Post #708221 by TikiTacky on Fri, Feb 14, 2014 2:38 PM

Arkiva Tropika is a great resource, but the images are generally far from print quality.

I really thought more people would be willing to share, and to be honest it's a bit disheartening. Tiki Central used to be such a vibrant community (looking at the old threads), with lots of discussion and a great spirit of aloha with people contributing and sharing questions, things, and knowledge. It seems like these days the only thing people care about is buying/selling their tiki wares or partying it up at tiki-themed events. Threads that ask questions are often ignored or, worse, dismissed because someone talked about something loosely related eight years ago.

There's far more backstabbing and name calling than lively discussion. Apparently the events are now cliques, with outsiders ignored and unwelcomed—I see this mentioned repeatedly from those who attend. The websites that were built to support the tiki revival are all but abandoned. Ooga-Mooga was promised an update a couple years ago, but Humuhumu had a baby and that was the end of her involvement in the online tiki community. The Critiki website has been broken for years and is slowly becoming irrelavent. I've emailed the owner of Ariiva Tropika on a couple occasions and never gotten a response. And then there's The Tikipedia—as far as I can tell it's the first serious non-profit driven tiki endeavor in a long time, and the interest level has been effectively nothing. A few people have registered but only one user has contributed anything, and I don't believe he's even a TC member. Almost every article on there is one I've researched and written myself.

It's no secret I've been working on a book about tiki mugs. It is set to be the most heavily researched book of its kind, and has tons of information that exists nowhere else. Aside from Wendy Cevola's generous contributions with information about creating mugs, the vast majority of my contacts go unanswered or people make promises and never deliver. It's disheartening, and frankly I'm ready to throw in the towel. If no one is excited about this stuff anymore, what's the point of writing a book about it?

Granted, you've caught me on a bad day. I have chronic back problems that have resurfaced and I'm in a fair amount of pain despite the painkillers, but these certainly aren't things that I haven't felt before, and I'm also not the first to voice them.

I'm still willing to share what I've got, but I'm not sure why I'm even bothering. :(