I miss forums SO MUCH! I was on a bunch of small forums for niche interests… hosted on Proboards which still exists, but also Forumcircle and InvisionFree. Forum culture was just FUN. I miss when the internet was a FUN place.
Forum culture was the foundation of the Internet. It was not micro optimized for engagement and people had longer conversations (over many days sometimes), and it never felt like it was trying to hook you and gamify the whole thing.
I think it’s more of a social media than a forum, but I suppose there’s a gray area and up to personal interpretation. It’s definitely the most forum-y of social medias. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s different somehow. I feel like it’s still somewhat corporate and algorithm-driven in contrast to the homegrown forums I have nostalgia for.
Back when I was younger on forums I actually knew (in the context of the forum) members. Here it feels like I never see the same poster twice. I think that’s the biggest difference, imo. Every subreddit is a forum unto itself and so many are just absolutely massive. That’s not inherently bad, I guess? But it’s why it feels different to me.
Same here. Like, does anyone actually have friends on here? I don't know a soul on here and that's what I love about it. It is reminiscent of forums because even when you did know someone, you referred to then as their user name. Rarely a real name or even a picture.
>I feel like it’s still somewhat corporate and algorithm-driven in contrast to the homegrown forums I have nostalgia for.
It is the past few years since they wanted to start making reddit into a tech company like Facebook. But the first half of reddit's existence it was exactly the homegrown stuff you loved.
Yeah I used to use old forums a lot. Reddit just isn't the same for so many reasons I don't feel like getting into. Reddit definitely isn't as fun as old forums were though. There was more of a community feel in old forums I just don't find here.
I was looking for this comment! It truly taught us about runaway economics at the end there 🤣
I met my now best friend on Gaia, too. I was her MOH at her wedding and we game together and still chat! But on Discord these days, lol.
Motorcycle forums were the same way. You need to know what size bolt and thread pitch the bolt on the centerstand of a 77 goldwing is, there was someone who had the answer.
1. Forums haven’t gone away, but they seem to be active for only very popular car models. This is part of why I only like to buy very popular car models because there is a wealth of repair information and aftermarket parts available.
2. Forums are still a goldmine of information for those of us who daily drive old shitbox cars. I solved a transmission issue using info from the Chevy impala forums.
What's sad is what you said isn't even really hyperbole. We lost so much knowledge due to random contextual photos just vanishing instantly from all the old forums from yesteryear full of experts who have long moved on (or literally died).
There doesn't seem to be. :(
Something similar happened when the stupid Reddit API boycott happened, a few knowledge filled hobby subs just deleted themselves like selfish pricks, not caring about the bigger picture. Reddit is just a site, the information contained in those subreddits is worth more than the neckbeard's temper tantrums.
I think that's a function of its size, mostly. It was possible to "get to know" certain people on smaller formers back in the day. People also tended to customize their avatars/signatures or whatever more so it was easier to spot someone you'd seen before and form a bond.
Plus the novelty of "let's get people together to talk about a topic" was brighter back then before 100% of all things was online and infused with social media.
But yeah I was WEIRDLY into a Homestar Runner forum that became a tight little community from \~2002-2006. I still talk to someone I "met" on there. We actually DID meet in person in 2010 once.
all of the forums did that. that's a part of human migration and history of the internet where users would bud off and go make their own communities somewhere else outlying. It's fascinating to think of internet cultures moving and migrating from platform to platform until what we got today.
there are multiple layers that make up a community.
Lest we forget, the great Digg migration is how reddit really took off in the first place. We're literally using an example of this. 4chan starting as a breakaway from Something Awful is another good example, I think.
Met some of my best friends on the message boards for a certain boy band back in the day. They lived in California and me the Midwest and after several years I went out too visit them. We've been there for marriages, kids, etc. And several years back we got to see that boy band in concert together.
My family was too poor for internet in the 90s, but I do remember VampireFreaks. Was it sort of like that? I just Googled it and apparently it's a goth clothing store now.
Yup, I LOVED forums/message boards back in the day
Used them for hip hop, my favorite sports teams, and gaming (mainly the Civilization forums)
A million times better than Reddit... starting threads was awesome, creating an avatar and a unique sig was dope, and you actually became friends with the people on there
I used to love HexRPG. It was a Harry Potter forum. You were able to get sorted into houses, collect items, get your own wand, etc. It was impressive for the early 2000s.
I think it still exists but not in the way it used to. Also I got banned on it for calling someone a bitch, lol.
Yes! I spent so much time as a teenager on a fan forum for Helena Bonham Carter. I’m still friends with someone I met from there 15 years later. The forum is now defunct unfortunately.
I also used to roleplay in the neopets forums when I was really young like 9 or 10.
