Life After R.E.M.: Discussion Thread

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that follows U2.
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And the most important thing I want to say about it is that it's my fault as much as anybody's. This is what happens when I've spent SO much time on the same message board for so many years. Certain discussions are going to grow very tiresome. I get it. It's how things are going to go on a forum like this. It just bums me out. I wish I wasn't so addicted to clicking on this site. But here I am.

I hear this man. I was talking to LM about this the other day. Much as it may not appear so, I'm pretty heartbroken with how this message board has gone. On its best days, I got as excited about posting here as I did about the best things in my life - great news, awesome concert, cool TV/movie/album, hanging out with friends... and it's no coincidence that I've shared like almost all of that here. I've been here a fucking decade. I've literally grown up on this board. I tiptoed around some discussions and things earlier on because I was so desperate to be liked and become part of the cool crew, which slowly happened. When I made my first RMT thread, I was shitting myself, truth be told. I was so scared about the blowback I knew I'd get. Of course now I realise that everyone was just having fun, but man, a huge part of me, of who I am, belongs to this fucking forum. Part of the reason I am who I am today is thanks to this forum. When I came here I'd heard two U2 albums and a best of and listened to the music that was mostly on the charts. Fast-forward 10 years and I get paid to write about music I love sometimes. I've been to Coachella. Met a bunch of you. Cried at concerts. Become a fan of jazz. And shared so many genuinely fucking good times sitting on my computer or my laptop or my phone posting here and shooting the shit.

But now I have to face the realisation that this forum is on life support. It will probably always be around, at least until some IT person somewhere deletes it permanently, and it fucking sucks. It wasn't until this started happening, that we slowly started haemorrhoging members, that I realised how addicted to this site I am. Like I get annoyed that there is nothing to talk about when I refresh now. I check facebook, twitter and u2interference like 30 times a day or something.

And what I hate the most, and fear the most, is that I now don't have an outlet to talk about the music I love in the same way. This was a really safe space with lots of great people who really, really share my taste in music (my shithouse opinions notwithstanding). We would run up pages and pages on bands like Los Campesinos! I can't do that anywhere else. I can post on facebook or twitter and get a few comments here and there, even from former and current Interference people, but it isn't the same. And I'm really, really sad that I'm losing something that has been so integral to me. I'm even scared. How am I going to enjoy music as much when I don't have an outlet to talk about the final verse of "In Medias Res"?

tl;dr, I wish I wasn't so addicted to clicking on this site, but here I am. I'll continue to click on it all the time, because I can't pull myself away, but here I am.

Maybe there'll be little spurts here and there and that'll be fun. Maybe another U2 album/tour will reinvigorate it for a while. Maybe a few people will come back for a bit. But it's not the same. Kieran and others have said for ages that forums are obselete now, thanks to social media, and that's very likely true.

But for me, even with the connections I've made via here on social media, it's not the same. it just isn't.

maybe someone could create a Shuttlecock fb and add people and see if that does anything. maybe I will sometimes. but a lot of people have just moved on.

anyway, didn't expect to spill my guts on that, but here we are.
 
I'm kind of glad I said all that actually. Maybe I'd given off the impression that I didn't care or was superior or something for realising it had been slowly dying or that I was only full of snark and contempt.

I'm not. I hate it. I really truly love this place and I despair for the death knell. The rivers of gold hath been panned, and aside from the small speck you occasionally find, there's not much left, and certainly the days of big nuggets are over.
 
Yeah, it's not as active as it was. But I feel like almost all of us are still hanging around. Impy and NSW are really the only two "friends" of mine on here that I can think of that don't post anymore.
 
I know totally what you're getting at Cobl4, although I was never super active on this specific forum, but it guts me that a couple of long-term haunts of mine seem to be dying in the ass. With occasional reprieves and upswings that come and go as mysterious as the weather.

And if social media is replacing it, then how, I ask? I don't see too many glittering conversations on facebook. So where's everyone going? Don't people want to talk outside of some narrow little silo of family and associate employee contemporaries?

In the political sphere (ie. non-music) I'm aware of some extremely active blogs (the prolix version of message boards) with comment threads in the high hundreds, but those sort of places are not 'among friends'. They are combative, no quarter given.

