The mainstreaming of the concept ruined my interest in it. It went from goofy weirdo stuff and local folk lore about weird shit like the racoonigator to dozens of shitty horror movies based on white guy's misconceptions of indigenous beliefs, or "i want to fuck the sqonk" smut which is only fun the first few times. And any actual cryptids, you know, like butterflies or birds that hand't been seen in a while or that aren't supposed to be in that region, no one seems interested in those.
Mothman's still cool though.
My thought is, cryptids are a small town thing, a neighbhood legend thing, an i lived here my whole life and only seen it once thing.it's arguing about whether the thing that ate your aunt's dog 50 years ago was a bear or a coyote or a glowing mutant that crawled out of the old chemical plant. It can't be for everyone, cryptids are kind of by definition local folk lore, tourist traps, in jokes, and the occaisional legitimate head scratcher. If you bring too much attention and too much commercialization the charm goes out of it. Monsters and loogaroo and mothmen and frog people are very fragile, they can't survive too much handling without falling apart.
And the world has just gotten to small, too jaded, too hungry for a moment of novelty, for things like thata to hide in the woods and moors anymore.