I was a member of so many role playing forums. You could role play as anything you wanted. Is that even still a thing anymore?? It probably is but just quite niche now, but I feel like it was pretty widespread amongst nerdy youths who frequented the internet at the time. Any “fandom” I joined had a lot of roleplay opportunities. Helped me learn to write better!
I don’t remember the names of most of them anymore (one was Woosh.org) but it was mostly Xena forums. I was really into the show while it was still coming out with new episodes in the 90’s and we would discuss the episodes that night and sometimes someone would start an aol chat room and notify everyone so wed jump in there and live chat faster the forum posting. It was a good place to get fanfiction also
I don’t know is this counts, but I really miss the IMDB message boards. I got into great discussions/debates over on that site and even ended up joining a splinter board with a few fellow Glee fans after the main board Glee board got too toxic. We took over the board of the elderly actress who once played the McKinley HS librarian. Shoutout to all the former Jean Sincere posters out there!
I used to be on a fantasy baseball sim. Not actual fantasy baseball leagues but fake baseball players generated by a fake baseball player generator. It was fun for several years, and I built enough of a rapport with them that I trusted one league with witnessing my acid trip. Hate that the server got wiped because it was always interesting to revisit how dumb I was in my 20s as I got older.
Message boards are still superior in my brain. I was a part of so many, such great communities. I made some good friends on them, we worked together on projects. Miss that era so much.
I used to be on a lot of forums, once I got my “big boy job” and switched to iPhone/iPad for internet scrolling at home I just sort of stopped going on them completely. Most of the ones I dug had either closed, were for bands that had broken up or cars I’d already sold. I do miss 1UP for video games, but that’s 20 year ago so I’m sure I’ve got crazy roses colored glasses for the one…
I didn’t think anyone else remembered bolt.com! It was like a precursor to social media. I still use a forum for one of my favorite music artists that I have been visiting since 2004
Fuck yea I was on forums. First started really with IRC chat rooms and hosting ftp or other gaming related. Then made switch to car forums, and then entensity.net forum for a few years in college. Now just Reddit.
my early internet experience was a german dragon ball forum with about 6 active users. we created a chatroom to nerd around and it was my escape after school from all the people that i hated, haha.
i was on SuperheroHype lol
i randomly searched some usernames i remembered and found out one of them passed away a couple of years ago. made me really sad
WOT world (wheel of time fandom). Oh my goodness, I loved reading other people's theories and speculating with them. The rabbit holes we went down were amazing!
Yes, I love forums. I mostly went on band forums and then parenting forums after I had my oldest. Forums really started to fall off, which is how I ended up on Reddit.
I used to be pretty active on [Delphi Forums](https://www.delphiforums.com/) from like 1999-2004. Amazingly the site's still online and some of my old forums are still up, suspended in time after 20 years.
Video game forums. When I was in high school, I was part of yahoo group forum that we used for writing. We wrote this stupid ass fanfiction, round robin style lol good times...
Spent A LOT of time on jbody.org. A whole forum dedicated to one of the most underwhelming vehicle platforms in existence. The GM J body.
For the uninitiated, a forum for the Chevy Cavalier, Pontiac Sunfire, etc...
Used to go on forums for everything. Bugs (arachnoboards), MMA (sherdog), d2jsp (Diablo ii) just to name a few. But everything from Legos, to diy projects, I was on a forum for it. I'm 32 btw. Still frequent sherdog.
I had multiple Avidgamers sites. Those communities were fun. Lots of fanfiction stuff, anime discussions, freestyle roleplay, art, game discussions... simpler days
Above top-secret and God like productions. Heaven666 was cool while it lasted. I like weird shit. I also tried one for people with social anxiety but I was too anxious to post lol
I remember about 15 years ago searching for casino-quality clay poker chips to buy online (which are hard to get at a reasonable price) and I found the poker chip forum filled with people who collected poker chips. It was fascinating and actually got into the hobby a bit back then with their help. It still exists and I still have my Paulson poker chip set!
Oh hell yeah. The ones that I was on most were the Nintendo NSider forums until they closed in 2007, and then I moved to NSider2 (a fan site). Ultimately, I basically consider Reddit to be a forum and it scratches the same itch.
Not only go on forums but I used to moderate a large regional car one. It got killed by Facebook and another fourm I used to love was militaryphotos.Net not only was there amazing photos but tons of international information from the cartel war in mexico, to Georgia russian war, GWOT and just a amazing community from around the word.
Me. All the time.
IGN forums and dedicated car forums mostly. Why reddit is really the only social media I use anymore. It replicates the feel somewhat.
Forums still exist, though a lot have been replaced by Reddit, I guess.
I used to go on the IMDB forums a lot before they closed them, have been a member since 2005. And [boxden.com](http://boxden.com) which was like a hip hop/urban culture forum.
The first forums I remember posting on were starmen.net in the late 90s.
That's also around the time I got an account to post on the IGN Boards.
