When and how did you find NationStates?

[Pan-Asiatic States]

Around 2015(When I was still pretty much a nazi and extremely homophobic) one of my (ex-)friends mentioned it in a conversation we had, don't remember what was it about exactly(not that it matters), so I decided to go in and create a nation, looking at it back now, I can say I cringe every time I see it and scream to myself "Holy shit did I write that?!".
Lucky since then I have grown a brain, it may not always be noticeable, but at least it's something. >.>

I'm pretty sure we all go through that edgy nazi/commie phase so it's nothing to be ashamed of...

Only I never grew out of it

Nah. If we're serious we don't grow out of it, we just become calmer. Sometimes less vocal, but mostly just calmer.

I mean, for Europe, liberal politics is recycled Fascism sooooo

[MineLegotia and Equestria]

I found NS through one of the most unusual ways.

Through Fimfiction.

Fimfiction is bascially Fanfiction but for MLP. And while scrolling through an user's account looking for stories I came by a fic about their nation and MLP, and I noticed in the description that states it was a crossover with NationStates, so I clicked on the link and whole behold, I found this amazing site.

I did this roughly in July of 2017.

[Free Arabian Nation]

I'm pretty sure we all go through that edgy nazi/commie phase so it's nothing to be ashamed of...

Only I never grew out of it

Nah. If we're serious we don't grow out of it, we just become calmer. Sometimes less vocal, but mostly just calmer.

I mean, for Europe, liberal politics is recycled Fascism sooooo

Quite the opposite for me, I became basically a Ba'athist-lite after a long period of time I believed I was a center-leaning libertarian

[Luziyca]

While I did lurk in the mid-2000s, the first time I actually made a country that lasted longer than a month was in 2009 when I searched "how to make a Kingdom" and this site was really the only one that didn't require an email verification to actually get on. I shortly discovered the forum and it was basically the hook that caused me to stay.

Of course, my early years were less than stellar after I discovered the forum: I ragequit my first nation, my second nation got DEAT after I reported myself for trolling and then posted past ban, and then I got bored of my third nation because it was very much of a Marysuetopia, before settling on this nation.

[Pan-Asiatic States]

I found NS through one of the most unusual ways.

Through Fimfiction.

Fimfiction is bascially Fanfiction but for MLP. And while scrolling through an user's account looking for stories I came by a fic about their nation and MLP, and I noticed in the description that states it was a crossover with NationStates, so I clicked on the link and whole behold, I found this amazing site.

I did this roughly in July of 2017.

Found it one day in my high school media class.

Saw it had a brony thread so I stopped by to say hi.

Wait, what

Why is Bronyism and NS so correlated

[Free Arabian Nation]

I found NS through one of the most unusual ways.

Through Fimfiction.

Fimfiction is bascially Fanfiction but for MLP. And while scrolling through an user's account looking for stories I came by a fic about their nation and MLP, and I noticed in the description that states it was a crossover with NationStates, so I clicked on the link and whole behold, I found this amazing site.

I did this roughly in July of 2017.

Found it one day in my high school media class.

Saw it had a brony thread so I stopped by to say hi.

Wait, what

Why is Bronyism and NS so correlated

Magnets.

[Pan-Asiatic States]

Nah. If we're serious we don't grow out of it, we just become calmer. Sometimes less vocal, but mostly just calmer.

I mean, for Europe, liberal politics is recycled Fascism sooooo

Quite the opposite for me, I became basically a Ba'athist-lite after a long period of time I believed I was a center-leaning libertarian

Huh. Well, for me it was roughly:

Liberal childhood/parents -> Radical Liberalism -> Nazism -> Social Democrat -> Democraratic Socialist -> Maoist

[Kotel]

A friend told me about it on March 3rd of last year.

[Pan-Asiatic States]

Quite the opposite for me, I became basically a Ba'athist-lite after a long period of time I believed I was a center-leaning libertarian

Huh. Well, for me it was roughly:

Liberal childhood/parents -> Radical Liberalism -> Nazism -> Social Democrat -> Democraratic Socialist -> Maoist

When I was still moderate in reading theory I was hesitant to be a socialist, so SocDem and Full-Soc 'phase' was sort of back-and-forth tbh.

And then XJT happened.

[The Blaatschapen]

Around 2015(When I was still pretty much a nazi and extremely homophobic) one of my (ex-)friends mentioned it in a conversation we had, don't remember what was it about exactly(not that it matters), so I decided to go in and create a nation, looking at it back now, I can say I cringe every time I see it and scream to myself "Holy shit did I write that?!".
Lucky since then I have grown a brain, it may not always be noticeable, but at least it's something. >.>

I'm pretty sure we all go through that edgy nazi/commie phase so it's nothing to be ashamed of...

