Regarding Forums: Your Personal History of Online Posting

hogboblin

I’m curious as to how many of you have taken part in online forums, or groups, before.

For example, I was active on 4Chan’s paranormal board (/x/) for roughly four years. I was also known to frequent writing-focused groups on Vampire Freaks.

My earliest memory of online communities was through WebTV’s forums as a young child. I had my own profile on the horrible service, and I pretended to be far older than I actually was at the time. When my involvement in the forums was noted by my parents, I was subsequently banned from using WebTV alone. It would be a few more years until I was able to use the internet without supervision. Thankfully, by that point, we had a proper computer.

Catloaf

I remember signing up to Neopets using a fake birthdate when I was 10 so I could chat on the boards - and funnily enough I still log onto my first account, which has my real age on it. I try not to feel ashamed about that, it's a piece of childhood I've been unable to let go of. That was about it until I turned 16 and I participated in the old 'The Writers Forum' before it was shut down some years ago. It reopened at some point, not sure when but the site seems entirely dead now. Was a nice little community where you could go to get feedback on your writing, collab with others, and it even had one of those cutesy "Adopt-A-Character" threads going and such. And then there was Figment, a writing website for young adult writers which had a very active forum and was up for a number of years. As you can assume based on the patronage, a lot of the writing left much to be desired... most of it was fanfic garbage or your typical "dorky-mousy-but-conventionally-attractive-girl-meets-blonde-haired-blue-eyed-new-student-who-is-rich-and-perfect-and-oh-will-they-ever-be-together" conjuring of the teenage girl's mind. Then a couple years later a political/current events discourse group on Facebook for a while, then here after I kind of stopped paying attention to the news. I think CC is the forum I've been the most active on at this point.

hogboblin

[I probably could have just added this to my initial post, but that would have made it too long.]

Of course, I’m not asking any of you to divulge anything specific.

One of the reasons I’m asking is because the CC forum can seem rather...odd at times. That’s putting it politely, I suppose. One doesn’t need to dive deep at all to find posts that are rather naïve, or borderline comedic in their vapidity.

Which isn’t to say that the CC forum is devoid of interesting discussion! There are a few people here that make things less dull and bleak—yours truly included.

Again, I’m simply curious.

hogboblin

@Catloaf

I haven’t even thought about Neopets in nearly a decade. I wonder how my pet, Scrumples, is doing? I’d check, but that would require some effort.

Speaking of sharing fiction online: I used to post some stuff on DeviantArt. The majority of it was sarcastic garbage (just like here). I’d also critique Sonic fanfiction.

What fun.

MarthaSpeaks

For several years, but not coinciding, I was very active on a forum that was part of a dancing website and one that was part of an artist trading card website. I’m kind of a late adopter tho. I never heard of such things before 1998.

UKGuy

I used private bulletin boards with a 300bps dial-up modem before the internet became available. Those BBSs ran on 8-bit computers like the Apple II or Commodore 64. Very primitive hardware and software and very slow. but it was all that existed back then. Mostly I took part in Photography forums. I started using Usenet forums in the early 1980s. I believe Usenet still exists. I began using Photo.net in 1993. If you are into photography, check it out. I read and contribute to several forums and also use them in my job for technical support purposes.

I was on the INTJ forum for a while, on and off. Before that I sometimes played around on a psychology forum—I forget what it was called. I'm not much of one for groups, on or offline. One forum at a time's good enough for me!

TheFunCartel

I used to post on Silk Road but all I got out of it was a stupid ankle device and an invitation to work for the FBI.

Swagland, circa 1992.

A true BBS, back when 14/4 was a THING.

pmvines

I was looking to move and came across citydata.com and became interested in it. Talked about different cities and states , and posters talked about all local stuff and was helpful . I have never had a social media account. Never had an interest in that sort of thing .

Tallmann

@hogboblin
Fellow cryptid/paranormal fan here. 😊 Keep watching the skies! And the dark corners. 👽👻🧙‍♂️🧟‍♀️🧚‍♂️

Sideon

Gaming. Gayming (gay gamers). Writing. Art (mosaics, watercolor, mixed media, collage, etc).

Some platforms going back to the days of IRC, then blogs (Wordpress, Blogger) and traditional online forums, and now currently admin and/or participant in Medium, Discord, and KIK groups.

I don't do social media even though I have a Facebook account that I use strictly for business. I rarely sign on and I don't post. It's mentally draining and humanly diminishing to me. I got better things to do with my mind offline in my community . Here I will post as a form of mental relaxation and debriefing from a high energy job.