this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2025
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I think just going back to internet forums circa early 2000s is probably a better way to engage honestly. They're still around, just not as "smartphone friendly" and doomscroll-enabled, due to the format.
I'm talking stuff like SomethingAwful, GaiaOnline, Fark, Newgrounds forum, GlockTalk, Slashdot, vBulletin etc.
These types of forums allowed you to discuss timely issues and news if you wanted. You could go a thousand miles deep on some bizarre subculture or stick to general discussion. They also had protomeme culture before that was a thing - aka "embedded image macros".
Anything that is topic focussed rather than following individuals is a big difference, and then take away the engagement algorithm and it’s much better.
That's what I've been hoping for with Reddit and now Lemmy. I don't care about individuals, I care about topic based discussion.
My problem with forums is they are more like a club, where you get loss of off-topic discussion by people who happen to share an interest. I don't care what tech nerds think about medicine on a tech nerd forum, and joining dozens of forums to get the right discussion is a huge pain.
Forums are cool, and I use a few, but I really want a place that connects different subjects.
Boowahahahahaha, I've used those with PSP default web browser. With Nintendo Wii web browser. With Java phone web browser (admittedly that was only to read, and very slowly).
Anyway, have clumsy sweaty big fingers (unfortunately due to my behavior girls don't extrapolate that feature anywhere anymore), strongly prefer anything with physical keys.
Images, links, enormous smilies' sets, colored text.