Message Boards vs Social Media

[Roy Focker]

I'm aware of how tacky it looks for a Moderator to make a "look how cool our place is" post. I still have to make a post about it. With the rise of social media, we saw the decline of many traditional methods of online fan gatherings. Like forums. While useful most forums are very subject specific. Many fans have multiple interests.Those who wanted to be well informed would have to visit multiple forums a day. Social media made being a fan of multiple interests more convenient. Just visit Facebook, join a bunch of Groups and read all the news about your hobby fed directly to your timeline.

Then came the enshittification, AI Slop, scammers and the meme spammers. Way too much clutter. You can't keep track of things. I now find myself starting to lurk old forums of the past. Wondering if I can remember my old login information. Social media has been helpful finding locals who share the same interests but for day-to-day online interactions to learn something new and share opinions I'm seeing forums as the superior method. 

Anyone else feeling nostalgic for the days of online fan communities before the age of social media?

[mikeszekely]

I mean, I've been hanging out at MW since I was in college, like 25 years now.  I haven't met a single person from these boards in real life, but there are people that I interact with enough that I like some of them better than the friends I do have IRL.

As for social media, I used Twitter mostly to keep up on sports and news that I might not see otherwise.  And I seriously just started using Facebook this year to get in touch with an old high school friend.  So I guess it's a little hard for me to feel nostalgic for something I never stopped using because the thing I never used got crappier.

Still, cheers bud, we definitely agree on one thing.  We got a relatively small community compared to some other forums and junk, but frankly, I think we're a tighter knit for it.  Kudos to @Shawn for keeping the lights on all these years.

[myk]

What a coincidence. I came here tonight seeking the same thing that you're talking about: a sense of community without the superfluous nonsense and garbage that social media invariably has.  

Yeah, it's easy to open up my IG and Facebook and have the latest developments spoon fed to me, but i don't feel as connected or focused on what we're talking about like I did during the heyday of forums like this one in the early 00's.  The quality of information and posts by members doesn't match the quality of the forum posts from BITD.  I would rate the quality of posts on social media as I would a post count whore from BITD. 

Progress comes, and we can't do anything about it as things change.  Nevertheless, nothing is perfect, and the sincerity and better focus of the forums will never be matched my social media, in my opinion.   

I miss you guys, I miss this place, I miss those times.  

 

 

 

Edited November 1 by myk

[sh9000]

Thanks to this forum I've met some cool people in real life and attended some of the best Macross conventions.  Thanks to Shawn and Graham for starting it all.

[myk]

Lol.  Look at all of us old-timers in here, lamenting the relentless march of time.  I'll never forget my first post on macrossworld, asking about the tail fins on my V1 Yamato YF-21.  I would spend HOURS on here for the next decade or so...

[myk]

14 minutes ago, mikeszekely said:

I mean, I've been hanging out at MW since I was in college, like 25 years now.  I haven't met a single person from these boards in real life, but there are people that I interact with enough that I like some of them better than the friends I do have IRL.

As for social media, I used Twitter mostly to keep up on sports and news that I might not see otherwise.  And I seriously just started using Facebook this year to get in touch with an old high school friend.  So I guess it's a little hard for me to feel nostalgic for something I never stopped using because the thing I never used got crappier.

Still, cheers bud, we definitely agree on one thing.  We got a relatively small community compared to some other forums and junk, but frankly, I think we're a tighter knit for it.  Kudos to @Shawn for keeping the lights on all these years.

I feel now as I did then: I'd rather talk to some of you guys on here, or maybe even on social media, than the people I have to face in every day life.  How's the family, Mike?  

[TangledThorns]

You know you're getting old when you prefer forums to Discord, lol. That being said, I stay on forums because going to Discord feels like starting over in a community. 

Reddit is different as I go there more for help and advice rather than discussions. Facebook groups are mostly derp, even for my local community groups (eg cars, town). 

I also see this old vs young age related tech issue with gaming too. Interesting times. 

[Dynaman]

The problem with discord is the lack of threaded conversations.  It all ends up in one big jumble.  I hate that.  Old message boards could get away with that since there were far fewer people on them.  (I think there was an option to view conversations in a threaded manner but I don't remember it doing much)

The problem with social media sites (all of them I am aware of) is they work best by fueling anger - things that make you angry get pumped to your feed in ever greater numbers.  Unlike the old days of mass media the companies doing this are not held responsible for content that appears on their site.  Partly due to the laws shielding them early in the nineties and partly due to claiming it is just an "algorithm".

