/b/ - Random

this. i cant use twitter cause i fear the accumulation of posts/retweets/quotes building up on my "profile" and i hate how public every comment and liked post is. i used to use fandom related forums and even tumblr was slightly better for communities back in the day. theres actually a forum from 2001 for one of my favorite books that has completely died and theres more or less no way to post there OR view archived posts. i fell off of social media because of that "look but dont touch" feeling you described. ive started using lc and cc within the last three years because i feel so much safer talking to people and sharing posts. my boyfriend suggests reddit as the largest forum that almost everyone uses, but even that feels stale and like you said, uber policed.

>>124335
I remember when I started to go back all the years of my internet consumption to delet everything, even posts on some Warcraft fan forum from before WoW was launched, just to get rid of any residue that could backfire at me for whatever reason in the future.
With reddit you see how shitty it is, by the constant need of people to make throwaway accounts when they want to ask things outside the sharply defined social norm.

Yeah, everywhere you need to build your profile and become known and popular among the people, like on discord. Discord also sucks as all the activity is moving there so it is impossible to find any help in old forums for games etc.

>>124330
back when myspace was popular it was perfectly fine to add people you only vaguely knew or friends of friends you'd never met if you had something in common

if you do that on other platforms you get sent "who are you?" "why did you add me?", "omg why did you add my friend?"

>>124330
The internet has been consolidating since early 2000's. Lots of old school forums were killed by web apps like Twitter and Reddit because they pander to people lurking/browsing rather than the community itself.

For example, with older forums and imageboards like 4chan and CC you basically had to navigate through an ocean of diarrhea before you can get to an interesting post where as the Likes/upvotes systems implemented in newer forums dramatically improves the quality of interesting content the lurker is shown therefore keeping them on the app longer.

>>124330
a big turn off for me regarding social media these days is the amount of content that gets screencapped out of context to share on places like reddit. it's normalized cyberbullying and i don't get how everyone is just ok with it. even if the identifying details are removed someone will still recognize it and it's just no nice to find hundreds of people mocking you over a post that was supposed to be private

I disagree that forums are fading into obscurity. There are still various forums that are regularly updated which I check daily, weekly, or monthly depending on my interest level. I stumbled across all of them when I was researching random things on Google, the same exact way I found them in the old days. The thing with a lot of these forums though is that I get the vibe that most of the users are older Millennials, Gen X or Boomers. I always see younger Millennials and Zoomers bitching about how they hate social media and want the old days of forums back, yet I don't see them posting on most forums I visit. If you want your internet experience to be exclusively on forums like in the old days, that is still possible. Just make an effort instead of doing nothing but constantly complaining about social media.

Don't worry I feel the same, I wish I could chat with people no matter where in the old image board style. Hope we see a rise in the forum style but it's very unlikely.

>>124349
>yet I don't see them posting on most forums I visit

Because your forums are near impossible to find. The only way I've found any forum since bulletin boards started dying off is tech support, or the community tab on some website.
It's not like in the 00s 10s anymore when you'd look up topic or write x tutorial and immediately get greeted by a forum post. First,second, third thing you are served is videos, blogs, articles, and non-interactive stuff.

I contribute to forums of the websites that I use, but they're dying off all the same. It's not like I'm discarding it in favor of social media - I don't have twitter, tumblr, fb, insta, anything like it and never had. But now I'm considering it because there's no circlejerks and discussion forums to be in anymore.

I'm an artist and I hate posting my art on shit like twitter where no one will look at it. I don't want to be feed padding. My only alternative to a community is toyhouse which I'm planning on filling up soon, and forums of this niche art game I am in but the admin abandoned it and the site doesn't even work anymore. There is also this art forum which pretty much only boomers post in and mostly trad, I wouldn't fit in.

>>124356
idk I think people just casually socialising online to relax doesn't bring immediate profits which is why it's discouraged/not encouraged. Places like forums need human moderation, alogrithms are still too stupid to follow actual, long conversations. This just means additional cost/effort without necessarily bringing in profit, most of the internet belongs to a few megacorporations nowadays ,and if it doesn't bring money there's no reason for them to do something.

>>124358
Yes.
Monetization ruined the internet.
When was the last time you went on a website not made to farm profit?
All social media is for profit.

