Potential resurgence of BBS forums

[DioShiba]

So... this is gonna be a thread that I think will be interesting to start but I think given the current climate of social media and what not, it'd be worth it to bring up this topic.


So... RECENTLY... Meta had made the announcement that they were going to get rid of fact checkers. Not only that, but another thing that got people pissed was that Meta announced that they were going to Ai created accounts on the platform... Only for it to fail miserably.


So here's the thing. Putting aside how Zuckerberg has clearly made a shift to the right and pissing off anyone who doesn't follow Republican ideology on the political side of things (Because that's not really the core of what's pissing people off) many people have come out of the wood work to announce that they were leaving facebook and instagram, even threads, and many people on Bluesky were discussing the possibility of the BBS forums coming back into style.

PERSONALLY FROM MY OWN EXPERIENCES, I've already been contemplating deleting my facebook for a year and a half now because of how Meta basically took that long to delete an old account of mine that got hacked only for me and a few of my own friends to rally and pester them to delete it when it should have been taken care of when said account initially got hacked back in July of 2023. I only found out it got deleted recently thanks to a friend of mine from college updating me after the hacker tried contacting them. I've chosen to follow through with the decision and I'm already making my moves to make sure I can still touch base with the communities and people I care about through other means.

Instagram... I haven't fully decided on what I'm going to do with that yet. I may end up deleting it down the road depending on how things go but I am shifting anything I do to Bluesky for the most part and plan on finishing up my own portfolio site. Personally I've also been going to the Newgrounds BBS forums more often lately.

Don't even get me started on the failure that is X AKA Elon's Shitter.

So.... I'm not expecting this thread to take off but I do want to hear from other users on here. Do you think that recent events with Meta may change the internet landscape and BBS forums could potentially make a comeback? I know that this community has been more active on the discord as of late, which is fine. But I'm wondering how this could potentially impact TVGR forums if there really ends up being a mass exodus from Meta Platforms and people decide to take to other means of social media.

[Petie]

I haven't had a Facebook or Instagram account in years. I still have my Twitter account technically but don't use it or any social media, really, except for the occasional post or like on Bluesky. There are few people I can think of who would be happier to see a resurgence in forums but take it from someone who has tried for the last decade, it's just not going to happen. Current generations barely even know what they are and most others have moved on. Is it impossible? No; there are still active forums out there. But I don't think we're going to see any return to forums being the main form of communication online and we will still be archiving this one with the launch of the new site (both due to lack of activity and also because MyBB just isn't what it used to be).

To be clear, I'm not actually happy that all of our community's social activity is exclusively on Discord and would love for that to change but it is what it is. I'd consider opening a new forum on a better platform in the future should I be (happily) proven wrong and we do see a demand for it though.

[DioShiba]

Ultimately I've come to accept that these forums will still be archived.

Personally I'd rather be more interested if the hypothetical outcome could become true given how it seems that social media seems to be in a rather delicate spot right now due to corporate management of those platforms screwing over those sites but it is nice to know that if a demand for it happens to arise there could be the potential for a new one all things considered.

[Petie]

Trust me, I'd love to be wrong here. I truly would. And if I am, I will happily stick to my word and start something new. These forums will always remain available in an archive but I think if this kind of platform were to really reemerge, a fresh start would be best so new users don't get lost in decades of old content.

[Shin FireyPaperMario]

I'm in favor of the resurgence of BBS forums (Evem though I wasn't in any BBS theme forums), and does that mean forums IRC chat might comeback too?

[DioShiba]

I'm in favor of the resurgence of BBS forums (Evem though I wasn't in any BBS theme forums), and does that mean forums IRC chat might comeback too?

As much as the possibility of a BBS resurgence could happen I wouldn't count on the IRC to happen unless there is an actual need since Discord was intended to supplement the forums.

ALTHOUGH on that note I don't know how often discord goes down or whether or not it's accessible to everyone.

Trust me, I'd love to be wrong here. I truly would. And if I am, I will happily stick to my word and start something new. These forums will always remain available in an archive but I think if this kind of platform were to really reemerge, a fresh start would be best so new users don't get lost in decades of old content.

No I get where you are coming from and honestly... I kind of agree that if there was an spike in demand for the BBS format for online communites that come back into demand then it would be for the best to have a fresh start in the same way there was a reset of sorts back in 2014.

That's only if what I'm thinking actually comes to fruition given current events on the internet.