Edited November 1 by Dynaman

[mikeszekely]

8 hours ago, myk said:

How's the family, Mike? 

Good, thanks for asking. My daughter's at a point where I have to watch YouTube videos about how to do math just to help her with her homework...😆

[Morgen Black]

I am new to this forum and wish I had discovered it sooner.  I don't use social media for communication because it just isn't my cup of tea, especially the younger generation and their "Say anything and get away with it" mindset.  I remember the days of 1200 baud modems, running a BBS and early forums.  I do appreciate the adult conversation on this forum about movies, toys and models.  Thank you to all the original members for creating a place of knowledge and insight about a topic of my childhood.  Have a great weekend and be safe.

MB

Edited November 1 by Morgen Black

[Big s]

5 hours ago, Dynaman said:

The problem with discord is the lack of threaded conversations.  It all ends up in one big jumble.  I hate that.  Old message boards could get away with that since there were far fewer people on them.  (I think there was an option to view conversations in a threaded manner but I don't remember it doing much)

The problem with social media sites (all of them I am aware of) is they work best by fueling anger - things that make you angry get pumped to your feed in ever greater numbers.  Unlike the old days of mass media the companies doing this are not held responsible for content that appears on their site.  Partly due to the laws shielding them early in the nineties and partly due to claiming it is just an "algorithm".

Anger makes people more engaged unfortunately. You could be checking on something about wholesome animals, then they start feeding you clips of goats getting knocked off a cliff by an eagle when all you really wanted to see was a cow playing soccer with a bale of hay

[505thAirborne]

I prefer forums, especially this one. I've never met any of you in person but oddly enough, just about all of you feel like people I'd hang out with.

Social media like FB was kind of cool in the beginning, now it's just a black hole of weirdos, bots, AI trolls doing their best to stir up anger & political division no matter what you post. I used FB for years for my Helmet business but deleted the entire account a few years ago, the SPAM and troll/bot accounts became more that I wanted to deal with. Twitter (not calling it the current name) was a dumpster fire by 2020, I can't imagine what it's like now. Instagram is decent but I pretty much avoid that one too. 

This forum and a few others have felt like a home away from home for years now, a major thank you to @Shawn for keeping MW alive & well. 

In the end this Forum rules, we're all a bunch of Macross, Anime, Sci-Fi, fantasy, toy collecting, model building, art loving fans, dorks, nerds and some cool kids mixed together. I'll take this every day over a social media site with billions of strangers and bots. 

Stay classy everyone!! 

[Roy Focker]

6 hours ago, Dynaman said:

The problem with discord is the lack of threaded conversations.  It all ends up in one big jumble.  I hate that.  Old message boards could get away with that since there were far fewer people on them.  (I think there was an option to view conversations in a threaded manner but I don't remember it doing much).

Much of social media is one big jumble. You can't return to a conversation because it gets buried under a ton of other stuff or doesn't get seen at all because the algorithm isn't sharing it. Many people just post to please the algorithm by sharing to get likes or incite anger. 

28 minutes ago, 505thAirborne said:

Social media like FB was kind of cool in the beginning, now it's just a black hole of weirdos, bots, AI trolls doing their best to stir up anger & political division no matter what you post.

That what Enshittification is about. In the beginning social media is very cool. It is more convenient and has a bunch of features. Once they get everyone onboard, they turn the place to shit on purpose. 

[Valkyrie Hunter D]

I have no social media presence whatsoever, and what little time I have online I spend a good chunk of it here on MW.  I do have several nerdy hobbies and I get plenty of info for each one on the MW forums.  Social media sources just seem bloated with a lot of ads and trash.  With that being said, I have enjoyed my time here, even during the old forum days.  Thank you Shawn and Graham for letting me play in your backyard, and kudos to all the mods past and present for keeping it clean.  Viva MW!

[azrael]

As another old-timer, yes I do find myself enjoying forums more than any other social media platform. I haven't used Twitter in ages. Beyond checking a few accounts, I stopped posting there. Facebook? Stopped posting ages ago. Only check for occasional posts from family but otherwise dormant. Every social media platform is in one form or another, slop. The closest I can get to a forum is Reddit and even that has slop to the point where I don't engage beyond reading and going 🤨. Every platform, save for good olde forums, has been enshittified.

