What was the first online forum you joined?

[KittenNoir]

Yes TBT was my first ever forum that I joined

 

[Roxxy]

Yes, definitely the first forum I have joined. Before that, i don’t think anyone will be old enough to remember chat rooms I used to be a chat room host which was fun as you could kick out annoying people

 

[~Kilza~]

GameFAQs was the first forum I joined ages ago, which itself led me to other forums I ended up joining. I had been on a ton of forums already by the time I ended up joining TBT!

 

[xSuperMario64x]

this was the first one I joined, I was 12 years old at the time and I didn't always have access to a computer (besides my dinky Blackberry and Nintendo consoles lol) so I didn't have much of a chance to get into online forums. I only joined here initially because my brother did, I wasn't even fully active here til 2016.

 

[Snek]

I first joined GameFaqs years ago but I have since then closed my account there. This is the only forum I use now. I find Gamefaqs and other forums I have used in the past less...ideal ever since joining TBT.

 

[dizzy bone]

I feel like I've been on forums my whole life lol.

The first online forums I joined were super niche forums dedicated to pixel art and website making. We had all learned how to code html through sites like lissaexplains to make our xangas, livejournals, and neopets pages pretty basically. This brought together a bunch of people who made personal websites to trade pixel art and engage with the growing pixel community (things like the quilting bee, kao ani and affiliate "affie" exchanges). I remember it being super wholesome and fun. I met a lot of friends through there, some were the hosts to my own website, others were forum members or staff members (I modded a couple too). These were smaller forums run by a circle of friends in the community, but I also joined other larger communities like gaiaonline. I started on those forums when I was 12 and I ended up meeting a lot of them in person when I moved to the states for college (where most of the community was based). We still keep in touch through socials and it's so interesting to see what they are up to now and how our interests from those forum days influenced some of their current career choices or paths in life (artistic careers like graphic design, art director, photographer, illustrators etc.)

And then of course, I stumbled upon Bell Tree. It felt natural to me to join because I was already super into forums.

Honestly I feel like there was some crossover interest with animal crossing back then too so I wonder if anyone from back then is on this forum.

 

[Kitsuragi]

does gaiaonline count

 

[Envy]

TBT was not my first forum, in fact, I joined here relatively late considering how much I loved AC at the time I began joining forums. One of my first forums was ACC in fall of 2003. I joined some other forums earlier in 2003, I think the first was in the Spring. That was when my parents first gave me permission to join forums.

 

[Asarena]

I guess my first forum was technically Neopets? The site had a forum of some kind, but I think I was too young to really be able to use it much, if at all. I was probably like 7 or so when I joined Neopets, so I couldn't really type my own messages on there or anything due to being under 13. I remember my older brother bragging about how he could post whatever he wanted, and I couldn't.

The first forum that I actually used was the RuneScape forum. I remember playing forum games and posting about drop parties and other games I was hosting in game. I was addicted to RuneScape at the time, so I enjoyed the forums a lot as well.

After that I was on Gaia Online, which was a forum and avatar site. It was actually a friend from RuneScape who first told me about Gaia. I joined a few other avatar forum sites during that time as well, such as Solia and Ernya. The best thing about Gaia was that a few of my IRL friends also joined and liked it. In the end I think they enjoyed it even more than I did, so it was a fun thing we could discuss together.

And eventually I entered my Kpop era, which led to me joining a few Kpop forums. I was event staff on two of them for awhile, so that was fun. The Kpop forums were a bit too intense for me though, as I wasn't one for drama and conflict. Seeing fans of different groups and artists arguing every day was exhausting, especially in the cases where I was a fan of both of the groups that were being argued over... I didn't feel like Kpop forums really matched my vibes in the end.

And finally, we reach TBT. I joined around the time New Horizons was released, and I think I happened upon the site while googling something, although I don't remember what exactly I was searching for.

There are probably other forums I joined here and there throughout the years, but these are the most noteworthy ones!

