Social Media celebrates narcissism and the curated life.
 

And I enjoy that.

It has its place in my life.

But I miss online communities, correspondence, and a soap box that invites meaningful conversation in the comments.

Long live the LoT?

Granted, it's very easy to make time for 140 characters on the fringes of work/family life. A message board probably caters best to my singleton days. Worth a shot in the dark, perhaps.

The decline of the message board was precipitated by Facebook catering to longer posts and easier commenting. It used to be the only people interested in long-form post and riposte were my message board friends. The LoT was my only place to come and masochistically enjoy political discourse and debate pointless pop culture.

But once it started happening on Facebook, I found myself repeating myself, joining the same conversation in 2 places. Until I realized I could just do it once on Facebook and be done with it.

Sadly, as has been observed many times before, the wider audience leads to narrower expression. Far less free to go off and be open when everyone is watching. I miss the smallness.

I miss meeting strangers. The real name policy of facebook pretty much means you only "friend" people you know. Thus you end up connecting more with people from your past you never really liked instead of intriguing strangers who share an interest or two. Considering most of my current friends started out as message board strangers, I find that the saddest prospect of the demise of the message board.

Werd.

Maybe I should try reddit.

'Ello chaps - what's this place then?

Yes, me too. I know Facebook has expanded its horizons, but I don't have the desire to tailor my friends list and share some content with the entire list, and other content with a more narrow list.

I don't want to give that much thought to the forum, I think I just miss the digital communities I had before it came along.

That is a really good point and I wasn't thinking about that side of things. Personally, I miss more meaningful connection/conversation with the people I already know (and like you, many of those people were strangers I first met on a message board). I suppose we're always on the look out for a little piece of strange. ;)

Home sweet home?

I greatly miss the LoT discourses, the park meetups, and the annual traditions/celebrations with the swanksters. Would that I could turn back time...

Facebook can't be blamed for the loss of ALL of that. Times and lives have changed. People got priced out of APs, "traditions" became old-hat, new family additions altered social lives, employment and living situations changed....

I miss the LoT.

Me too

There's a shelf life for message board participation, I find. I think a large part of it is the irl life changes that take place, but also one finds a certain repetitiveness of topics after several years. I don't think we have that problem here so much, but I know I find it very difficult to stay long on micechat/mousepad type boards because they're still having the same conversations we were having 15 years ago on A.D.D.

I miss LoT though.

I suspect the casualness with which we can post our random thoughts to facebook causes us to more heavily scrutinize what we'd post here, to the extent that we end up posting very little. So many times I find myself wondering if a topic is "worth" its own thread on LoT. But that does rob LoT of its richness.

I press your "Like" Button. :snap:

I miss the non-Facebook folk like SzczerbiakManiac, 3894, & scaeagles (along with all the others whom I've forgotten to mention). And Suzie-Ann Krellingshaw feels stifled on Facebook.

I didn't mean to imply FB was solely to blame. You're right, times change, APs become ridiculously expensive, paths eventually fork. I was just reflecting on/longing for the "good old days".

I find the format of facebook makes it nearly impossible to follow discussions. If I see a discussion starting on an interesting topic on a friends list and say I'm busy but I want to go back later unless I remember whom it's impossible to find.

I don't participate unless I feel I have something to add, but I know a lot of very smart, interesting people and I love to see their opinions. And facebook just isn't a great format for expressing opinions.

Off topic, but on topic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjxAAezqJZQ

Everyone misses the community on the lot but few people post here anymore. We are the Yogi Berra of websites.

As in, "Nobody goes [to LoT] anymore. It's too crowded."? ;)

Right back at ya, Lash honey. Right back at ya, all swanky ones.

We never would have met without message boards. I love that we did and that we're still talking all these years later.

I will stop by here more often. Please say you will, too!

My new employer has different filters, some of which are tripped by certain forums here, so I can't really surf freely at work. I do miss hanging with you crazy people. It seems like every time I'm down in the area it's for "work." Speaking of which, if you're curious about what MouseAdventure is like now, our latest event recap is online today.

It's Kevy right? His stuff is sure to run afoul of any filter.

:snap: Snaps so much more swanky than likes.

True, true. Though I find it has more to do with having less time. I spent a lot of time on message boards during actual downtime at work, and it's been years since I've had a job that wasn't go-go-go all the time. Much easier to "keep up" on FB and Instagram...but it's not really quality time spent conversing and really meeting new people.

Exactly. This.

Well, if that isn't an enticement to return, I don't know what is !! :cheers:

It seems Facebook is trying to bring back old school internet as well with "Rooms" that allows theme based forums where members can be anonymous, and the spin-off "Groups" app which allows people to self-segregate and avoid the random annoyingness of the newsfeed algorithm.

Meanwhile ello sends me periodic emails claiming to be relevant.

More anonymity and self-segregation on the Internet? How can that possibly be bad?

Ello sent me an email for tshirts. Maybe that's their new revenue stream?

Ello? What's Ell... Oh, THAT Ello. I'd forgotten about that.