I’m not sure how much I have to add here but this topic is so important to me I have the urge to pop in. The first forum I joined was in 2009 but I was lurking forums since at least 2006 so I have decent experience here.
1. everyone else has said it, social media and especially Discord. Let me tell you that before around 2017-2018 (?) and then again lockdown when Discord had some surges, there were still holdouts. (I’m a 2016 discord user btw, and i definitely remember forums coexisting with it somewhat, the way skype coexisted with forums when that was a thing.) Social media plus Discord were like a one-two punch. There’s a percieved notion that having everything more live like that, or having a feed to consume, or having things consolidated on a single app is more convenient and that it’s obsoleted forums. Every time I’ve complained about this to people who stopped using forums, they just say forums are obsolete compared to Discord, and I realise that’s a biased anecdote but it really shows how much things have changed in how people use the internet. Saying that forums are “obsolete” seems to imply they want these newer, faster-paced, feed based systems with live chat and more shortform content. Also, when I’ve seen younger people talk about it, they generally feel impatient towards forums (“what’s the point in waiting hours for a response”, and so on- but my experience has been that people simply don’t reply a lot of the time on Discord anyway). It’s all about the notion of convinience, imo (which newer generations are now growing up with, which will demand faster and faster consumption). Before discord got as popular as it is you at least had more separation of using social media for “content” and using forums for discussion, even though social media ate into the traffic enormously, but discord has simply taken over the discussion role for many people
edit: actually i also realised the rise of “influencers” adds to this. That’s part of the internet becoming more about “content” and being more corporate in general. you generally can’t get internet famous or make money being a regular guy on forums anymore, people who want attention aren’t going to come to forums, and in general there’s a rise of people who just want attention on the internet in like a post pewdiepie era or whatever. However the whole rise of that stuff could be a completely different post, and the time “influencers” were being codified in the early 10’s is an interesting era of the internet, cool internet history that i dont want to just clump up here. Going “viral“ also used to mean something really different, it’s seriously a nothing word these days but back then it basically meant content posted on the internet that broke through a certain cultural wall and became popular irl, was actually kinda notable- you can see some of the transition between niche hobby early internet into influencer/corporate net with that. The point is, overall nobody goes to forums to get famous, and more people want to be famous on the internet now.
2. Complete disdain. The internet I grew up with is dead. I’ve complained about this a few times on random threads and I don’t want to be writing the exact same stuff but this will never stop eating at me and I realise you weren’t around to see those posts of mine anyway. I find it has made people far more volatile, I am a lot more anxious on other platforms, and they simply aren’t fun. They’re very gated, and they encourage more low quality content since stuff just gets buried and moves so fast anyway. On forums there’s a sense of exploration and more focused, high-quality experience due to thread lists/subforums, and old posts are very easy to find and full of great information. Searching on social media (including discord) is a total nightmare and I think legitimately contributes to brain drain even if you can put up with or avoid falling to the shortform content spam. It’s like they genuinely try to obfuscate content a lot of the time, even their built in searches are all crap. Aside from that, on forums you know the other people there probably have more passion than another random Discord server with 3000 users but the same dozen users forming a clique and being the only active members. I’m not going to say forums don’t have cliques because I have left many over that and I’d go so far as to say one forum clique bullied me off and gave me traumatic experiences, but Discord is even more condusive to it imo. Holy crap I could just go on forever about how much I hate the cliques on discord and how few users are actually active, making the net feel empty and lonely, and just how I generally hate the direction of the web. It used to be a break from real life, and now you get off the internet to have a break by focusing on real life. i know a lot of people say that but its painfully true, there’s just way too much being thrown on you anytime you go on the internet now wether it’s ads or more scams or lowest common denominator shortform posts. You have to sift through more and more to find actual good content every year, it’s legitimately exhausting. The internet always had garbage on it, but at least it used to be a little more personal and fun and less isolating. The internet is too corporate now, and with social media formats that’s just an ungodly awful combination. On the plus side, the fact forums aren’t the largest format for fandoms anymore does come with one upside, it keeps out some of the toxicity you would find on social media since those users generally don’t care to even use forums
3. Val is on point about the moderation. I’m going to be blunt that i think this site, though my time here has been limited, has the best moderation i’ve seen. I like edgy humor sometimes but so many places are just awful with it or moderate based on who’s friends with who. Plus it gets exhausting. I have a pretty bitter, cynical sense of humor but how pervasive it is everywhere really gets to me- it almost feels like nobody is sincere anymore. That and the glut of pure meme posts/responses in other places. There are other casually accepted things about internet culture that downright make me uncomfortable and they dont fly here so i feel safer being here. I don’t want to engage with people in other places. This site legit feels like a break from the rest of the net with how the mods have led it. Also the events are an absolutely massive contributor. Those events go above and beyond. I think a ton of it legit just falls on how the moderators have lead the site and how its left this community. Being here legit made me more optimistic even though ive fallen off rn (hence the hiatus). As a bonus there are also some really talented artists here and i know its not the largest part of the site but it is something thats encouraged me to stay around a bit? People on this site legit care about little art pieces which has personally motivated me a lot (even if right now i dont want to draw or paint whatsoever) and I think honestly helps people care about eachother a bit, like oh you’re the guy who did that thing or whatever is just another thing adding to the community here. The fact this is about ac is also a contributor because its a big series but its not the #1 thing or anything, still these are games with lasting value so yea
P.S. I realise the irony in me talking about younger generations, but i’m the oldest of gen z which is like a mini generation. Gen alpha could also be using this forum by now if they start in 2010 or something, and a ton of them are going to be using the internet if they arguably shouldn’t. I’m mostly talking about gen alpha when i’m talking about younger people who don’t know what the internet used to be like, but a lot of gen z also didn’t have enough exposure to remember it either
I just assumed most forums websites would have died 10-15 years ago.
