It was a lot of fun and mostly people just had fun with it. I met some cool people through it and even ghostwrote for some local rappers for a little while because of it.
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Forum culture from the early 2000’s
- Thread starter Deleted member 279
- Start date
It was a lot of fun and mostly people just had fun with it. I met some cool people through it and even ghostwrote for some local rappers for a little while because of it.
I think I probably spent most of my time in pro wrestling forums back in the day and it's exactly the same as it was back then.
I used to be on Gaia online somewhat heavy in my early years. It's a couple of defunct side forums I was on too. Like a super small Nintendo one and a SFIV one as well. They both died.
The one that hurt the most was when the Nintendo Power forums closed. I loved those boards as a youngin.
The one that hurt the most was when the Nintendo Power forums closed. I loved those boards as a youngin.
I did a shit ton of eFedding in the mid-00s.
For those that don't know, an eFed is where you write roleplays as a professional wrestler to win matches in a fantasy wrestling world. It's way nerdier than it sounds.
For those that don't know, an eFed is where you write roleplays as a professional wrestler to win matches in a fantasy wrestling world. It's way nerdier than it sounds.
"De Jaggies! My Eyes!"
Or my personal favorite.
"No achievement points? so you're playing for nothing. :lol:"
I always forget I frequented Gaia for a while. I just checked on the forums and they are surprisingly active and not the complete cesspit I would have expected.
I enjoyed early '00s gaming forums more but that's because I stuck to a few places I liked (TNL, Digitpress). Big sites like IGN and GameFAQs were always shitty.
I especially like threads about old school games/history and that era generated deeper and longer discussions of classic stuff than you would generally find now. A lot of that is probably because the internet was still pretty new to most of us. For the first time we could talk about this stuff with other enthusiasts across the world instead of just with local friends. We could now emulate obscure games we never had access to before. Fast forward twenty years and I think a lot of people my age have just become bored with those topics or are busy with other things.
I especially like threads about old school games/history and that era generated deeper and longer discussions of classic stuff than you would generally find now. A lot of that is probably because the internet was still pretty new to most of us. For the first time we could talk about this stuff with other enthusiasts across the world instead of just with local friends. We could now emulate obscure games we never had access to before. Fast forward twenty years and I think a lot of people my age have just become bored with those topics or are busy with other things.
Was on E-mpire Forums in the mid 2000s.. it had all the platforms, and it was pretty civil. I wonder what happened with the community, because the site hasn't been up for a while now.
Then PS3forums, which was informative and nice.... then I came across the craziness when visiting Gamespot System Wars (the name duh!) and Gametrailers forum (although they had a great image upload community)
Early on Gaf didn't seem that bad when it came to consoles fighting, from what I remember. Might have been the mod crew.. but either way that obviously changed.
It wasn't too different back then. People were edgier and less concerned with social issues (at least on gaming forums). But you always had your fanboys and flame wars. The port beggars and the lists (oh god the lists).
I think the biggest difference between then and now is in user-friendly features. Stuff like spellcheck didn't really exist. And you usually had to know html or bb code if you wanted to format your post. Pasting a link wouldn't automatically make the link clickable. A lot of forums you couldn't even subscribe to threads in order to follow them. Or even do things like tag users. Many people were still on dial up internet, so it was considered good etiquette to not post a lot of pictures (and to put warnings in thread titles of image heavy threads). Also, YouTube and Twitter didn't exist, so you couldn't embed stuff like that into your posts to easily share news or whatever. You'd usually have to link to an article on another site. And sometimes people would troll by posting misleading text for the links. If you didn't inspect a link before clicking it, you might end up opening something like 3girls1cup instead of that totally legit story about Miyamoto suddenly dying. Lol
I think the biggest difference between then and now is in user-friendly features. Stuff like spellcheck didn't really exist. And you usually had to know html or bb code if you wanted to format your post. Pasting a link wouldn't automatically make the link clickable. A lot of forums you couldn't even subscribe to threads in order to follow them. Or even do things like tag users. Many people were still on dial up internet, so it was considered good etiquette to not post a lot of pictures (and to put warnings in thread titles of image heavy threads). Also, YouTube and Twitter didn't exist, so you couldn't embed stuff like that into your posts to easily share news or whatever. You'd usually have to link to an article on another site. And sometimes people would troll by posting misleading text for the links. If you didn't inspect a link before clicking it, you might end up opening something like 3girls1cup instead of that totally legit story about Miyamoto suddenly dying. Lol
I did spend quite a bit of time on the offical Playstation forums (especially in the run-up to HOME) splitting time there and on gaf I feel like I got to gaf around 2004 ish. Memory gets hazy. Was largely the same community from GA to Neo so it kinda blurs. I agree tho it was pretty well moderated there for quite a while, obviously hive mindish but kept toxicity at bay for the most part. Could be rose colors tho, certainly didn't end that way.