I don't know what to do about any of it. I'm not the most talkative person. In some ways it's just good to know a place is there, chugging along, conversations happening that one can dip into or lurk around, as the mood strikes. Something's always there, till it isn't.
 
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Funnily enough I was thinking about this - again - yesterday and what I lament most about the demise of the messageboard as the most common form of online social interaction is the way it structures discussions in a way that are simultaneously open to all comers (at least on boards with open registration), foster community, and endure for a lengthy period of time. You don't even need to go out of your way to find them. As long as you're on the forum, find a thread that suits what you want to discuss or make it yourself. It doesn't matter if you're a nobody - it'll appear on the forum just like anybody else's thread.

On the other hand, on hashtag-based forms of social media like Twitter or Tumblr, you have to know what's trending, actively search for something of interest (reducing the chances of discovering new items of interest), or see it on your feed at the right time thanks to following the right person (who you had to have discovered in the first place too). Unless you have a high profile account, whatever you post on that topic is likely to vanish into the ether with almost nobody seeing or caring. And the current trending topic will be dead in a day or an hour. You sure as shit can't have a good, long, evolving discussion like you can on a messageboard, whether that's about a band's new album or a country's election or whatever.

Oh well. The Internet moves on. I'd just rather not move on from messageboards.

PS Country Feedback is good but not top thirty REM songs good.
 
Though it may not always appear to be the case, I do like you guys a whole lot and will keep checking in here with regularity to see what's up. That said, more frequently than ever I ask myself why I keep posting if it's not as fun as it used to be. There's a lot more at stake for me in stepping away from the forum, but it is similar to what happened to me with watching new episodes of the Simpsons every Sunday years after it had stopped being enjoyable. It reached the point where the act of watching was more dispiriting than anything else. It's at this point that you've got to ask if your life is being made worse by it. Should something fun and engaging be allowed to become a ritual?

Maybe this is why R.E.M. broke up. Maybe this is why Michael Stipe grew out his beard. On that note, maybe change isn't always good.
 
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OMG are we breaking up?? :sad:


Great post, Cobbler. While my decade here didn't happen over as formative a period in my life, I do cherish many discussions and the exposure I've had to various artists.

GAF, while Imperor and NSW are two very prominent members who have flown the coop, you're forgetting formerly frequent posters like Shouter, Canadiens, U2DMfan, Dalton, and then a fair number of other names who aren't totally inactive per se but don't pop in too often anymore. I'm always glad when Lance stops by once or twice a week.

There's definitely been a major decimation. But, you know, people get older, get into relationships/have families/more demanding jobs, etc.
 
Maybe I should get into reddit. Maybe that's where all the super nerds with whom I can talk about how great a little ditty Pavement's "Box Elder" is reside.
 
Maybe I'm in the minority, but I feel like there is still a lot of vitality here - it's just coalesced into a smaller circle. The Bowie thread immediately after his passing is the best example: that was therapeutic for me in actually being able to discuss the man and his work, and mourn through the appreciation for that work, with actual fans rather than just hearing Under Pressure and Let's Dance on the radio a few times.

This is still my go-to place for new artist recommendations as well. Chances I would have become a Kendrick or Vince Staples fan without this forum are just about zero.
 
I know totally what you're getting at Cobl4, although I was never super active on this specific forum, but it guts me that a couple of long-term haunts of mine seem to be dying in the ass. With occasional reprieves and upswings that come and go as mysterious as the weather.

And if social media is replacing it, then how, I ask? I don't see too many glittering conversations on facebook. So where's everyone going? Don't people want to talk outside of some narrow little silo of family and associate employee contemporaries?

In the political sphere (ie. non-music) I'm aware of some extremely active blogs (the prolix version of message boards) with comment threads in the high hundreds, but those sort of places are not 'among friends'. They are combative, no quarter given.

I don't know what to do about any of it. I'm not the most talkative person. In some ways it's just good to know a place is there, chugging along, conversations happening that one can dip into or lurk around, as the mood strikes. Something's always there, till it isn't.
I couldn't have expressed myself any better than this in my own words.

I'm also not the most active member (I never was but now even less than before) but there's just something comforting about this place with lots of discussion going on. It gave me the feeling that I could always start talking about something if I wanted to or join an interesting discussion. That time seems to have passed sadly.

