Overly Positive

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So during today’s little round of gentle reminders (read: bans) for people that just have a slightl bit of a challenge talking to someone without using the words “lol”, “cock”, and “pizzowned”, I thought about how much time I really spend on forums. I used to be a big mailing list person back in the day, you know. When the internet was young and a mailing list could only be started by people who had a spare box to run, the mailing lists that popped up were the best and only place to get the latest information.

So as it is now with forums. I mean, sure, there’s content that makes your eyes bleed or makes you scratch your head wondering what the person is trying to say. Yeah, there are exchanges on forums that involve lots of wildly original items like the “Picard facepalm”, the “lolcats” pictures, and gems like “stopped reading there”, “this” and “/signed”. But really, where would we be without forums? Heck, where would I be without the incredible fountain of worthy content that an internet forum brings.

If it weren’t for forums, I wouldn’t know that:

-Something is the worst failure of all time and is also “fine”.

-Something that is surely signed with mindless agreement on a forum sometimes might get a nod from someone official. Or it might get buried.

-Something really, really needs to be done about: my class in a game, my lifestyle, my spending habits, world peace, and what I ate for dinner or else everything will fall to pieces and I will be compeltely and utterly broken.

-I am awesome.

-I suck.

-Someone on the other side of the world simply didn’t care about what I had to say – well, they did care to post something about it, and care enough to see responses, but I won’t mess around with their happy place.

The list goes on and on. And the best part? Internet forums are like a constant reminder, because if it’s about a topic that is extremely popular, you know there are going to be 500 threads about it even though there are about 499 on the forum section for whatever you’re discussing. Convenient, easy, and informative – especially when I’m told I need to stop posting.

So the next time you think that forums are filled with nothing but useless drivel – just think – there’s a silver lining in every cloud, or a diamond in the rough, or a Shakespeare in every monkey with a typewriter (or in this case, a keyboard, a mouse, and an internet connection). I know I do.