Future of Abdl

[K00paTr00pa]

Just curious what others peoples thoughts are regarding the future of this fetish/lifestyle and if you think the abdl population will continue to grow/ become as well known as something like the furry culture.

 

[BabyLink9]

I think it will continue to grow steadily but never become a mainstream thing like many hope. There will be a boom to awareness and it will probably hit a peak of popularity, but won’t go much farther than that. I’m not aware of how big the furry population is, so I couldn’t say for how much farther this all goes.

As for the community itself, I think a ton of new diapers are going to get made and we’ll see an explosion in cloth-backed variants and eco friendly versions. Maybe some better ABDL oriented products outside of diapers themselves like a diaper genie or something. I think the market for ABDL products is only getting started and crazy things are on the way. Especially with social media spaces. There have been a lot but I have a feeling something is going to come around and stick. Making it the place to be for the community.

 

[BobbiSueEllen]

In most ways, it's far better off as far as products available, cyber- and real-life-networking, practicing...plus it's good to see more people coming in from isolation. I don't see much in the way of public acceptance increasing unless the older generations of haters start moving back into the background and more open-minded people fill the ranks of the mainstream.

We'll have our Someday, it's out there. But we'll keep wearing & preparing for it now. We'll be ready.

 

[ArgentBuffalo]

I'm mostly looking forward to the continued evolution of our style of big baby diapers. I think there is still room to grow with features and aesthetics. I also would love to begin seeing some more sustainable brands of quality AB-style diapers out there, made with more environmentally friendly materials, in addition to perhaps some specialty products for specific (niche, or not so niche) interests. Say, a disposable adult "potty training" lineup for ageplay.

I'm not sure if the community size-wise will grow or not, but it doesn't super matter to me. What happens happens. There are good reasons for the numbers to go both ways.

As far as visibility and mainstreaming, I'm generally not for it when it comes to "weird" subcultures and interests...parts of the community tend to get gobbled up by major corporate interests looking to make a buck, which is a huge turnoff. A creative economy in subculture and dedicated insider industry is awesome, aggressive external corporate hegemony is not. If furry ever goes that way, for example, I'd be out super fast. However, I'd say relative mainstreaming would be a boon for this particular community, given that it's rather centered on consumption of goods (namely, diapers). I have fever dreams of Kimberly-Clark spitting out pallet after pallet of adult-sized Huggies, and the US congress telling the FDA to knock it off with the designation of adult-sized diapers as medical devices. So I think it could be good even if we only got a quarter of the way there. That being said, I'm not holding my breath. I think we'll be "weird" for a long time.

 

[Antientmariner]

Can we bump this discussion in 10 years time? I want this thread to continue, but want an update in around 10 years.

 

[Forced]

I believe that at some point in the near future ‘we’ will be as accepted as other interests are now.
Who’d have thought 10 years ago cross dressers would be able to walk down a busy street and hardly get a second look.
I grew up in the late 70s and in those days people being gay put a target on your back for either ridicule or violence, it may take that long for age players to become accepted.

I’ve often thought that an out and proud celebrity ABDL would help the public to accept us more readily.
Perhaps we need a TV show called ‘RuPauls diaper race’

 

[mistykitty]

As many here have stated I definitely believe that ABDL is becoming better accepted but it still requires more understanding and openmindedness from those outside. I believe there have been improvement and will continue to be but I don't think it will be mainstream until some sort of big name is willing to disclose they are part of it. I do also share some of the same concerns as @ArgentBuffalo I love the idea of ABDL evolving and associated products evolving but the risk of going beyond creative economy and dedicated industry is a real possibility (unlikely to occur in the immediate future but real).

 

[mistykitty]

I believe that at some point in the near future ‘we’ will be as accepted as other interests are now.
Who’d have thought 10 years ago cross dressers would be able to walk down a busy street and hardly get a second look.
I grew up in the late 70s and in those days people being gay put a target on your back for either ridicule or violence, it may take that long for age players to become accepted.

I’ve often thought that an out and proud celebrity ABDL would help the public to accept us more readily.
Perhaps we need a TV show called ‘RuPauls diaper race’

If they did a show like that I would totally be on board with that, but need to also keep the balance between disclosure about and exposure to ABDL but at the same time not forcing it upon others. If it is perceived as forced upon people it will likely yield the opposite result anger instead of acceptance.

 

[BobbiSueEllen]

If they did a show like that I would totally be on board with that, but need to also keep the balance between disclosure about and exposure to ABDL but at the same time not forcing it upon others. If it is perceived as forced upon people it will likely yield the opposite result anger instead of acceptance.

The big thing would be how we present it to the outside, visually. Too much flash and/or recklessness will set us back, hard. We gotta keep our wits if we wanna be regarded, let alone respected.

We're known about already...we have successfully networked into a community, we have AB/DL-friendly vendors, good product support...20-30 years back, we had nothing! Everything about us was in its--forgive the pun--infancy. We just gotta be careful in how we present ourselves...respectfully...? Or recklessly?

It depends on how well we want to blend in with an aim towards more than just regard. 🤔

 

[mistykitty]

The big thing would be how we present it to ghe outside, visually. Too much flash and/or recklessness will set us back, hard. We gotta keep our wits if we wanna be regarded, let alone respected.

