- Messages
- 6
Hey everyone, I've been lurking the forum for the last few days and the memories are returning! Loads of familiar names here. I went by the handle Harmalade before Conscience.
I joined in 2006 for the Sonic the Hedgehog forum and probably stopped posting entirely after about 2011 or so. I'll be 30 in a couple of weeks so that's a good 5th of my life I spent on GW! COPPA didn't stop me, for those that did the maths on my age.
I googled the site one day to discover it had been nuked and I was a little relieved that all my dumb posts sent over a dial up modem had vanished into the ether. I don't know what happened to my GW focused Photobucket account but thank god that's gone too.
In my time I was active in CV/PIMI and the music forum, and basically remember trying pretty hard to fit in with the older kids. That got me into a little trouble and I didn't exactly ingratiate myself with the crowd or moderators, but that was the internet back then (gatekeeping was important) and I probably grew out of my annoying phase soon after leaving the boards, lol.
I think it's interesting that after other social medias have gained ascendancy and ubiquity with the masses, people are going back to atomised, small communities on Discord etc. In my view, the itch that's scratched by an old style forum can't be replicated by Reddit at all, which is so ephemeral, impersonal and basic (and literally AI in some cases). Discord is great but its rolling chat nature makes it hard to keep up a correspondence on a particular topic sometimes.
As far as life goes, I got married a couple of years ago and have been practicing law for nearly 6 years, with my sights set on going to the bar in the future. I can honestly credit @Crazy Jamie for giving me my first window into the profession. I have a network of barristers now but he was the first I probably ever interacted with. Outside of work, I'm into fitness, sports, my veggie garden, and play Aussie rules football.
Life is good and beyond squeezing in time to fit in hobbies, I caught myself missing a place to anonymously/pseudonymously gasbag about random things with a 20 year old community. So, here I am. Hello again.
I joined in 2006 for the Sonic the Hedgehog forum and probably stopped posting entirely after about 2011 or so. I'll be 30 in a couple of weeks so that's a good 5th of my life I spent on GW! COPPA didn't stop me, for those that did the maths on my age.
I googled the site one day to discover it had been nuked and I was a little relieved that all my dumb posts sent over a dial up modem had vanished into the ether. I don't know what happened to my GW focused Photobucket account but thank god that's gone too.
In my time I was active in CV/PIMI and the music forum, and basically remember trying pretty hard to fit in with the older kids. That got me into a little trouble and I didn't exactly ingratiate myself with the crowd or moderators, but that was the internet back then (gatekeeping was important) and I probably grew out of my annoying phase soon after leaving the boards, lol.
I think it's interesting that after other social medias have gained ascendancy and ubiquity with the masses, people are going back to atomised, small communities on Discord etc. In my view, the itch that's scratched by an old style forum can't be replicated by Reddit at all, which is so ephemeral, impersonal and basic (and literally AI in some cases). Discord is great but its rolling chat nature makes it hard to keep up a correspondence on a particular topic sometimes.
As far as life goes, I got married a couple of years ago and have been practicing law for nearly 6 years, with my sights set on going to the bar in the future. I can honestly credit @Crazy Jamie for giving me my first window into the profession. I have a network of barristers now but he was the first I probably ever interacted with. Outside of work, I'm into fitness, sports, my veggie garden, and play Aussie rules football.
Life is good and beyond squeezing in time to fit in hobbies, I caught myself missing a place to anonymously/pseudonymously gasbag about random things with a 20 year old community. So, here I am. Hello again.
Last edited:
