in joke for computer science nerds and gradually spiraled into becoming a character driven epos with a completely different fandom. I really liked both, but I feel like I am biased by having some programming experience. And being autistic probably. Yeah.

tbh i LOVE all the sylladex jokes, they all were so goofy and fun and I kinda missed them as we go further into the comic, tho it does make sense.

As someone in the club I'm about to mention, I think another piece of why potential Homestucks either check out early or struggle to get into it has to do with those grey skinned munchkins tied to the astrology signs in the Western Zodiac. Yep, I was introduced to this series through the Trolls and for the uninitiated, it's quite enticing to see which one represents your sign and if that's your first taste of Homestuck it's really weird to not see them at the start of the comic. They've always been there in-universe, but they don't show up in chatlogs until Act 3, a couple aren't physically seen until the middle of Act 4 and the first intermission, and the full team isn't available until Act 5. Then factor in that all but 5-ish members of the Troll team are underdeveloped and 8 of them are dead by the time Act 5 is complete and Act 6 begins.

People quit before they hit big

man i fucking love early homestuck. i should re-read it sometime soon

"it's about as three-dimensional as a one-dimensional thing" is such a stupid line that it wraps around to being funny again

because act 1 is just John f'king around with meta-physical computer science bs and also looking for arms. My friend didn't like that at all. I had to beg them to keep going past act 1

my sister introduced me to homestuck, downloaded the unofficial msfpa, AND READ ACT 1 AND 2 WITH ME, EXCEPT I WAS THE MAIN ONE NARRATING IT. my voice hurt :( AND I FINISHED IT. AND CRIED. A LOT.

man early HS is so good, most people talk about act 5 or even 6 though

all of homestuck is a reference to something and i can draw straight lines and connections to each thing. name a thing ill name its source

i REALLY love acts 1-4. they're very fun. the experimental feel of the early acts doesn't really carry over post act 5, snd while it's still good after that, i feel like the comic's identity shifted. it became a lot more relationship focused, and while that's still very enjoyable, i liked that stuff sprinkled in with bullshit game mechanics and dozens of pages dedicated to essentially fucking around.

For me the moment I tought about quitting Homestuck was somewhere after the start of Act 6. My investment/interest just wasn't really there anymore at that point. I did finish it it though.

My problem with Homestuck, that made it hard to read all of it more than once, is that the first few acts build up the story of a videogame taking over the real world, finding out the mysteries of it and having your closest allies being internet trolls who played an earlier version of the game, all good. The later chapters do add to it with complexity and quality of that, but it also muddies the experience and makes it a chore to read long conversations between characters I'm not attached to while anything else more interesting is happening meanwhile.

the deck mechanics confused me so much when i read homestuck for the first time

i started off hs by reading the physical version of act one and i really enjoyed it because the random bullshit and tomfoolery was still funny to me, even though i didnt uderstand some refrences or how i was reading it in the worst medium expression wise. stuff was just so absurd that it wraped back around from being genuinely dumb to being hilarious. like i knew that the inventory stuff was there to be a repetetive dumb gag, and it got my ass every time they threw their shit into the abyss! i think this matter is just a problem of what your taste in media is. how you like your humor cooked, world building constructed, characters driven, etc.

i believe i’m at the 3rd or 4th act now, and personally, i like the first/second acts the best. I really like the odd game mechanics being just, things that exist, and I not only don’t like how it feels like they slowly got rid of the sylladex and other stuff over time, but I HATE the trolls when they are the only characters interacting. they’re entertaining when there’s someone else for them to bounce off of, like when the one troll keeps messaging john, but in reverse order. it really makes you wonder who these people are, and how can they do that? anyway, one thing that made me kinda peeved (enough to take a break from it) what’s in the latest chapter i got to, where two of the trolls are engaging in a game of sburb themselves. i thought to myself: “they’ve already shown us how much different trolls are from humans, and now we get a whole chapter one-esque sburb section with them? sounds interesting! i wonder how they’ll do it!” and then i click to the next page, and it just skips the entire thing. i can tell they thought they just cut out a ton of fluff, but to me, that was the best part! figuring out the games mechanics, messing with the sylladex, trying to do the necessary steps to progress, all of it i loved, and they just cut it out.

