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While this is a great resource as many have said, god were the forums such a fucking groupthinking, insular scene. The same goes for being so particular about w

While this is a great resource as many have said, god were the forums such a fucking groupthinking, insular scene. The same goes for being so particular about what is metal and what isn't, with long debates (at the time) for who was tr00 or kvlt or not with mods who were on a powertrip. A good reminder of how bad forums were and how there were things about them that were better than the current web, it's not like it was all perfect.

idiocratic 3y ago
I disagree. They were such a great door into escapism and friendship for me, a standard guy from a small town in Italy with no metal friends at all until the internet came about. Forums in particular provided the opportunity of meeting people with very different backgrounds sharing similar music tastes, and it was also fun to argue about silly things like what is true and not true metal and getting banned by mods. I built amazing memories of road trips together, motorcycles, seeing bands and meeting each other somewhere basically every weekend. Not to say that what you experienced is not true, but it’s not the case for every forum out there for sure. Also, what made metalheads special was their status as a total outcasts of society, of course we were very much an insular culture. I miss the group spirit, the “family” side of all of this amazing subculture.
- noobermin 3y ago
  May be a good rule for what determines how someone can enjoy things like small groups is how physical it is. For me, MA was an online-only thing I found through my love of metal, almost no one I knew loved metal, most who listened to rock-ish music at all loved the *-core brand of music (which was popular in the late 00s) which I specifically didn't like. In terms of chances to actually branch out and see bands (and perhaps meet other metal heads at the time) I couldn't as I a) couldn't drive and b) lived in America in the bible belt. Finding randoms who become actual meatspace friends probably makes it a little better, if anything, it lessens how insular you are when you have to be actually outside with others who aren't part of your group.
mnsc 3y ago
Id say that the well-kept gates of forums was a feature and the thing I miss most. The current web is like, "oh a communication platform, everyone should be here, how can we optimize for everyone (no-one)"
- noobermin 3y ago
  Both extremes could be detrimental, it's not like it's a binary choice.
- dataengineer56 3y ago
  Reddit's /r/punk subreddit is a good example of this - it has almost nothing to do with music and is instead just a general Redditor meme dump that vaguely links to "alt" viewpoints.
- GloomyBoots 3y ago
  I agree. Kind of a tangential brain-dump: Fora on the old web tended to be nominally devoted to a topic, but each had a massively thriving "Off-Topic", "General Discussion", or "Random" board where the overarching theme of the forum served more as a background ambience. The userbase was small enough that one "knew" the different personalities, and membership in a forum felt more substantial than on big platforms like Reddit or Twitter, where you either become a microceleb or you're just a fly on the wall of the dead internet (maybe even both). Moderation was less formal, and since mods got to know users fairly well, even an egregious rule violation could be forgiven if you emailed them to apologize. You'd even have high-quality trolls who became accepted as court jesters. And since there was a lot more fragmentation and a lot less overlap in moderation, you'd be more comfortable holding your tongue in a particular setting since you had other outlets for speaking your mind on verboten topics (and usually those topics were better-defined, though power-tripping mods would still interpret and apply the rules creatively). I like a lot about the fediverse, but I don't think it can recapture that experience. I might just be old and curmudgeonly though.
Euphorbium 3y ago
I remember a guy freaking out in the forums when his band got some integer id that he did not want, he tried to remove his band completely. It was hilarious.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- 7OVO7 3y ago
  curiosity... did the guy who freaked out learn about what was happening on the site? I mean: did he freak out in the forum of the site or in real life? (without knowing what was happening on the site)
  - Euphorbium 3y ago
    Not sure if I understand the question, but it was in the forum. Clearly some sort of mental issue.
herewulf 3y ago
I like to think of it as a finely curated list. Their tastes have always aligned well with mine. Is that insular? Oh well. There's still far too much excellent music already available and being produced than I can ever hope to listen to. I have no idea about the forums. Never ventured there. It's not the true value of the site but if it encourages maintaining the database then great!
- noobermin 3y ago
  That's fair. The list, as it is, is great. While they are a bit too stringent on their dividing lines, the content itself is great. My issue was with the forums which I posted on a lot in the late 00s.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Tade0 3y ago
> for who was tr00 or kvlt or not with mods who were on a powertrip. +grim and necro To this day I use that last one sarcastically to describe people taking themselves waay too seriously. > A good reminder of how bad forums were It really is still like that, only this time on Discord.
pseudonym0us 3y ago
Basically you are saying the old forums were a place to discuss stuff and NOT echo chambers with hivemind-like homogenous userbase. This doesn’t look like a bad thing to me.
FartyMcFarter 3y ago
> fucking groupthinking, insular scene. Insular, sure - everything is an island if you zoom out far enough though. I don't know about groupthinking though - there's plenty of subgenres within metal. Old school heavy metal (e.g. Iron Maiden) is very different from black metal for example, and the fanbases are far from completely overlapping.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
RexFactorem 3y ago
I have no problema with the riffing argument they have. I do weekly updates yo muy library finding new albums and bands all the time that are just forgettable "guitar-noise". Metal has come through some dark periods where every new band seemed like a rip-off of another well established band, and for some, innovating in metal is just making noise. Some of it is quite creative, actually, like Igorrr, but other Like Z&A is too varied. Sometimes it annoys me not finding some pseudo-metal band I discover but I don't have a grudge with them even though I've been called out for being a corpse meddler in the forums (reviving very old posts). There's another database, Spirit of Metal, I think, that isn't that picky. But for what MA is, I salute their stand, especially through times where we might see Miley Cyrus or any other pseudo-artist identify as a metal act and to be "included".
fullshark 3y ago
Good reminder that modern social networks being hivemind groupthink breeding grounds is hardly a new thing, and basically how all these message boards operate as people have always sought out like minded individuals for validation.