>>124358
This is why I use adblock everywhere. It just feels invasive how much they know about me, and how they try to literally manipulate me into throwing them money. Money that they already have so much of. Money that will never again enter into the healthy circulation of economy, rotting away in some Panaman vault. Money that I rather use to purchase things that I actually want and need.

>>124356
This anon is right, if there are any "old school" forums they are super hard to find. By pure chance I managed to find some forums like that in my country and they are all the same in that they are very active from like 1998-2007, then they still have decent activity from 2008-2011ish, then it starts decreasing rapidly and from like 2017 or 2018 there are really just 5 or 6 people on the whole site who were usually there since day 1.

>>124330
Yeah I vaguely remember reading about this somewhere, reddit with the like dislike system just increases people circlejerking since you will only really see posts liked by the most people, while 4chan style forums support provocation and angry messages since they get the most bumps and most (you)s.

To be honest this is unironically the fault of phones. If you are on the pc and you see a textwall you usually have no problem to read it, but if you are on the phone, you usually are not any longer on it than 20-30 seconds, maybe a minute, then you put it away, so obviously you will just wanna pass along short messages.

yes. i used to use forums all the time. there are a few that i still use, but they're niche and skew to an older demographic (the average user is probably around 40-45, i'm in my early 20s). the rest seem to be dying out. i still use tumblr but i don't see it as community-forming very much, but it can still be a pleasant experience if you curate it wisely enough.

the internet is geared toward ad revenue creators. nobody's making money off of us talking about what we love unless they can stick a few thousand ads in there

Twitter clapbacks just unavoidably get more likes and sympathy, due to their accessibility and simplicity. It's a sort of natural selection in action - complicated nuanced opinions are simply less fit for online arena than bot-like one sentence responses. Early internet wasn't that important in our life like it is now, so we could preserve our usual approach to social situations when we conversed here regardless for how effective it possibly was (since internet wasn't socially important efficiency didn't matter that much), but right now it's way too influential and makes us change ourselves so we could be successful here.

>>124437
>reddit with the like dislike system just increases people circlejerking since you will only really see posts liked by the most people, while 4chan style forums support provocation and angry messages since they get the most bumps and most (you)s.

Definitely. The only real forums, where you can have real community, are bulletin forums.

>>124330
That art expresses what you're describing perfectly. Everything online is so disposable. Everything online is a shell of it's former self.

It makes me glad af I was paranoid of the internet in the early 2000s. I refused to get on social media seriously, and couldn't enjoy it. I have virtually no internet footprint and I even spelled my name wrong so people couldn't track me down.

I had a really really bad feeling about Facebook when it first came out, I wasn't surprised it became what it is. Some forums still exist here and there actually. I just don't understand why people don't flood back to them and recreate them?

>>124511
There is so much nostalgia for what was, back then. So why ?

>>124455
I can't really be the only one who has found places like Reddit.. Twitter… Incredibly less stimulating though??? It's all honestly downright boring. Instead of getting the hit of some drug, from interacting or posting it just feels like a useless sludge taking up residence in my brain if I entertain much of it for long. It all feels like the same inane chatter and garbage over and over.

is this all perfectly crafted bait or real people talking? i can't tell who's larping anymore

>>124515
I agree, I find social media to be boring as well. At least with image boards you have the chance to be surprised by something new, but all these social media platforms seem to serve up are the same sanitized comments and ads over and over.

>>124518
what are you talking about? this is a thread full of miners complaining about how shit social media currently is and being nostalgic for how the internet was in early 2000s
where is the bait or larping? none of it seems like that to me at least
>>124512
nta I'm nostalgic because I feel like there was a lot more anonymity, a lot less invasions of privacy by advertisers/government, less shitflinging about politics, and more people connecting over their interests - or even differences
it felt more creative and authentic, more connected and comfier somehow

The closest anyone has to an old school forum experience is discord. And even then, it can be hard to find, grow, and curate one that really stays focused. I got very lucky with some very niched art ones.

>>124335
>my boyfriend suggests reddit
imagine dating a redditor

>>124535
I hate how unorganized it is and how all discussions are not preserved in threads like it was on forums. It's designed for low-effort communication.

>>124535
ironic

>>124511
>I just don't understand why people don't flood back to them and recreate them?
Because new people can't find them. Most people didn't stay there forever, but in the past there was always a steady influx of new members because they weren't as obscure.

>>124562
not that i need to defend myself to miners, but neither of us use it. i just complain about not having anywhere to go but fading forums, and thats the only recommendation he had.