Bots, spam, AI slop, are all manageable, but it's that damn "For You"-algorithm. Nothing screams enshittification louder than "For You". Just because I look up one recipe video, does not mean I want to see 10 other videos on the same thing. Just because I see one video on current news, DOES NOT mean I want to watch more or heck, an opposing viewpoint. I also don't want to see ads littered all over my screen or 2 minutes worth of UNSKIPABLE ads to watch a 3 minute music video. 

52 minutes ago, Roy Focker said:

Many people just post to please the algorithm by sharing to get likes or incite anger. 

That's the problem with this enshittification. Almost every content creator I watch has posted about "pleasing the algorithm". Flair-Rage-bait-titles? Check. Meme-Seizure-inducing-thumbnail? Check. Second seizure-inducing thumbnail for A-B testing? Check. All this just to encourage engagement. Just to get more clicks. If they don't do it, the algorithm punishes you for not "driving up engagement". You have to watch everything in incognito-mode if you don't want to be tracked.

[Duke Togo]

There aren't many traditional forums left out there, and too often I find garbage and nonsense from social media and platforms like YouTube and TikTok creeping into them. And gate keeping. Oh man, the gate keeping (I'm looking at you, Blu-ray.com). I find interaction online these days to be pretty rough in most corners of the internet.

That said, I wish we had some actual Macross to talk about. Even though I suspect whatever comes next will be crafted for the tastes of an audience that is definitely not me.

Edited November 1 by Duke Togo

[guyxxed]

Forums all the way.  It's the closest to an actual conversation you can get online without direct messaging.  Sometimes the communities are a little too closed, but the signal to noise ratio is always way favorable over social media.  

[Dynaman]

3 hours ago, Big s said:

Anger makes people more engaged unfortunately. You could be checking on something about wholesome animals, then they start feeding you clips of goats getting knocked off a cliff by an eagle when all you really wanted to see was a cow playing soccer with a bale of hay

THAT is exactly what I am talking about.

[Bolt]

6 hours ago, 505thAirborne said:

In the end this Forum rules, we're all a bunch of Macross, Anime, Sci-Fi, fantasy, toy collecting, model building, art loving fans, dorks, nerds and some cool kids mixed together. I'll take this every day over a social media site with billions of strangers and bots. 

Here , Here!
I have been on Instagram for about 2 years but haven't been on for about 4 months now. I've found that it just sucks so much time and I really want to be producing more content (models , art , costumes, electronics and building projects ) than I'm consuming. There are a lot of cool, funny, awesome things going on Instagram but also a ton of garbage and crap.

This forum is literally the only thing i do now. And i am eternally grateful to have such a resource .
And i know i could hang out with any of you just based on our common interests. 

 

[Seto Kaiba]

Eh... the different flavors of social media all have their own ideal use-cases.

Message boards are definitely the superior option when it comes to building a community around a single specific topic or an interrelated group of topics like a specific hobby, special interest, skill, or fandom.  It's easier to share large volumes of information on a message board and they're more searchable than successor formats like subreddits.

The one area where the message board is still alive and well is the corporate world.  So many companies with multiple internal message board systems for different operating areas... so much so that Microsoft Teams even built a message board system into itself for corporate/professional users.  

Facebook, Twitter, and their various imitators are mainly for online small talk and are terrible venues to try and have an in-depth discussion of anything.  They're good for advertising, for gossip, and for incidental daily life nonsense but not much else.  Interactions there, and on video-centric options like Instagram, Tiktok, YouTube, etc. are structured around reacting rather than discussing, so they don't really encourage conversation.  

[sketchley]

Much, much prefer forums.  For reasons.

  

13 hours ago, Dynaman said:

The problem with discord is the lack of threaded conversations.  It all ends up in one big jumble.  I hate that.  Old message boards could get away with that since there were far fewer people on them.  (I think there was an option to view conversations in a threaded manner but I don't remember it doing much)

This hits the nail squarely on the head.  I've been in two workplaces where everything was in a single WhatsApp/Discord/GoogleChat topic in the past year.  It was a real chore to find important info.  Why would I want to do that in my free time?

Also—and this is something that I love about message boards—you don't have to read every single comment in every conversation to keep up on things.  E.g. I'm not interested in sales, so I don't visit that part of these forums very often.  However, it's AWESOME that we have that section, as there are plenty of members who only come here for that.

