>If not on newsgroups or mailing lists or webrings or forums, then on a hypothetical, less malicious social media platform. this is the dream, of course. I tot

>If not on newsgroups or mailing lists or webrings or forums, then on a hypothetical, less malicious social media platform. this is the dream, of course. I totally agree. I suppose what I was trying to express was that I think the specific boring ubiquity of FB is what caused these groups to grow and flourish. I can imagine an urbanism group growing on a phpbb board or community of blogs and eventually getting high-traffic and powerful, with its own set of memes etc, but the hyperniche-ing of groups (the lomgboi example) seems to be a feature of FB groups because it isn't something most people would bother to take part in if it weren't already there, in the mall. FWIW i consider reddit part of the mall too, because apart from the weirdo small subreddits I find it alienating in a community sense, since I literally grew up on phpbb boards with avatars and threads, where you were able to recognise and come to know certain regular posters within a week or two.