 

[Paperboy012305]

My very first forum site I've ever joined was (Unfortunately) Animal Crossing Community. Which is sadly known as the forums related to Animal Crossing that is often times overshadowed by this site. Not to mention that they just got into 2.0 last year, whereas TBT got into 3.0 back in 2020. Worst of all, they promised us that we'd be getting the bell shop soon when it was strictly announced, nope, we had to wait until 2023 for that. And while it WAS worth the wait, it's WAY too late into AC's activity for anyone to acknowledge it's now available for users to use.

Sure, there's still some activity, but this place does the activity way better with the events. And ACC does do events too, except that the events that ACC holds doesn't really have the "Pizzazz" and "Memes" that TBT provides. (Granted, I'm not on ACC much to know how the site handles events TBH....)
Also, they have a lot of rules that seem irrelevant at best. I got banned on that site 2 times, and now I don't wanna post anything on there to keep my sanity.

I can go on for much more on why that Forum Site sucks, but I'm just gonna end it right here and stick with this Forum site, which I'm glad I came to my senses for when I got banned the 2nd time back in late April of 2014.

 

[xlisapisa]

I think I was part of one other forum long long before this one, but I unfortunately can not remember what it was called. I think it was an anime forum, but I was no where near as active as I am here. I’d probably consider this my first real forum though.

 

[Xara]

Mine was GameFAQS in 2013! I joined it a few months after New Leaf came out for trading purposes. The community there was very different and weird from the one here, and I was 11 at the time so I was also very different and weird, but it wasn't terrible. Just different. I met some decent people, did plenty of trades, so overall I did what I went there to do! I definitely wish I had started with TBT, though.

 

[themysterybidder]

The first forum I joined was a watch forum due to my obsession with them! I joined in 2017 and was a regular there for several years. I still post there but I'm not as active there as I used to be.

 

[Sheando]

Animal Crossing Community was my first forum, actually! I think it was 2006 or 2007 when I first joined. In between I have also been part of a forum for novel writers and one for talking about Pokemon games. I was a moderator on the writing forum for several years, too.

 

[Firesquids]

It all started with Neopets when I was young, then Gaia Online in middle school, then 4Chan during highschool and then TBT when I was in college. This place is easily my favorite.

 

[AccfSally]

The first forum (which was part of a fan site) I ever joined was a 101 Dalmatians forum that was center around the show that came out in the 90's. Which I was a big fan of (and still to this day). I joined it in 2000 and could only hang around it if I was near a computer. I didn't really grow up with one.

This forum no longer exists today, however some of the members have made a new forum and it's still around today.

 

[Neb]

My first forum is a now shut down Pokemon site called the Marriland Forums that I joined in 2018. The site was already declining when I joined and I was the majority of the site’s activity for a while. I left not long before it shut down since there were so few new threads or posts and how cliquey the site was. The site’s domain owners didn’t really care about the site and got rid of its only real backup. All that remains of the site now are a handful of Internet Archive snapshots. Oddly enough that’s where I first encountered Kilza, a current mod of this site. He was on there longer than me and would know of the site’s history.

I can also thank a former mod of the Marilland forums for introducing me to the Lake Valor forums, which I’ve helped moderate for five years.

 

[Shellzilla_515]

TBT takes first place for being the online forum I joined in. Though, I have lurked in a couple of other forums like Gamefaqs and GTPlanet (focusing mainly on Gran Turismo, but other racing games as well), the latter which I've done at least a few times before even knowing TBT existed. And yes, those forums still exist with quite a bit of activity surprisingly.

 

[skarmoury]

ohhh i do think it was TBT!! at the time the socmeds I were active in were tumblr and twitter, and most of the time tumblr was where i went villager hunting, but when ACNL community was dying on tumblr, I found these forums and was pleasantly surprised a good number of people were still playing! c:
My second forums was chickensmoothie, then pokeheroes. I joined some other forums but didn't last too long. Now TBT is the only forums I'm active in

 

[rocketspruggs]

I joined a Simpsons forum back in 2022, it is a part of a website centered around the show, called No Homers Club. I was mostly there to review episodes of the older seasons.

However, I stupidly logged out and forgot the password.