Oh lord, do I miss those spaces! I think I was actually a moderator on the As the Apple Turns back in 2001~2003, until the forum suffered a HUGE internal flamewar over the administrator's political views (lol)
Strangely enough, a guy from my university was also (in high shcool) a poster on the Metroid section of the IGN boards, we discovered we'd both been on it years and years later, and are still very good friends (but have never discussed that board in person since, lolll)
Strangely enough, a guy from my university was also (in high shcool) a poster on the Metroid section of the IGN boards, we discovered we'd both been on it years and years later, and are still very good friends (but have never discussed that board in person since, lolll)
I started off on the IGN Boards around the time the GameCube was announced. I remember there being lots of boxart competitions (make a boxart for your dream-wish game). It's where I learned how to use photoshop. I even won a contest once and some nice poster sent me Viewtiful Joe. Fond memories.
Fun fact: I used to post on a Mega Man message board with Egoraptor/Arin Hanson
Peak internet. All downhill from there.
oh boy did I waste a lot of time on those forums in my youth
I mostly loved Gaia for the avatar customization. I would gold farm in random threads. I loved the marketplace. I'm sure I still have my g-blade and some other rare items. I remember when they made an mmo lite game. It was a fun time. I think I stopped posting after HS. I wonder if I can even still login...
I was one and the stuff I made looking back was just....guh. Think edgelord aesthetic mixed with a cabal of clashing color palettes.
Also how fucking novel .png was at the time.
Any LUEsers here? Anyone remember the days where LUE was slowly quarantined? Black LUEsday iirc.
That and LUELinks aka EndOfTheInternet.
That and LUELinks aka EndOfTheInternet.
i was all about forums dedicated to Neopets and RuneScape.
I really miss the people I "knew" from those places, the only way to really connect was AIM, ICQ or IRC. MSN messenger shortly after. Yahoo messenger was cool as well. I'm sure a lot of them are insane or moved on with their lives but it would be badass to have a way to link up after so many years and just see how we all turned out.
I remember being like 10 years old and asking if Canada was a communist country because I didn't get the humor of South Park.
I really miss the people I "knew" from those places, the only way to really connect was AIM, ICQ or IRC. MSN messenger shortly after. Yahoo messenger was cool as well. I'm sure a lot of them are insane or moved on with their lives but it would be badass to have a way to link up after so many years and just see how we all turned out.
I remember being like 10 years old and asking if Canada was a communist country because I didn't get the humor of South Park.
As crazy as the ups and downs of forum culture was over the years, I've always stuck with them because I still believe they are the best place for discussion and to follow news/events. The threaded replies and terrible web design of content aggregators like reddit is much worse than a simple forum with paged discussions.
I also vastly prefer singular forums being built around a community, rather than one mega site that has a billion users all transient between a ton of different areas.
I also vastly prefer singular forums being built around a community, rather than one mega site that has a billion users all transient between a ton of different areas.
SA is still pretty active and no longer run by Lowtax as of last year.
A shadow of its former self. I subscribe to a few very long running threads and mostly just read those.
I wish I could still remember my account lol Good times. I was a "cow". xD
12yr old lurker on ffgurus.net in 2001, a forum filled with what seemed to be mostly 20-something Europeans. Despite being a final fantasy forum, made me fall in love with the Suikoden series. Hell, Exit Fate is just characters based off the users in that forum if I remember correctly lol
I am surprised you haven't bump up the signature thread. The "Bring Back Forum Signatures" movement seems to be gaining more and more adepts :P
All I remember he was disbarred and then never heard of him again.