Just recently I have been reflecting on the way I use the internet to communicate with others and how it has changed over the years and especially in the last two years how I have moved from looking at and contributing to BDSM related forums to using more social media centric sites such as twitter and Facebook.
Back in about 2001 I think, a new site appeared in the UK that was focussed very specifically on the Pro-Domme scene to offer a listings service and message board that soon morphed into a very active forum with a huge amount of debate on the many aspects of BDSM taking place. You could freely express your views and felt safe that you were not going to be shot down in flames from others just because your views were different from the others.
But of course, that could not last. The site grew and grew to over 5000 members. Some just to browse and read the reviews section (you had to be a member to access that particular part of the board) but many started to post to vehemently oppose the opinion of the original poster. People would create multiple identities and owners of other boards would come to post their own views and try to promote their board. The board had, for many, became a place where they could hide and express themselves in the way they wanted to be seen rather than they way they actually were. Many, who had so little experience, tried to tell those when many years experience how their views were the only one worth considering and any other point of view was not worth considering. Others became emotionally attached to the board, dragging other members into their shoddy lives and forming little cliques or them and us. If you were not part of the clique then you did not count. Moderators left in disgust and shame as the board just went into decline and I, along with many others took the decision that we it was not worth being a member and just left. Stopped posting and moved on with our lives. I was, amongst the submissive males there, one of a minority who was actually active in the BDSM scene that actually existed in real life. I was (and still am) a regular club goer and party attendee. I played on a regular basis both one-2-one and in groups and of course had my strong exhibitionist streak catered to by appearing in fetish films.
For about a year or so, I maintained an online silence not even looking at the newly re-incarnated version of the board. I did not miss it and to be honest found it quite good that I was not looking at board constantly, paranoid that I would miss something.
Then, about three years ago I found twitter and it was if a totally new world had opened up. Here was a place where I could be who I am with little fear of criticism. I could choose who I wanted to speak with and follow. No more putting up with people who I did not like. I found people I knew, had met and who I wanted to meet. But how was if different to a message board or forum. Why was it so different. It took a little while before it really came to me and it was the need to compress your thoughts into 140 characters, to put your thoughts into a short message. It was far more conversational than a forum where people would and still do regularly write essay length opinions. Twitter of course has its downsides. It can of course become addictive seeing how many followers you get, how many retweets you get etc. But with twitter I find I can leave it and just dip into it when I want. I can just read it and never respond or I can engage in lengthy conversations with others. Then of course there is Facebook.
Facebook is my very public persona and actually I have two Facebook accounts. One very very vanilla with family, friends from work etc. The other, well that is totally fetish centric. Again, I send friend requests to people I know in the fetish scene and in turn receive requests. The two (twitter and Facebook) co-exist to form good public profile that I control and others interact with. There are no arguments, no flaming wars, no bickering. The message board offered me none of that. Each post I made ran the risk of being jumped on or attacked and I found myself self-moderating my posts and becoming someone very different to who I wanted to be or indeed was.
As I write this I start to think about this blog and what it represents. I suppose in some ways it could almost be seen as a replacement for my posting on forums. In some ways I suppose it is but I find I can be far more expressive here than I ever was on the forums and believe me, I was pretty expressive there.
So am I alone in my thought? I realise I have not really answered the question but I do see that most boards seem to have declined in activity and the active users count is pretty low on most boards. They have, in many ways, become ubiquitous and with Mistresses, listing sites and many others all setting up forums as it was seen the right thing to do. But now we have Facebook pages and to a lesser degree now, MySpace. We have twitter and we have a far more tolerant social media site in Fetlife that we ever had before. So, yes, I do believe Forums are dead but they will never really die as there will always be those who want to show the world that your opinion is the wrong opinion no matter what.
