More than ten years ago I went to a feminist forum to learn stuff and then we met in real life and I became bff with six great women.
I can say the same about a funk dedicated message board that made me musically richer more than anything else, brought me countless live music with internet funkateers and great moments.
Where is all of that at with social media (aside of Twitter, kind of special)? I can’t find any big improvement.
Anonymity really helped to create a safe environment for people to share on specific, fascinating subjects. Message boards are not here to be here, it’s meant to be use to argue, to share. Social media doesn’t push anything in depth.
The fav/like/heart mechanic didn’t work with blogs but it sure did with social media enabling users anxiety, passivity and shallowness (this just in). The feed flow gives interesting information a 5 minute window before disappearing.
On message boards, things stay forever and will still be useful for new comers. My articles are still on the first page of one because they’re good enough that people discuss about their subjects, add new things. I love it.
I always thought if you search for something quite general, browse anything. If it’s specific, aim internet forums. I’m currently looking at updating my laptop and on one forum, dudes are listing every single machine matching the specs I want, in my price range, updated daily or so with the last deals. I can’t get that with any search engine, there’s way too much information. There’s no information on a 1 billion people network like Facebook. There’s nothing to help me.
But there are people out there searching for the same stuff and sharing it. They don’t need no like/fav nor they need friends or followers to output things, they just do because they love it. This shit is precious.
I want that genuine, socially engineered internet feeling back. Individuals connecting as they want, all together. No pressure.
But with on one hand generations growing up without boards, BBcode, IRC or web servers, technically illiterate and dependent on FB/Twitter/Tumblr and on the other hand a government and system that really wants to close this free internet and control it, I’m not sure it will happen.