 

1 hour ago, Bolt said:

I have been on Instagram for about 2 years but haven't been on for about 4 months now. I've found that it just sucks so much time and I really want to be producing more content (models , art , costumes, electronics and building projects ) than I'm consuming. There are a lot of cool, funny, awesome things going on Instagram but also a ton of garbage and crap.

↑ THIS!  It just eats so much time if one isn't VERY careful.  And invariably what you're being shown gets 💩ier and 💩ier.

 

1 hour ago, Bolt said:

This forum is literally the only thing i do now. And i am eternally grateful to have such a resource .
And i know i could hang out with any of you just based on our common interests. 

... and that's the best reason: relationships are so much deeper on message boards!  Definitely hang out with any of you.  In fact, when you visit Osaka, we should go for a Macross-themed drink at FirebomBAR*!!

 

* https://firebombar.com/

[MKT]

Agree with most of the sentiments here.
Forums feel more like home, other platforms are like hanging out at a club in which there are just lots of noise, distractions & no lasting memories.

 

9 hours ago, azrael said:

Bots, spam, AI slop, are all manageable, but it's that damn "For You"-algorithm. Nothing screams enshittification louder than "For You". Just because I look up one recipe video, does not mean I want to see 10 other videos on the same thing. Just because I see one video on current news, DOES NOT mean I want to watch more or heck, an opposing viewpoint. I also don't want to see ads littered all over my screen or 2 minutes worth of UNSKIPABLE ads to watch a 3 minute music video. 

 

 +1000. I was just thinking last week FB algorithms have gotten much, much more aggressive in the past month or so. Rather have diverse topics served to me rather than the same stuff over and over and over again. 

[azrael]

15 hours ago, Bolt said:

I've found that it just sucks so much time and I really want to be producing more content (models , art , costumes, electronics and building projects ) than I'm consuming. There are a lot of cool, funny, awesome things going on Instagram but also a ton of garbage and crap.

That's the point is it not? It's why we call it the black hole (i.e. Doom scrolling). It sucks you in and works aggressively hard to keep you there. Same topics to continue drawing you down the hole, topics to create anger so that you engage more. The more time you spend THERE the more "engagement" they get from ads, the more data they can mine about YOU, etc. Remember, YOU are the product. You generate money for the social media company by spending time there.

[JB0]

On 11/1/2025 at 6:46 AM, TangledThorns said:

You know you're getting old when you prefer forums to Discord, lol. That being said, I stay on forums because going to Discord feels like starting over in a community. 

 

Discord hasn't really been devastating to actual forums to me, that damage was done with social media and Reddit(which is just the last and most successful "mega-forum", and I've always hated mega-forums). 
What Discord HAS done is completely eviscerate IRC. Also made a lot of stuff far less accessible as people started using it as free file-hosting instead of setting up an actual website for their projects.  

But it has been a gradual grind, as communities fell to mega-forums that covered a lot of topics and were too big to have actual communities, then facespace and xitter came along and made the mega-forums look focused and cozy. 

 

I do miss the old days, with actual communities that were accessible and discoverable. 
...
Also, BRING BACK WEBRINGS. 

[Graham]

Forums all the way.

Never used Discord or Redit or Twitter.

Been using Facebook for many years, mainly to keep in touch with family and old school friends, but these days the there's just much spam, ads, AI stuff and posts from people or groups I've never interactated with and have no interest in interacting with.

Started using IG fairly recently, mainly just to post pics of my dog.😅

[myk]

On 11/1/2025 at 8:34 AM, mikeszekely said:

Good, thanks for asking. My daughter's at a point where I have to watch YouTube videos about how to do math just to help her with her homework...😆

WOW.  Time really flies.  I vaguely remember you talking about her coming into the world and the impact it had on you.  I'm happy for you.  You found something to live for beyond the valks with boobs lol.  

 

On 11/1/2025 at 10:03 PM, MKT said:

Agree with most of the sentiments here.
Forums feel more like home, other platforms are like hanging out at a club in which there are just lots of noise, distractions & no lasting memories.

 

 +1000. I was just thinking last week FB algorithms have gotten much, much more aggressive in the past month or so. Rather have diverse topics served to me rather than the same stuff over and over and over again. 

Forums truly were home for me.  After a hard day's work I would rush home and punch up MW to find the latest piece of controversy that Agent One had stirred up, or the newest train wreck argument over cold air intakes on LS1tech.com, and so many other countless places where I'd spend hours reading, learning, chatting, and even shamelessly causing trouble, from time to time.  