Link to the unofficial collection: blog.giovanh.com/unofficial-homestuck-collection/

i’ve read homestuck 2 and a half times. this was my experience with it: -i read up to act 4 and then dropped it -came back to it a few months later and read the whole thing. it made a bit more sense reading the first few acts again. -the 2nd full read, the lore and all the storylines all came together. and i was taking notes this time 💀. i also gained an appreciation for the exiles’ storyline :] my biggest takeaway is: homestuck is whatever you make of it. it’s a goofy story if you don’t look too hard into it, but the more times you read it, the more you begin to understand wtf is going on (and thus gain even more appreciation for it). i enjoyed it during my second reread just as much as i did during my first (one and a half??) rereads of it, but for a different reason. but yeah i completely understand that it isn’t for everyone :,) i’m also a relatively new fan (i read it in early 2023), so i never got to experience the fandom at its peak. despite that, i’m still glad that homestuck exists because. homestuck.

Someone told me this shit was peak and I read several hundred pages of the characters repeatedly picking up and dropping items due to their really specific "Card Carrying" ability or whatever and then I read an in-universe shitpost comic.

I started reading homestuck a few weeks ago and now I'm on page 7000... I would say it is absurd, to a degree which destroys the reader's suspension of disbelief, but at a certain point it comes full circle in absurdity that it become immersive again! characters have legitimate reasons to do the odd things they do, strange quirks of the weird semi-game world they live in have actual narrative pay off, which makes it quite satisfying to read!

my friend made me play pesterquest with them and then i read homestuck afterwards. gave me a really unique sense of suspense because i knew a few secrets about the characters but absolutely NOTHING about the plot other than that it involved "some sort of time paradox or something" and "multiple universes? i guess?"

hussie sucked me into this real big world and i somehow understand it (for the most part, at least). thats all i need to know 🤷‍♂️

I should really finish Homestuck one of these days...

You summarized pretty much all my thoughts on Homestuck. My feelings towards it are ambivalent and bittersweet. It both was and wasn't worth reading it, but looking back now, as the lonely and weird child that i was, i feel like it was inevitable. I was basically part of the target audience for it. Still, i'm thankful for it entertaining me in my pre-teen and teen years. Its kinda like that song by Queen, "Radio Gaga", but instead of it being a valuable medium of communication, its a stupid webcomic that taught me nothing.

The true way to enjoy homestuck is to read up until cascade and NEVER READ PAST IT

i started reading homestuck around 2013, and as an impressionable middle schooler i didn't get the vast majority of the references, nor even understand what the hell was going on in much of the story. i was just happy to be along for the ride and feel "in" with the cool older kids on tumblr. i think that social contagion was a big factor that's mostly gone now. on that subject i think there's a really interesting difference in the general depth of hs fandom engagement over the years, because back then you were just having fun with the current big thing online, but now you comparatively have to really TRY to get into it and i feel like that has led to some very high quality modern fanworks, theories, and analyses. (not to discredit the early fandom thinkers, we stand on the shoulders of giants and all that. also probably a lot of these are the same kids who are now older with fully developed brains) anyway great job on the vid

Need more art like homestuck where you don't know what the hell is going on until everything starts clicking together and this mass of incoherency becomes a much neater but still messy spider web of details that is more of chaotic sheet web than a tidy orb web. More chaos stories :]

I kept reading because of the inventory jokes. Holy Based. Absolutely peak.

I started reading Homestuck when I was 20 back in 2010, when the story was in the middle of act 5 being published. I thought the jokes and references in act 1 were hilarious, but I never considered how specific these references are to people closer to the age group of millennials, which might just go over the heads of new younger audiences because Homestuck is vintage internet media now. It is interesting seeing younger people still giving Homestuck a chance and hearing their opinions on it. Also, Problem Sleuth is the true GOAT imo.

3:03 alright, at this point, I do take issue to the idea that a kid would be reacting to being able to do something cool with confusion instead of wanting to play with it. That's some Everyone is a Post Iron Man 2 Marvel Movie Character logic there. We don't need the characters being like "Woah are you seeing what I'm seeing?" They're kids, getting their hands on new "toys" and fumbling with them, while stuff gets heated out of their control, and they need to figure out how to survive as others going through the same process are killed around the world.

i'm pretty sure the sylladex is a literal physical deck of cards that exists somewhere beetween the physical world and the metatextual HUD

Amazing work, hope to listen to more of your thoughts on HS soon! I'm trying to get my partner to read it now, your video essay provided a lot of food for thought!!

the frustration with the sylladex and being "a convoluted puzzle including breaking all your shit" due to incompetence is part of the data structures joke itself. i understand the several plays on it causing problems ending up stale if not enjoyed at all, but i personally think they have plenty of variety and charm even when the joke is completely lost, like other odd systems did in problem sleuth.