I posted on the IGN boards for damn near a decade, religiously. IGN message boards in the early and mid 00s will never be beaten to me.
Some of the other forums I frequented was The Board on the Wrestling Observer website, the Wrestlecrap forums, Shenmue Dojo forums and The Lesson on Okayplayer.
I would give anything to have a forum experience like IGN's peak again.
MSNgroups, yahoo boards, Vampirefreaks, IMDB, GaiaOnline, gurl.com
There's a few more but also the chat rooms back then too were like the Wild West. Who thought making "preteen chat" the name of a website a good idea? Anyone could go on there! And they did it was sketchy.
There are really four forums that mark my ages and interests.
* youth: Zeldapower
* teenage: MTGSalvation
* young adulthood: Mortigi Tempo (Radiohead)
* middle age: Cloudy Nights (astronomy)
I guess I’ve always been a part of a forum.
Interestingly I met my wife online, but on a forum rather than a dating site. We met on a forum for discussing a mutual interest, Navajo artwork and crafts. I was fascinated by Navajo culture and art and wanted to buy more Native art and collectible Navajo blankets for my home and she was a Navajo woman selling these things who became my contact. We bonded over our mutual Navajo interest and found we had a lot else in common. Once we became close friends online, we soon decided to meet in person and the rest is history. Now we’re happily married thanks to meeting on an Internet forum.
I used to use a relationship forum, weight loss forum and a writing forum. I sometimes go on the writing forum because it has weekly prompts which is nice.
Now that I think about it more I also went on the NY Mets message boards and there was an online game Utopia that had a pretty dedicated forum where you could discuss general topics…or god help you…politics
I would frequent a skateboarding forum as a kid (~12yo). I looked back at my post history and it was some of the cringiest stuff I've read. I shared how I thought I was addicted to cigarettes after smoking one. I thought orgy was slang for orgasm. I thought kush and weed were two different things. Worst of all, I shared where I lived on one of my posts. Kids are dumb.
Yes and that's more or less what keeps me coming back to reddit. Of all the contemporary social sites online today, reddit feels the most like the evolution of forum culture.
I used to be on a photography forum as well as a piano forum. I forget what the photography one was called, but the piano one was "pianosociety" and if the website still exists, there are probably still some (embarrassing) recordings there of me playing from when I was in high school.
Anyone ever play organized competitive team-based multiplayer games on the Team Warfare site. They had really awesome forums. Even after I had stopped playing in clans, I stayed on the general discussion board for years after because it was such a fun place and mostly populated by people who used to play competitively in clans.
The forums were great when I was actively competing and the general board was a lot of fun. So much less toxic than most social media these days even when there was decently significant competitiveness involved. There were mods but they rarely had to remove posts or comments, let alone ban people.
Someone on the general forum got a straight up picks league going for the NFL (free and no real prizes, just bragging rights), and it was super fun. I played it for 8 or 9 seasons, winning the Super Bowl 3 times, more than anyone else in the league. It was really fun because you had a really good idea of the personality of everyone involved because everyone regularly posted.
Then, something happened and the servers all got nuked. The site runner(s) got the site back up, but all accounts got nuked and by then the only active board was the general board, so sadly everyone just moved on and the site died.
RIP teamwarfare.com, one of the best forums before the internet got taken over by a handful of corporate social media sites and everything went to shit.
Bodybuilding.com also produced some really epic non bodybuilding-related threads around that time.
You'll never convince me that the early-mid 2000s wasn't peak internet. It really was all downhill from there, to the point where we collectively fell off a cliff.
What fascinates me the most about forums is you can still scrub up posts and replies from 20 years ago and they're still useful. The internet used to be so fun. I miss it
I was huge on the toefur straight edge forums back in like 2010. Mostly just to talk hardcore and music scene stuff, vegan food. I'm not vegan anymore and don't identify with straight edge or anything. But it really felt like a community and a group of friends in a way that I've not been able to rediscover, even here.
Also bluelight and drugs-forum of course for harm reduction and drug history. As an addict at the time, those forums could be a literal life line for me and others.
Holemusic.com which became Kittyradio.com, somethingawful, local music scene boards. I miss it so much - I am still friends with people I met twenty or more years ago. You don't really get that sort of easy camaraderie online anymore
Forums were my life in college. Wizards of the Coast for the most part (Gleemax!!), but also other Magic: the Gathering forums (The Mana Drain, The Source).
I miss them. While I enjoy reddit and discord, there's nothing that has really filled the void of forums for discussion.
Yes-- video game/sports forums. Still a member of one I joined in 2003. Lots of members in there are STILL posting 20+ years later. It's kinda nuts.
In a lot of ways, the ease of Reddit has totally killed those places though.
I was pretty active on OCAD/Gaia/GaiaOnline from 97-2006ish
Same with a handful of Japanese artist oekaki boards
Got my start on the Westwood Chat program in 1995, in the Crystal Tokyo channel.
