I hate everything about the modern internet with a passion and dread the fact that I have to type in "reddit" whenever I search something to find anything that resembles a human (which doesn't even work most of the time). All the major social media platforms (including , and especially, reddit) are completely unusable, which makes it even more saddening that all internet traffic has been concentrated to mainly those places. I miss the days of niche hobby forums and small, tightly-knit communities where you recognized most people there and at least knew you were talking to a human behind the screen.
So basically what I'm asking, are you aware of any alternative social media / boards / forums / anything that managed to survive this gentrification and are at least somwhat active? Are forums even still a thing? Are there even any humans there on the internet anymore? Tbh I'm asking because I had saved a bunch of links to pretty niche, obscure communities to relive that mid-to-late-2000's "wild west" internet feel, found on here and on /leftypol/, and it seems I lost them, can't find them anywhere in my bookmarks and the "Saved" function on this site is fucking broken lol. I remember being in awe that old BBCode forums were still a thing and genuinely pretty active to boot

The closest I've gotten to that old internet is browsing neocities pages (which is fun!) and lurking obscure alt-chans which tbh are mostly filled with rightoid garbage and probably not a good use of my time. Are there any, and I mean ANY of these types of websites even left?

  • sappho [she/her]
    ·
    2 years ago

    The only niche community I know of is attached to a webcomic that I've been reading since I was 12. It's been updating consistently all that time and the Proboards forum is active with a small group of regulars. Gunnerkrigg Court

    • UncleJoe [comrade/them]
      hexagon
      ·
      2 years ago

      Started reading that a while back and was a bit put off by the art at the start, would you recommend it to a newscomer? Webcomics are a bit of a lost art nowadays

      • Soap_Owl [any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        It gets way better up till the point where I fell off at least

    • Soap_Owl [any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I forgot that exisosted. That has been going on a while hasn't it.