I think in so many ways you can split a LOT of commentary about the microblogging websites and their futures into 'this person had a MySpace' 'this person knows what GeoCities *was*', 'this person had a Livejournal', 'this person was on a discussion forum', 'this person's first SM was Twitter' etc.

Oh god I'm all of those.

In general what was interesting about the Facebook-Twitter era of social media is how much handholding they did, and how to be 'Good at Twitter', all you had to be good at was words. In different ways, none of that is *quite* true of Bluesky, TikTok, Instagram, Mastodon, etc.

GeoCities was a lot of fun…

Noticeboards man. 1997. Alt>british_politics_ or some such

I miss message boards. I’m on the younger side of the people replying positively to your tweet but I was about 11 when I was in those endless threads about libertarianism that dril joked about

The 'used vbulletin boards' is def a split, but then so is 'used vbulletin for a decade on a forum about guitars' and 'used the SomethingAwful forums 2002-2012.' Because that is a whole subculture of its own.

“This person had an Urban75 comment account”

To a message board veteran, for instance, the present state of twitterx looks exactly like a dying forum.

BBS and usenet

Making me feel ancient there.