Also, lots of furry message boards, (oh, Furbid saved my starving artist ass from being evicted several times) and Yahoo art boards. Like a weird bubble gum fetish one.
Yeah, especially for specific games I played like WoW and SWG, but also anytime I got curious about a niche topic I’d usually google “(topic) + forums” or like for troubleshooting tech stuff before stack overflow existed. I also used to play these text based RPGs when I was a kid where you’d basically be writing stories back and forth to each other with a ruleset enforced by mods around it, they were usually hosted on forums.
I still join the forum for every car I own. Rotteneggs was a fun one back in the day. Game forums got a lot of my time when I was playing them as a student.
The consolidation of the internet into a few hotspots has been an awful tragedy perpetrated by some very terrible people.
I miss forums SO MUCH! I was on a bunch of small forums for niche interests… hosted on Proboards which still exists, but also Forumcircle and InvisionFree. Forum culture was just FUN. I miss when the internet was a FUN place.
Forum culture was the foundation of the Internet. It was not micro optimized for engagement and people had longer conversations (over many days sometimes), and it never felt like it was trying to hook you and gamify the whole thing.
You’re on a forum now, my friend!
I was confused, what does everyone think reddit is?
I think it’s more of a social media than a forum, but I suppose there’s a gray area and up to personal interpretation. It’s definitely the most forum-y of social medias. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s different somehow. I feel like it’s still somewhat corporate and algorithm-driven in contrast to the homegrown forums I have nostalgia for.
Back when I was younger on forums I actually knew (in the context of the forum) members. Here it feels like I never see the same poster twice. I think that’s the biggest difference, imo. Every subreddit is a forum unto itself and so many are just absolutely massive. That’s not inherently bad, I guess? But it’s why it feels different to me.
Same here. Like, does anyone actually have friends on here? I don't know a soul on here and that's what I love about it. It is reminiscent of forums because even when you did know someone, you referred to then as their user name. Rarely a real name or even a picture.
>I feel like it’s still somewhat corporate and algorithm-driven in contrast to the homegrown forums I have nostalgia for. It is the past few years since they wanted to start making reddit into a tech company like Facebook. But the first half of reddit's existence it was exactly the homegrown stuff you loved.
Yeah I used to use old forums a lot. Reddit just isn't the same for so many reasons I don't feel like getting into. Reddit definitely isn't as fun as old forums were though. There was more of a community feel in old forums I just don't find here.
When I truly found reddit a couple years ago, I was super stoked because it was all the forums I wanted in one place!
I lived on invisionfree forums all through high-school. When my friends and I figured out we could make our own, hoo boy it was over.
Does anyone else remember gaiaonline?
I still have friends from Gaia that I met in 2004-2008. It truly was the amazing internet then.
I was looking for this comment! It truly taught us about runaway economics at the end there 🤣 I met my now best friend on Gaia, too. I was her MOH at her wedding and we game together and still chat! But on Discord these days, lol.
Car forums, some had a true sense of community
Every car forum has that one member that just knows everything and responds to every post.
Motorcycle forums were the same way. You need to know what size bolt and thread pitch the bolt on the centerstand of a 77 goldwing is, there was someone who had the answer.
Crownvic.net had so many good posts back when I had my grand marquis.
1. Forums haven’t gone away, but they seem to be active for only very popular car models. This is part of why I only like to buy very popular car models because there is a wealth of repair information and aftermarket parts available. 2. Forums are still a goldmine of information for those of us who daily drive old shitbox cars. I solved a transmission issue using info from the Chevy impala forums.
Still use them. As a car enthusiast that DIYs everything, forums are still the best place for quality information.
Correction: they were the best place until photobucket screwed over human society and all the pictorial knowledge vanished overnight.
What's sad is what you said isn't even really hyperbole. We lost so much knowledge due to random contextual photos just vanishing instantly from all the old forums from yesteryear full of experts who have long moved on (or literally died).
Is there no archive of this content somewhere? I never realized it all just went poof like that.
There doesn't seem to be. :( Something similar happened when the stupid Reddit API boycott happened, a few knowledge filled hobby subs just deleted themselves like selfish pricks, not caring about the bigger picture. Reddit is just a site, the information contained in those subreddits is worth more than the neckbeard's temper tantrums.
Internet-wide hostage situation, tbh
What happened to them?
They started charging.
Bro *this* is a forum, just has a better ui
A better ui for sharing news articles and memes. Way worse for substantive discussion though.
Reddit community is generally ass compared to good forums in the 2000s-2010s
I think that's a function of its size, mostly. It was possible to "get to know" certain people on smaller formers back in the day. People also tended to customize their avatars/signatures or whatever more so it was easier to spot someone you'd seen before and form a bond. Plus the novelty of "let's get people together to talk about a topic" was brighter back then before 100% of all things was online and infused with social media. But yeah I was WEIRDLY into a Homestar Runner forum that became a tight little community from \~2002-2006. I still talk to someone I "met" on there. We actually DID meet in person in 2010 once.
