I wasn't here since the beginning. Out of curiosity, when did the user base start to get really crazy? Or was it always that way? Thankfully most of them were purged eventually, but I'm curious if back in like say 2009 you'd get people calling you a Nazi for saying you liked Colin Moriarty.
Because I've browsed various internet forums for years and in my experience that didn't really start until 2013-2015ish. Probably coinciding with the rise of social media which rotted everyone's brains. Curious if that was the case here too.
The reason I'm curious is because most of my internet forum posting history has been on sports forums and not gaming forums and in my experience gaming forums have always been more out there than others in terms of personality types.
I don’t know specifics. Maybe the mods can give you better insight. But it seemed liked NEOGAF exploded somewhere in between 2009 and 2011. It became massive. In my mind it became in the heyday the second biggest gaming site to IGN.
What I call the “Trial of Pachter” , was a big deal. It was the first time I remember a pseudo celebrity creating an account to come on GAF and defend themselves And discuss their mindset on gaming. Pachter was far from the only one. Lots of Psuedo Celebrities had accounts on GAF.
Back then, imagine if you rolled Famiboards, REsetera, and GAF all into one site and did not have the competition from social media. It was truly a wild time.
Some people would get banned for different things, but as long as you were respectful, it seems the whole internet was more welcoming of conversation than it is now. This is almost a decade before outrage/cancel culture Emerged.
www.neogaf.com