I'm a lover of early Homestuck, tickles my nerdy brain nicely

Ī think an argument could be made that homestuck got so popular in part because its so confusing. It walks a really fine line between understanable and nonsensical, where everything *can* be explained, and so when you're rewarded for remembering something or figuring something out, or even when it makes a reference to something you understand. People liked that. Act 1 is a bad introduction only in the sense that it's not indicative of the later portions of the story, however it feels like possibly the most important act, as it's a baseline, its how it started and its actually really easy to understand, because you can tell it's just shanangains. and so when you get to the narrative portions, once philosophy and stakes and disperate threads come together to become bigger and better not only is there the reward of understanding, but also it feels like the story has grown along with your understanding. The art gets better, the conversations become more intelligent and the characters grow, actually grow, and thats I think in part because so many of the characters start off so blank slatey. Tl;DR homestuck grows with the reader, in complexity, in art, in writing and in character. and thats why people like it so much

I stopped reading after that fourth girl (I donut remember her name). I didn't really want to learn about trolls past what I know now.

Ive reread homestuck so many times and I even listened to that super popular series of people reading it on RU-vid and to this day I dont think I truly understand what happened in the middle. Good video tho I definitely was very lost at the end of act I and just put it off for a rainy day

I stopped caring in act one, yes I've occasionally come across people who liked it and wondered if I did and when I said where I stopped they didn't seem surprised and just changed topics People want something obtuse and hard to follow and then seem disappointed when others don't want to follow

because they're smart and realized it sucks

id actually argue the entire comic derails into a jumble of convoluted text post act 3. andrew hussie is LUCKY he can write funny characters though because now im attached to his characters forever. the kids banter was always my favorite part of homestuck honestly, i wish that energy was captured with the alpha kids because theyre all such interesting characters

the morse code thing is meant to be like thaat. it's meant by the readers to figure it out. like everything else. not all comics and series are all simple n easy

I stopped some dozens of pages after cascade.

I liked early homestuck, and quit around act 5 or act 6 act 5. It just got too winded at some point...

Homestuck became bad after they introduced the trolls, it became omega bad when act 6 came. Caliborn was the only highlight.

i didnt give up.

4k views, 13 days ago. Nice

i survived act 1 to act 4 the only thing i ever had patience with

CAUSE IT SUCKS.

Can you post any links saying where you got the information about the production of the comic? That'd be great!

quintafpoon

honestly i slowed down around act 5 as it slowly became less stupid and more about the characters, like i want the gimmick

You didnt put the link to homestuck collection in the desc 🤓

You shouldn't worry about your audience getting confused, art made for mass consumption isnt great art at all

The furthest I ever got was act 5. Yeah. That was years ago, and I never continued it. However, I do want to read Homestuck. The reason why I gave up on it so many times is because there was SO MUCH to read, and I would get easily distracted and want to do other things. I don’t doubt it’s really interesting so I’m gonna get into it!

Personally, I Quit because is very long, I Have atleast three long series to read besides Homestuck(One piece, Hajime no Ippo, Kingdom) so seeing homestuck whould take to much of my time.

Unlike what others think, you CANNOT POSSIBLY try to read homestuck just like that, you first need to: 1-know what MSPA is/was 2-Read Jailbreak Adventure 3-Read Problem Sleuth 4-get The Unnoficial Homestuck Collection 5-DONT READ IT YET!, go watch some poorly homestuck review/resume that says pretty much nothing but still tells you the important stuff of Act 1 atleast 7-ok now you can start reading 8-if you feel like skipping those pesterchumlogs or whatever go ahead, you can go watch a narrated video about that part, but be warned, you cannot keep doing this past ACT 3 or 4 or else you wont understand shit. -9 ok start reading sweef bro and hella jeff por whatever that shit is called parallel to homestuck, you may know it from Henry Stickmin Congrats!!!(?) You got into Homestuck (Warning: if you got into homestuck because of the trolls this may be 200% more tedious.)

Early Homestuck is great if you don’t have a shit sense of humor

so what page did your two friends stop at? i was waiting the whole video to find out

Fire!

tl;dr People are cowards

because it's bad and was made by a bad person

Because they aren't pedophiles, and they realized that it was a groomer webcomic. Next.