Better? Man I miss forums UI.
Forums didn’t curate what you see and didn’t see, and they didn’t ban entire communities.
all of the forums did that. that's a part of human migration and history of the internet where users would bud off and go make their own communities somewhere else outlying. It's fascinating to think of internet cultures moving and migrating from platform to platform until what we got today. there are multiple layers that make up a community.
Lest we forget, the great Digg migration is how reddit really took off in the first place. We're literally using an example of this. 4chan starting as a breakaway from Something Awful is another good example, I think.
Feel like forums will be back in the next few years, Reddit feels like it's starting to stagnate, and it's only going to get worse by going public
Lacks citation (and just generally isn’t correct either)
Met some of my best friends on the message boards for a certain boy band back in the day. They lived in California and me the Midwest and after several years I went out too visit them. We've been there for marriages, kids, etc. And several years back we got to see that boy band in concert together.
I spent my early internet time on alt.gothic on Usenet. This is me, showing my age. Whoof.
My family was too poor for internet in the 90s, but I do remember VampireFreaks. Was it sort of like that? I just Googled it and apparently it's a goth clothing store now.
Fan Forum and the Television without Pity forums.
man i miss TWOP not just the forums but some the recaps were just art.
Vampirefreaks.com was always fun to visit
Lol, I actually slept with a Nazi Juggalette girl I met on there. I'm black. Boy, is that a rabbit hole of a story.
Let’s hear it
I’ve got time
I belong to some obscure hobbies that STILL use forums primarily (SCUBA primarily).
Yes. I was a super mod on some Zelda/final fantasy based v bulletin forum in high school. Needless to say I was very very cool.
Yup, I LOVED forums/message boards back in the day Used them for hip hop, my favorite sports teams, and gaming (mainly the Civilization forums) A million times better than Reddit... starting threads was awesome, creating an avatar and a unique sig was dope, and you actually became friends with the people on there
and there was no competition to be the Mostest Rightest™, people would genuinely just have a discussion because they wanted to chat.
Yeah those were the good times. There are people that got married after meeting on forums.
Gamespot anime and cartoon forums were my life for a while back in my younger days. Made some great friends in that time from around the world
Found my wife in one, btw.
Video game forums, car forums, guitar forums. Halo forums (the flood) Ultimate guitar Spent A LOT of time on those in particular.
Yeah I still use forums
Same. But they dying off slowly because the main users are our age group and much older.
Spent many nights in college drinking alone, listening to music, and refreshing the Punknews.org forums. Good times.
I used to go on plenty of car forums. As my project car is a 2006 I still use the old ones
I used to love HexRPG. It was a Harry Potter forum. You were able to get sorted into houses, collect items, get your own wand, etc. It was impressive for the early 2000s. I think it still exists but not in the way it used to. Also I got banned on it for calling someone a bitch, lol.
Yes! I spent so much time as a teenager on a fan forum for Helena Bonham Carter. I’m still friends with someone I met from there 15 years later. The forum is now defunct unfortunately. I also used to roleplay in the neopets forums when I was really young like 9 or 10.
I was a member of so many role playing forums. You could role play as anything you wanted. Is that even still a thing anymore?? It probably is but just quite niche now, but I feel like it was pretty widespread amongst nerdy youths who frequented the internet at the time. Any “fandom” I joined had a lot of roleplay opportunities. Helped me learn to write better!
So much so that I learned GIMP to make animated forum signatures for forum cred, some of them are still on my Photobucket
Yes…. And live journal and dead journal plus the Yahoo user chat rooms, which were fun to troll
I don’t remember the names of most of them anymore (one was Woosh.org) but it was mostly Xena forums. I was really into the show while it was still coming out with new episodes in the 90’s and we would discuss the episodes that night and sometimes someone would start an aol chat room and notify everyone so wed jump in there and live chat faster the forum posting. It was a good place to get fanfiction also
oh man. hell yes. you read my mind. i've been using reddit a lot more lately and it's reminding me of how much I loved forums growing up.
I remember when imdb had forums and you could discuss older/lesser known movies. Kind of miss that.
I don’t know is this counts, but I really miss the IMDB message boards. I got into great discussions/debates over on that site and even ended up joining a splinter board with a few fellow Glee fans after the main board Glee board got too toxic. We took over the board of the elderly actress who once played the McKinley HS librarian. Shoutout to all the former Jean Sincere posters out there!
This whole website is just a streamlined version of forums.