Only I never grew out of it

Any day now, I'm supposed to have my phase

[Seangoli]

Long, long ago in 2004 I came here for reasons I have long since forgotten under the name Seangolia. I didn't know to revive a nation, so I created this account. Aside from that, no idea.

Seriously, I have no damn idea how I showed up or how I found this place. Pretty sure I just poofed into existence over a decade ago.

[United Universal Union]

I'm pretty sure we all go through that edgy nazi/commie phase so it's nothing to be ashamed of...

Only I never grew out of it

Any day now, I'm supposed to have my phase

puts on glados voice It will hurt, believe me it will

[Pan-Asiatic States]

Any day now, I'm supposed to have my phase

puts on glados voice It will hurt, believe me it will

It's called class-consciousness and one way or another you're gonna pick a side.

[Torisakia]

Around August 2009 (with my first nation), I wandered on over to the old Google.com and searched up "how to make your own country" since I was into countries at the time (only at age 11 no less) and the first result that came up was NationStates where you could create your own nation and I thought "that's pretty neat" and signed up and here I am today almost 10 years later still just as edgy and stupid as I was back then.

[Abarri]

Picture it: [REDACTED], August 2017.

I was looking for a social media alternative to Facebook (It was getting crappy and becoming like other SM platforms). I could not remember the name of said forum-like alternative, but I swear I stumbled upon the website a few months prior to August 2017. Then I checked a Wikipedia article on the list of social networking sites available. Afterwards I clicked a link about a list of Internet forums: one of them is NationStates. The idea of simulating a nation sounded pretty interesting, so I went for it. I had no problem making up a nation name: that was my pastime (making imaginary countries, to be exact) when I was an equivalent of a middle schooler. At first I just answered issues, then come several months I replied in forums.

To this day I haven't found or at least remembered the name of the simple-looking social networking site that I was looking for.

[Jetan]

2011. I had played Cyber Nations some years prior but had forgotten the name. I searched for "nation simulation game" or something like that and turned up here.

[Technoscience Leftwing]

I read about this game 3 years ago, and maybe earlier. But at that time I had not yet joined it, hoping to find an analogue of such a game in Russian (after all, everything in this game is in English, and discussions, and descriptions of countries). In Russia, the modeling of countries has a very long history: in the famous book by Lev Kassil Conduit and Shvambrania, two guys in 1907 play a similar game: they made its geographical map, invented personalities of culture and politics, traditions, history, and so on. To some extent this was a form of escapism, escape into the imaginary best world from the realities of royal despotism. To some extent, it was a "bright future" simulation, where "electric lighting, all people are fed and show movies every day." It is from these considerations that today sometimes you want to model your country. I created my own here in 2019 In general, the guidelines and goals of my current playing country reflect my real ideals: technical progress, social equality, scientific atheism, non-nationalism, revolutionism, emancipation. One difficulty: all the discussions here are in English, but I did not find a Russian-language equivalent of such a game. I wonder how people have a rich imagination, how many different types of society and social ideals they have come up with, how many flags, stories, cultures! It is just an oasis of creativity and social utopian thought! Great game!

[Razarija]

like 2014 when i kept finding alt hist maps on google images that traced back to here

[Free Arabian Nation]

Quite the opposite for me, I became basically a Ba'athist-lite after a long period of time I believed I was a center-leaning libertarian

Huh. Well, for me it was roughly:

Liberal childhood/parents -> Radical Liberalism -> Nazism -> Social Democrat -> Democraratic Socialist -> Maoist

For me it was

"I don't give a fuck" between 0 and 12, Center Libertarianism for most of the rest of my life, and some weird ideology which is a mixture of a bunch of ideologies since like maybe a month ago.

[Trump Haters and Punk rock fans]

I just started playing in late 2018 after a friend at school showed me

[Tokora]

I was looking up games that let you run a government on wikipedia and this was on the list.

[The Margaritas]

xD. On Google Play, I looked up Empire Building Games, and the NS app came up. I am forever grateful.

[The Margaritas]

xD. On Google Play, I looked up Empire Building Games, and the NS app came up. I am forever grateful.

[Ethuddledom]

I found NS when I watched a YouTuber

[Radictistan]

I overheard someone talking about it in my college dining facility.