idiocratic 3y ago

I disagree. They were such a great door into escapism and friendship for me, a standard guy from a small town in Italy with no metal friends at all until the internet came about. Forums in particular provided the opportunity of meeting people with very different backgrounds sharing similar music tastes, and it was also fun to argue about silly things like what is true and not true metal and getting banned by mods. I built amazing memories of road trips together, motorcycles, seeing bands and meeting each other somewhere basically every weekend. Not to say that what you experienced is not true, but it’s not the case for every forum out there for sure. Also, what made metalheads special was their status as a total outcasts of society, of course we were very much an insular culture. I miss the group spirit, the “family” side of all of this amazing subculture.

noobermin 3y ago
May be a good rule for what determines how someone can enjoy things like small groups is how physical it is. For me, MA was an online-only thing I found through my love of metal, almost no one I knew loved metal, most who listened to rock-ish music at all loved the *-core brand of music (which was popular in the late 00s) which I specifically didn't like. In terms of chances to actually branch out and see bands (and perhaps meet other metal heads at the time) I couldn't as I a) couldn't drive and b) lived in America in the bible belt. Finding randoms who become actual meatspace friends probably makes it a little better, if anything, it lessens how insular you are when you have to be actually outside with others who aren't part of your group.

mnsc 3y ago

Id say that the well-kept gates of forums was a feature and the thing I miss most. The current web is like, "oh a communication platform, everyone should be here, how can we optimize for everyone (no-one)"

noobermin 3y ago
Both extremes could be detrimental, it's not like it's a binary choice.
dataengineer56 3y ago
Reddit's /r/punk subreddit is a good example of this - it has almost nothing to do with music and is instead just a general Redditor meme dump that vaguely links to "alt" viewpoints.
GloomyBoots 3y ago
I agree. Kind of a tangential brain-dump: Fora on the old web tended to be nominally devoted to a topic, but each had a massively thriving "Off-Topic", "General Discussion", or "Random" board where the overarching theme of the forum served more as a background ambience. The userbase was small enough that one "knew" the different personalities, and membership in a forum felt more substantial than on big platforms like Reddit or Twitter, where you either become a microceleb or you're just a fly on the wall of the dead internet (maybe even both). Moderation was less formal, and since mods got to know users fairly well, even an egregious rule violation could be forgiven if you emailed them to apologize. You'd even have high-quality trolls who became accepted as court jesters. And since there was a lot more fragmentation and a lot less overlap in moderation, you'd be more comfortable holding your tongue in a particular setting since you had other outlets for speaking your mind on verboten topics (and usually those topics were better-defined, though power-tripping mods would still interpret and apply the rules creatively). I like a lot about the fediverse, but I don't think it can recapture that experience. I might just be old and curmudgeonly though.

Euphorbium 3y ago

I remember a guy freaking out in the forums when his band got some integer id that he did not want, he tried to remove his band completely. It was hilarious.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
7OVO7 3y ago
curiosity... did the guy who freaked out learn about what was happening on the site? I mean: did he freak out in the forum of the site or in real life? (without knowing what was happening on the site)
- Euphorbium 3y ago
  Not sure if I understand the question, but it was in the forum. Clearly some sort of mental issue.

herewulf 3y ago

I like to think of it as a finely curated list. Their tastes have always aligned well with mine. Is that insular? Oh well. There's still far too much excellent music already available and being produced than I can ever hope to listen to. I have no idea about the forums. Never ventured there. It's not the true value of the site but if it encourages maintaining the database then great!

noobermin 3y ago
That's fair. The list, as it is, is great. While they are a bit too stringent on their dividing lines, the content itself is great. My issue was with the forums which I posted on a lot in the late 00s.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Tade0 3y ago

> for who was tr00 or kvlt or not with mods who were on a powertrip. +grim and necro To this day I use that last one sarcastically to describe people taking themselves waay too seriously. > A good reminder of how bad forums were It really is still like that, only this time on Discord.

pseudonym0us 3y ago

Basically you are saying the old forums were a place to discuss stuff and NOT echo chambers with hivemind-like homogenous userbase. This doesn’t look like a bad thing to me.

FartyMcFarter 3y ago

> fucking groupthinking, insular scene. Insular, sure - everything is an island if you zoom out far enough though. I don't know about groupthinking though - there's plenty of subgenres within metal. Old school heavy metal (e.g. Iron Maiden) is very different from black metal for example, and the fanbases are far from completely overlapping.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

RexFactorem 3y ago

I have no problema with the riffing argument they have. I do weekly updates yo muy library finding new albums and bands all the time that are just forgettable "guitar-noise". Metal has come through some dark periods where every new band seemed like a rip-off of another well established band, and for some, innovating in metal is just making noise. Some of it is quite creative, actually, like Igorrr, but other Like Z&A is too varied. Sometimes it annoys me not finding some pseudo-metal band I discover but I don't have a grudge with them even though I've been called out for being a corpse meddler in the forums (reviving very old posts). There's another database, Spirit of Metal, I think, that isn't that picky. But for what MA is, I salute their stand, especially through times where we might see Miley Cyrus or any other pseudo-artist identify as a metal act and to be "included".

fullshark 3y ago

Good reminder that modern social networks being hivemind groupthink breeding grounds is hardly a new thing, and basically how all these message boards operate as people have always sought out like minded individuals for validation.