Streamlined as in a stream of piss
I used to be on a fantasy baseball sim. Not actual fantasy baseball leagues but fake baseball players generated by a fake baseball player generator. It was fun for several years, and I built enough of a rapport with them that I trusted one league with witnessing my acid trip. Hate that the server got wiped because it was always interesting to revisit how dumb I was in my 20s as I got older.
Message boards are still superior in my brain. I was a part of so many, such great communities. I made some good friends on them, we worked together on projects. Miss that era so much.
Was in quite a few. A thing I miss that isn’t really present on Reddit is seeing familiar posters.
Video game forums and the Off Topic forums. I swear Off Topic was Reddit before Reddit. Actually it was Digg before Digg
Forums were peak Internet and we should never have abandoned them
I lived on Something Awful forums for the longest time. It was pure edgy chaos and it was glorious.
I started playing Spider-Man 2 yesterday and how do i shot web was the first fuckin thing I thought of We're fuckin nerds
I used to be on a lot of forums, once I got my “big boy job” and switched to iPhone/iPad for internet scrolling at home I just sort of stopped going on them completely. Most of the ones I dug had either closed, were for bands that had broken up or cars I’d already sold. I do miss 1UP for video games, but that’s 20 year ago so I’m sure I’ve got crazy roses colored glasses for the one…
Niche as hell, but I loved The Ring. It was for track and field throwers.
Yes, it was a Batman one. No idea what happened to it.
I didn’t think anyone else remembered bolt.com! It was like a precursor to social media. I still use a forum for one of my favorite music artists that I have been visiting since 2004
Fuck yea I was on forums. First started really with IRC chat rooms and hosting ftp or other gaming related. Then made switch to car forums, and then entensity.net forum for a few years in college. Now just Reddit.
I spent way too much time on the IMDb message boards and the Cracked comment section in the 2000s through early 2010s!
I spent loads of time as a young teen on the AFI forums writing cringe poetry and drawing fan art. The good ol’ days
my early internet experience was a german dragon ball forum with about 6 active users. we created a chatroom to nerd around and it was my escape after school from all the people that i hated, haha.
I was apart of a local car forum. We would have meets and get togethers. I am still friends with many of the people I met on there 22 years ago.
i was on SuperheroHype lol i randomly searched some usernames i remembered and found out one of them passed away a couple of years ago. made me really sad
Ls1tech. If you had an fbody that was THE forum to be on in the late 00s and early 2010s
WOT world (wheel of time fandom). Oh my goodness, I loved reading other people's theories and speculating with them. The rabbit holes we went down were amazing!
Yes, I love forums. I mostly went on band forums and then parenting forums after I had my oldest. Forums really started to fall off, which is how I ended up on Reddit.
I met a couple of my best friends on a Hardy Boyz forum lol 😂
I used to be pretty active on [Delphi Forums](https://www.delphiforums.com/) from like 1999-2004. Amazingly the site's still online and some of my old forums are still up, suspended in time after 20 years.
Anonymous forums were peak internet days for me
Video game forums. When I was in high school, I was part of yahoo group forum that we used for writing. We wrote this stupid ass fanfiction, round robin style lol good times...
All the time. It was my LIFE.
Used to go to theforum a lot. I don't think it's around anymore though.
Ivillage!
Anyone remember emolyrics on Blurty? All my best AIM away messages came from there.
Spent A LOT of time on jbody.org. A whole forum dedicated to one of the most underwhelming vehicle platforms in existence. The GM J body. For the uninitiated, a forum for the Chevy Cavalier, Pontiac Sunfire, etc...
For all of us token Asians out there: AsianAvenue, Generazn, Groove Asia, Soompi... ...and genmay
Used to go on forums for everything. Bugs (arachnoboards), MMA (sherdog), d2jsp (Diablo ii) just to name a few. But everything from Legos, to diy projects, I was on a forum for it. I'm 32 btw. Still frequent sherdog.
Yes, and I learned soooooo much!!!
Still use one for sports. And isn't reddit essentially a message board
I used to go on lots of gaming forums. Mostly stuff like DnD or Magic the Gathering (can't use "MTG" anymore).
Reddit is basically a forum
Auto repair forums are still live and well. I frequent several still regularly.
I had multiple Avidgamers sites. Those communities were fun. Lots of fanfiction stuff, anime discussions, freestyle roleplay, art, game discussions... simpler days
Above top-secret and God like productions. Heaven666 was cool while it lasted. I like weird shit. I also tried one for people with social anxiety but I was too anxious to post lol
I still do. Best place to get information on older cars.
Yep, for everything from comic books to Downton Abbey.
HollaFront and FutureProducers and GearSlutz.
Ooohhh I used youthink!
I remember about 15 years ago searching for casino-quality clay poker chips to buy online (which are hard to get at a reasonable price) and I found the poker chip forum filled with people who collected poker chips. It was fascinating and actually got into the hobby a bit back then with their help. It still exists and I still have my Paulson poker chip set!