Just why did most of us stop going to places like these?  Maybe I'm just too old now, but I can't remember.  Miss you guys...

[mikeszekely]

2 hours ago, myk said:

You found something to live for beyond the valks with boobs lol.  

Oh yeah, I bought a Porsche!

...wait, I think you meant the kid.  Who is definitely something to live for... even if she will NOT be driving the Porsche when she turns 16.

[Dynaman]

10 hours ago, myk said:

Just why did most of us stop going to places like these?  Maybe I'm just too old now, but I can't remember.  Miss you guys...

The ones I used to use regularly slowly died off.  Mailing list wise I am still on a few and get the surprise email from them a few times a year.  Sadly the "new shiny" syndrome has kicked in for all them and people just disappear.  

[Tking22]

I'm lucky to have found this forum years ago, in Yamato's heyday, never left, will continue to post and read stuff on here, love this site. I'm weird though, I have absolutely NO social media, at all, whatsoever. No Facebook, Insta, Snapchat, none of it, I just don't bother with any of it and I never will. I think social media is bad for humanity, it makes people worse, more stupid and awful then they already are, and brings out the worst of the worst kinds of people.

Also, and my main reason, I just can't be bothered to check and update that nonsense every day, let alone every hour, I aint got time for that. I'm lazy, I can't be bothered having another reason to take my phone out and stare and tap away at it for any amount of time, I'd rather be doing literally anything else. 

[TangledThorns]

8 hours ago, mikeszekely said:

Oh yeah, I bought a Porsche!

...wait, I think you meant the kid.  Who is definitely something to live for... even if she will NOT be driving the Porsche when she turns 16.

LOL, same with my Jaguar F-Type. My children have either of our Subaru Outback or Crosstrek waiting for them when they turn 16. Yes, we got 3 cars  😜

[mark-1s]

I prefer forums by a large margin as well. I’ve been a member here since the early 2000’s (even though my post count implies otherwise lol) and it’s a much more personal experience. As soon you start reading someone’s post, you already know who it’s from without seeing the name. On the other hand, social media is filled with random posters who you’d be lucky to see more than once - that’s, of course you were interested enough to look at their username.

I was a mod on Djforums.com and when our forum activity slowed to a crawl we moved to Discord. I can’t say it was for the better. There’s just something cold and sterile about it.

Big thanks to Shawn and Graham for keeping MacWorld going!

[mikeszekely]

4 hours ago, TangledThorns said:

Yes, we got 3 cars  😜

Same.  Wife drives an EV9 until the lease is up next summer.  Then I didn't want to drive my Porsche in the crappy western PA winters, so I looked for something cheap with AWD and somehow landed on a Dodge Charger Daytona.😄

[azrael]

2 hours ago, mark-1s said:

slowed to a crawl we moved to Discord. I can’t say it was for the better. There’s just something cold and sterile about it.

Discord has it's roots in messenger apps. For us corporate folks, it's like Teams/Zoom/Google Meet for (originally) gamers. Or maybe like Slack. But folks use it for all sorts of communities. Those of us who spend all day on Teams, I don't think I want to spend even more time on yet another messaging app after my 9-to-5. Perhaps that coldness comes from the fact you are using another form of (corporate) messaging. 

[TangledThorns]

Discord is integral for certain games like World of Warships, mainly for clan communications in game. Its practically the only reason I'm on Discord, lol.  

[Scyla]

While I prefer message boars myself over social media (I never had any interest in Facebook/Twitter/IG) I also think that I am not the right person to judge which one is "better".

While I do visit MWF on a daily basis it is hard to me to develop any kind of personal relationship between the board members and even after 13 years on MFW I still feel like I don’t belong any kind of friend clique here.

That is not the fault of any of the members here where I only ever had pleasant exchanges with but rather my own approach to interaction.

As I posted before I have no interest in other social media platforms and I am usually a private person when it comes to sharing personal information. So it probably a me thing.

It could also be that I was socializing on the message board of my old WoW guild where the board itself was more of a coordination and news tool for the guild’s activities rather than a social media platform. Most of the deep social interaction happened in game.

Maybe  it never occurred to me to use a message board as a social media platform. The other part is that I find it rude and intrusive to bother other people with my personal "issues".

That said compared to other social media platforms I think we have a good community here and I still enjoy visiting the form every day.