>>81823766(cont)
Back then you could search nearly any hobby, video game, tv show, band, sports team, niche interest, etc etc and find message boards dedicated to that topic. A lot of zoomers will think that sounds like Discord, Reddit, etc but it really wasn't at all. When you make a post on Reddit, nobody gives a shit who you are. And Discords are very exclusive, cliquey, and move so fast that if what you wrote isn't seen within an hour it's likely that nobody will ever read it... A lot of these boards would just be owned by some random dude, and even the official ones still weren't infested with all the faggotry you see everywhere else on the internet today (there were often still rules but the over the top tone policing didn't exist, which ironically made the decorum much better 95% of the time. Moderation was usually just done in a common sense manner.)
Most boards had a couple dozen serious regulars at any given time. Enough for an active community, but small enough that people got to know who you were if you spent enough time there. Everyone who spent any amount of time on the board not only recognized the regulars, but also had some idea of who they were and what they were about. If you were a "regular" on one of these boards, you'd often get to know the other regulars pretty well, not just in the context of the board topic, but as people. I remember having a blast hanging out with people in the shoutbox of a forum I frequented back in 2009 and just busting each others's balls and talking about whatever. You actually felt like a real person. If you were a regular then you took pride in the community of that site, and when you were on a board where you were more of a on occasional poster or borderline reg, you sort of respected the people who were most invested in that community.