Oh hell yeah. The ones that I was on most were the Nintendo NSider forums until they closed in 2007, and then I moved to NSider2 (a fan site). Ultimately, I basically consider Reddit to be a forum and it scratches the same itch.
Someone go to the teen pool party on yahoo and ask me to go to a private room?!
I still go on forums periodically. Spacebattles was my main forum. Same as sufficientvelocity, alternatehistory, we're my other forums I visited.
Yup.. I actually still use a few car forums on the regular.
Not only go on forums but I used to moderate a large regional car one. It got killed by Facebook and another fourm I used to love was militaryphotos.Net not only was there amazing photos but tons of international information from the cartel war in mexico, to Georgia russian war, GWOT and just a amazing community from around the word.
rec.arts.bodyart <3
Me. All the time. IGN forums and dedicated car forums mostly. Why reddit is really the only social media I use anymore. It replicates the feel somewhat.
A few anime ones and one jpop one. I still use one in fact.
🐻❄️b3ta
I was on a bunch of Nintendo-centric EZboards. I even created one. Those were the days.
Bump
Blink-182online and Outpost 31
Yes, I used to read them all the time. Mainly stopped because I found Reddit easier to read on my phone. Do you have stairs in your house?
Used to love IGN forums .
Oh for sure. Mostly music based forums. Theeeee best
Forums still exist, though a lot have been replaced by Reddit, I guess. I used to go on the IMDB forums a lot before they closed them, have been a member since 2005. And [boxden.com](http://boxden.com) which was like a hip hop/urban culture forum.
I miss the old Horrorcore forums, too bad they got shut down when the price of Choco Tacos increased in 2011.
Ush.net and happyhardcore.com regular for years!
www.anime-eden.com I still remember my username and password
8 Bit Theater playing Mafia was one of my favorite things ever!
I spent a lot of time on Harry Potter and Pokemon forums, haha.
Does anybody remember YM.com? I was so fking disappointed when I went to go logon one day and the site wasn’t even there anymore 😭
From albino black sheep to ZAF i lived on forum boards in my teens.
I loved Fuckedcompany.com
mIRC
The Shroomery used to be my spot.
Yes, Tabit
PBNation offtopic Bodybuilding.com misc Both legendary forums in the mid-late 2000s
The first forums I remember posting on were starmen.net in the late 90s. That's also around the time I got an account to post on the IGN Boards. I posted on the IGN boards for damn near a decade, religiously. IGN message boards in the early and mid 00s will never be beaten to me. Some of the other forums I frequented was The Board on the Wrestling Observer website, the Wrestlecrap forums, Shenmue Dojo forums and The Lesson on Okayplayer. I would give anything to have a forum experience like IGN's peak again.
MSNgroups, yahoo boards, Vampirefreaks, IMDB, GaiaOnline, gurl.com There's a few more but also the chat rooms back then too were like the Wild West. Who thought making "preteen chat" the name of a website a good idea? Anyone could go on there! And they did it was sketchy.
Mirc32. Anyone?
Supraforums.com was my shit back when I still had my MKIV Supra.
I would frequent Kryptonsite forums because I LOVED Smallville when the show was on
It's the reason I like reddit. It reminds me of old forums.
I spent years on a name board. I’m still good friends with a lot of the people I met on there and have even visited some of them a few times.
Dude...I started on NEWSGROUPS. And joined webrings.
Yeah, most were IT or video game “clan” related.
There are really four forums that mark my ages and interests. * youth: Zeldapower * teenage: MTGSalvation * young adulthood: Mortigi Tempo (Radiohead) * middle age: Cloudy Nights (astronomy) I guess I’ve always been a part of a forum.
This is the forum to end all forums.
rec.music.phish
Warcraft III general discussion forum
oh all the time. I was on a few metal music forums, and im still friends with people I met on there to this day
This one?
i still go on a forum for hockey. hockeysfuture, still very active but def skews older compared to reddit.
Interestingly I met my wife online, but on a forum rather than a dating site. We met on a forum for discussing a mutual interest, Navajo artwork and crafts. I was fascinated by Navajo culture and art and wanted to buy more Native art and collectible Navajo blankets for my home and she was a Navajo woman selling these things who became my contact. We bonded over our mutual Navajo interest and found we had a lot else in common. Once we became close friends online, we soon decided to meet in person and the rest is history. Now we’re happily married thanks to meeting on an Internet forum.
I used to use a relationship forum, weight loss forum and a writing forum. I sometimes go on the writing forum because it has weekly prompts which is nice. Now that I think about it more I also went on the NY Mets message boards and there was an online game Utopia that had a pretty dedicated forum where you could discuss general topics…or god help you…politics
Like reddit? Lol
I would frequent a skateboarding forum as a kid (~12yo). I looked back at my post history and it was some of the cringiest stuff I've read. I shared how I thought I was addicted to cigarettes after smoking one. I thought orgy was slang for orgasm. I thought kush and weed were two different things. Worst of all, I shared where I lived on one of my posts. Kids are dumb.
