There were a lot of kids in forums at one point. They were raised gaming online and learned to talk smack without consequences. I was never a member of the Spawn board, but I recall hearing how they completely destroyed it. They eventually found boards where adults frequented, and decided they could be the same punks they were everywhere else they had never been housetrained.
The adults were mostly Gen-X types who had been raised to know what kind of consequences followed from being a punk and they were having none of it. They took it upon themselves to encourage intelligent behavior while backhanding the entitled and uncivilized. The rub was that admins appreciated the traffic surge and found the guerrilla moderation to be a bane. The brats knew the trick of crying ‘bully’ and the older crowd moved on.
The predictable result was that the children took over and things went full Lord of the Flies. This coincided with the emergence of cancel culture, and by then, there was no one left but alt-right thugs and hipster nuns. Since manipulation and status were the guiding stars of both sides, it all went straight to hell. The presumptive right were outright animals and the presumptive left were whiny pushovers. The characters who had previously occupied those roles had learned to live in peace and found a way to enjoy each other’s company without being complete fckwits. The new breed were boiler plate trolls who styled themselves kings of an abandoned dunghill, lording over sheepish nerds who just wanted to be left alone. What was once a highly diverse and animated crowd of genuinely cool (and smart) people discussing toys and everything else under the sun, had now devolved into a cheap caricature of what once was; a reflection of the zombified political division that has come to define online social life.
When the trash was banned or took their ball home, the vacuum was filled by spambots and the forum almost died. Some time during the Covid era, people must have been bored enough to start posting again. They found a clean slate and the members who had never been caught up in any of the prior drama were still here doing what they always had.
It’s not remotely what it was in the golden age. There is no going back to that glory. But it’s nice enough, and there are still a few legendary members around to keep the myth alive. When they finally go, you’re like to not see their kind again. That was the old way.
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