Drying the MSTing Well:

We have just passed 150,000 hits on our website maybe about a week ago. I don't know if I could ever create another website that would have even half of this response. A MSTing For All Seasons has been up for seven years, which makes it almost a senior citizen as far as the 'Net goes.

When we first started A MSTing For All Seasons, Mystery Science Theater 3000 had already announced that there would be no new shows. The Sci-Fi Network would show all of the remaining shows they ordered, and then would put MST3k on semi-permanent rerun status afterward. Our website opened about three or so weeks after the Sci-Fi Channel had broadcast the last new MST3k episode, the delayed "Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders", which came about five months after the 'official' end, "Diabolik", was broadcast.

In that time, I've seen a staggering amount of attrition. Of course, without the show around to remind people what MSTing was about, it was not a surprise. First, the MST fandom seemed to grow a bit older. As all other fandoms, while some people lose time or grow out, others find the fandom and obtain a desire to write. And without MST3k around, it seemed as if the new author flow of MSTings was slowed to a trickle.

Of course, one of the other watershed moments was when Web Site #9, Dr. Michael K. Neylon's online published MSTing archive, was taken from the Internet. Keith Palmer is currently running the MSTing Mine at http://www.keithpalmer.ca/msting-mine/ , and I wish him the best of luck in reconstructing what remained of Web Site #9 by scouring Usenet. Shinji's Vault of Anime MSTings has also morphed more than a few times, even adding a message board for a while. The same forces of inertia, few new authors and natural lossage due to the ravages of time, took place at Shinji's too. Tim attempted to morph it into Shuuichi's Vault, and then remorphed it into Everything What Is Crap.

The latest MSTings update to Everything What Is Crap was in late May, 2006. By all means, this is not a criticism; other than this blog, AMFAS has not been updated with a published MSTing in almost a year itself. (However, stay tuned, we almost have one finished and ready to publish). This is just more evidence that the fandom is still coming to a slow close.

This was not meant to be a rant, and I'm not making a call to all authors to do MSTings. Of course, people will write what they would like to write. So far, Megane 6.7 and I still choose to spend our time writing MSTings, and we do still hope that we have an audience out there. If nothing else, we have also found that we still enjoy it, even if the process gets a bit tedious at times.

It is not my intent to write a eulogy. I do not believe that this fandom is quite dead; after all, we are still seeing visitors to places like EWIC and A MSTing For All Seasons. It is more of an enconium, I suppose, as I would like to at least say that there have been more than a few MSTings in the past that I have enjoyed, and I hope that those authors have been able to move on to bigger and better things. To all of the readers and MSTers still active, by all means thank you for your support. We hope that you do enjoy your visit(s) to AMFAS, and that you are able to derive some sort of enjoyment from our works. While Mystery Science Theater 3000 is rapidly coming to the point where it has been rerun/off the air for longer than it has been on, I hope that all of the readers and MSTers out there are still trying to keep the spirit of the show alive in keeping an open mind about the world around them, and not afraid to make fun of the stuff that doesn't make much sense.

Again, thank you all for 150,000 hits, and seven years of activity. Thanks also to our website hosts, Nabiki and Lorien. While our content has slowed (significantly?) through the past three years, we're still here and we hope you are too.