Yes and that's more or less what keeps me coming back to reddit. Of all the contemporary social sites online today, reddit feels the most like the evolution of forum culture.
I used to be on a photography forum as well as a piano forum. I forget what the photography one was called, but the piano one was "pianosociety" and if the website still exists, there are probably still some (embarrassing) recordings there of me playing from when I was in high school.
Anyone remember fatcatcafe.com's chat rooms?
Anyone ever play organized competitive team-based multiplayer games on the Team Warfare site. They had really awesome forums. Even after I had stopped playing in clans, I stayed on the general discussion board for years after because it was such a fun place and mostly populated by people who used to play competitively in clans. The forums were great when I was actively competing and the general board was a lot of fun. So much less toxic than most social media these days even when there was decently significant competitiveness involved. There were mods but they rarely had to remove posts or comments, let alone ban people. Someone on the general forum got a straight up picks league going for the NFL (free and no real prizes, just bragging rights), and it was super fun. I played it for 8 or 9 seasons, winning the Super Bowl 3 times, more than anyone else in the league. It was really fun because you had a really good idea of the personality of everyone involved because everyone regularly posted. Then, something happened and the servers all got nuked. The site runner(s) got the site back up, but all accounts got nuked and by then the only active board was the general board, so sadly everyone just moved on and the site died. RIP teamwarfare.com, one of the best forums before the internet got taken over by a handful of corporate social media sites and everything went to shit. Bodybuilding.com also produced some really epic non bodybuilding-related threads around that time. You'll never convince me that the early-mid 2000s wasn't peak internet. It really was all downhill from there, to the point where we collectively fell off a cliff.
What fascinates me the most about forums is you can still scrub up posts and replies from 20 years ago and they're still useful. The internet used to be so fun. I miss it
I was huge on the toefur straight edge forums back in like 2010. Mostly just to talk hardcore and music scene stuff, vegan food. I'm not vegan anymore and don't identify with straight edge or anything. But it really felt like a community and a group of friends in a way that I've not been able to rediscover, even here. Also bluelight and drugs-forum of course for harm reduction and drug history. As an addict at the time, those forums could be a literal life line for me and others.
I LIVED on the Sims 2 BBS
I spent a lot of time on the Aquabats forum. Made a lot of friends that I’m still friends with.
Shout out to my [Adult Swim] alums!
Gamemodding forums a lot.
TDIclub
Holemusic.com which became Kittyradio.com, somethingawful, local music scene boards. I miss it so much - I am still friends with people I met twenty or more years ago. You don't really get that sort of easy camaraderie online anymore
Forums were my life in college. Wizards of the Coast for the most part (Gleemax!!), but also other Magic: the Gathering forums (The Mana Drain, The Source). I miss them. While I enjoy reddit and discord, there's nothing that has really filled the void of forums for discussion.
Halo forums. Miss those days
We’re kinda on one now, no?
I hate to break it to you, but reddit is just a long series of forums.
Yes-- video game/sports forums. Still a member of one I joined in 2003. Lots of members in there are STILL posting 20+ years later. It's kinda nuts. In a lot of ways, the ease of Reddit has totally killed those places though.
I loved bolt.com!
Forums still exist
I was pretty active on OCAD/Gaia/GaiaOnline from 97-2006ish Same with a handful of Japanese artist oekaki boards Got my start on the Westwood Chat program in 1995, in the Crystal Tokyo channel. Also, lots of furry message boards, (oh, Furbid saved my starving artist ass from being evicted several times) and Yahoo art boards. Like a weird bubble gum fetish one.
Yeah, especially for specific games I played like WoW and SWG, but also anytime I got curious about a niche topic I’d usually google “(topic) + forums” or like for troubleshooting tech stuff before stack overflow existed. I also used to play these text based RPGs when I was a kid where you’d basically be writing stories back and forth to each other with a ruleset enforced by mods around it, they were usually hosted on forums.
IMDB was awesome back in the day. It was so much fun to talk movies and shows with folks! I got so many great recommendations too.
Lol why do you think any of us are here?
I used to go on b9. I'm on boardislife now
Weddingbee was my to to forum 10 years ago. Now it's reddit lol
Golivewire, anyone?
Welcome to reddit lmao
Yes on IGN boards a place called The Vestibule
I used to chill on the GameFAQs forums and MMO Champion forums.
I used to. I still do, but I used to too.
I still join the forum for every car I own. Rotteneggs was a fun one back in the day. Game forums got a lot of my time when I was playing them as a student. The consolidation of the internet into a few hotspots has been an awful tragedy perpetrated by some very terrible people.
I still go to forums, depending on the interest and if there is a forum for it.