The funny thing, however, is that to me it seems there are still enough posters here to have an active board. Most people just seem to post less.

I also agree with the idea that there's nothing out there to replace message boards. I tried getting into Reddit but didn't enjoy it. The personal aspect of a smaller forum with one common interest is/was really appealing to me
 
I think there are any number of (privately run) venues on any number of topics, and some thrive even now, it seems. Whether via the message board or blog format. This place just needs an occasional sugar hit from a U2 album or a major rock star dying.

It ain't over yet. And if you want to talk dead boards, I could tell you guys a story about a board where I have more alters than there are active members. We're down to like four.
 
In all fairness I definitely listened to a lot more David Bowie both before and after his death than I would have absent threads on this forum.
 
In any case and further to previous posts, I can tell you where all the super nerds go, the AV Club comments threads which are equal parts wonderful and suicide-inducing.
 
Maybe I'm in the minority, but I feel like there is still a lot of vitality here - it's just coalesced into a smaller circle. The Bowie thread immediately after his passing is the best example: that was therapeutic for me in actually being able to discuss the man and his work, and mourn through the appreciation for that work, with actual fans rather than just hearing Under Pressure and Let's Dance on the radio a few times.

This is still my go-to place for new artist recommendations as well. Chances I would have become a Kendrick or Vince Staples fan without this forum are just about zero.



Good point.
When I joined here I wasn't much into music at all, I was just trying to find some info on the next U2 album. I had seriously only listened to maybe 3-4 bands regularly.
Now most of my favorite bands I have discovered from here. Chances are, I would have never found LCD Soundsystem, Sufjan Stevens, The War On Drugs, Bleachers, Beach House, High Highs, Spoon, etc. if I hadn't come on here. I do appreciate that greatly.
I also love message boards and despise social media. Ax makes a great point about the structure, but also the community aspect is something I really enjoy.
It pains me to see message boards dying off, they're a lot more fun than social media outlets.
 
One also has to take into account that this board is for a considerably old band. The level of fandom is going to decrease over time anyway, even with any influx of new fans during a new album cycle.
 
And not to sound whiny, but I made a decent-sized post yesterday in Random about Prince and Elvis Costello albums that was completely ignored. I feel like this wouldn't have been the case when we had more members/more activity, considering how many people like these artists.
 
That was a good post and I meant to respond to it. I actually haven't heard The Gold Experience yet and now I'm going to go out and buy it.
 
I feel all y'all re the site.

And about how I check Facebook/Twitter/Interference way too many times each day.
 
One also has to take into account that this board is for a considerably old band. The level of fandom is going to decrease over time anyway, even with any influx of new fans during a new album cycle.


No kidding. HTDAAB had a good new influx, NLOTH had a bit of one, and then SOI - if the forum gained much out of that or the accompanying tour it was bloody hard to tell.
 
My work is done.

It was nice knowing all of you.


/lazarus

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Though it may not always appear to be the case, I do like you guys a whole lot and will keep checking in here with regularity to see what's up. That said, more frequently than ever I ask myself why I keep posting if it's not as fun as it used to be. There's a lot more at stake for me in stepping away from the forum, but it is similar to what happened to me with watching new episodes of the Simpsons every Sunday years after it had stopped being enjoyable. It reached the point where the act of watching was more dispiriting than anything else. It's at this point that you've got to ask if your life is being made worse by it. Should something fun and engaging be allowed to become a ritual?

Nice analogy :up:

And not to sound whiny, but I made a decent-sized post yesterday in Random about Prince and Elvis Costello albums that was completely ignored. I feel like this wouldn't have been the case when we had more members/more activity, considering how many people like these artists.

A good example of something that, three or four years ago, would have kicked off a great, lengthy, fun discussion. :(
 
I haven't heard much of his 90s output at all. I've heard Diamonds and Pearls which I think is pretty damn good.

That had a couple of prominent singles. But I think the follow-up "symbol" album is significantly better. Sexy MF is better than anything on Diamonds. Plus it has Seven and My Name Is Prince. Overall it's just a great R&B album.
 
People talk about Interference being dead, but the what-did-you-last-eat/type-the-first-shit-that-comes-into-your-head/what-are-you-looking-at threads seem to be doing a roaring trade.
 
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