We're known about already...we have successfully networked into a community, we have AB/DL-friendly vendors, good product support...20-30 years back, we had nothing! Everything about us was in its--forgive the pun--infancy. We just gotta be careful in how we present ourselves...respectfully...? Or recklessly?

It depends on how well we want to blend in with an aim towards more than just regard. 🤔

Well said

 

[BuffedBaby]

I think as a community we will find more acceptance but I believe it will be very slow. I look at other sites and see a literal explosion of people.
When I go on Tumblr there are so many examples and also Fet has thousands of people on there. Going back 40 or 50 years (pre-interwebs of course) there was virtually no information on this so you can imagine the shame and isolation we felt for a long time. Places like this I find to be
extremely informative and the people here overwhelmingly supportive of one another. I think the future looks very promising.

 

[K00paTr00pa]

I think for this to become to be more widely excepted, a lot more people would need to put themselves out there, though obviously like others have said this puts a target on their backs.

I might be way off but, I almost wonder if abdl like fashion (something like the kawaii trends), could help inflence abdl's appearance. At least in terms of connecting with your inner little. The brand "Little For Big" for example makes a line of women's rompers that look passable for the mainstream.

On another note I would love to see Google's analytic data for the word "abdl" and see how much the word has been searched for, each year for the last decade.

 

[buridan]

On another note I would love to see Google's analytic data for the word "abdl" and see how much the word has been searched for, each year for the last decade.

Here are some charts from Google Trends. The first one shows relative interest in "abdl," "adult baby," "diaper lover," and "diaper fetish" over time in the United States. The second one shows worldwide trends in interest for those four words.

 

[K00paTr00pa]

Here are some charts from Google Trends. The first one shows relative interest in "abdl," "adult baby," "diaper lover," and "diaper fetish" over time in the United States. The second one shows worldwide trends in interest for those four words.

Thank you for posting this, it looks like interest in abdl remains consistent. Honestly I was hoping for a steady rise in searches, but I guess its to be expected.

 

[loadedpamperman]

Here are some charts from Google Trends. The first one shows relative interest in "abdl," "adult baby," "diaper lover," and "diaper fetish" over time in the United States. The second one shows worldwide trends in interest for those four words.

Would be nice to know what the graphs & colors represent

 

[diapernh]

I am just going to state my opinion, we will not become more mainstream and will go further apart as the community continues to come up with different subsets of mainly the same thing….. we have ABDL, Age regressor, Little, Age Player, etc…. You all either wear diapers or like to pretend to be younger than your biological age.

 

[BobbiSueEllen]

I am just going to state my opinion, we will not become more mainstream and will go further apart as the community continues to come up with different subsets of mainly the same thing….. we have ABDL, Age regressor, Little, Age Player, etc…. You all either wear diapers or like to pretend to be younger than your biological age.

For the better part, I agree. We all wear diapers and we won't make it together if we decide to emphatically divide into smaller, proud, isolated groups (remember the negative aspects of labeling?). If we don't hang together, we will certainly hang apart.

We may not go forward much but I for one sure don't wanna see us lose ground. Any semblance of good progress is probably something we'll never see in our own lifetimes...especially mine. 😲

 

[buridan]

Would be nice to know what the graphs & colors represent

Whoops! I forgot to include the legends!

Red is "adult baby." Blue is "ABDL." Yellow and green are "diaper lover" and "diaper fetish." (I forget which is which. Both are rare.)

The Y-axis represents relative frequency of a search term, both over time and compared with the other terms in the chart.

What I take from these charts is that overall interest in ABDL hasn't changed much in the past 20 years, though the use of the term "ABDL" has grown.

 

[blaincorrous]

Honestly, if we ever do achieve mainstream awareness, it may be in a way that a large part of our community isn’t comfortable with. A lot of awareness that other communities achieve is driven by more performative, out-and-loud elements, and not all of the rest are comfortable being defined by those elements. I imagine I’ll be part of the quieter elements, acutely aware of the difference between awareness and acceptance.

I think those elements will open some doors and close others. There are large swathes of the population who haven’t heard of us or have dismissed us as a myth. Imagine coming out to your partner and finding out what they really think… and then doing that for large social groups, taking the average reaction and applying that to society. I’m not sure that comes out in our favor for a long time.

 

[BobbiSueEllen]

Honestly, if we ever do achieve mainstream awareness, it may be in a way that a large part of our community isn’t comfortable with. A lot of awareness that other communities achieve is driven by more performative, out-and-loud elements, and not all of the rest are comfortable being defined by those elements.

We have. Unfortunately, it's been via exhibitionism, on such shows as Donahue, Jerry Springer, CSI: Las Vegas ("King Baby"), et al. It goes without saying that's why we're here at ADISC, talking: largely, for both shelter and damage-control. 🤔

I imagine I’ll be part of the quieter elements, acutely aware of the difference between awareness and acceptance.

That makes two of us. ✊

I think those elements will open some doors and close others. There are large swathes of the population who haven’t heard of us or have dismissed us as a myth.

Hard to tell but the cat's outta the bag, for sure. 😖

Imagine coming out to your partner and finding out what they really think… and then doing that for large social groups, taking the average reaction and applying that to society. I’m not sure that comes out in our favor for a long time.

That's a a big reason why I won't enter into another relationship. Diapers & solid relationships are a rare unicorn, ya gotta admit.