It's a very common trend lately for classic-style Internet forums and communities to be very quiet, struggle to find new members, and even disappear completely. I myself was a very active member of a tight-knit UK-based art forum back in 2006-2012. Eventually the forum was shut down, citing the availability of social media as the main reason. But I think we can all agree that the two are not the same experience, not even close, and social media has definitely changed a lot since 2012 (gotten a lot noisier, more hostile, faster paced).
I'm very interested in this trend myself, and am trying to figure out why this is happening and what can be done about it. This excellent article is thoroughly researched and very well argued, doing a much better job at explaining the situation than I think I could:
https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-rise-fall-internet-art-communitiesSo it seems that the nature of the Internet is changing (passive rather than active use, primarily consuming rather than creating, hostile
(nigh on dangerous) rather than safe). Less anonymous.
The way modern social media sites are structured - focusing on viewing and posting as much content as possible, and forcing content channels to compete with each other on volume - is no doubt a big part of it.
But I might also add that we as users are changing. We're being changed by the vast, dam-busting rivers of information that flow through our orbits every day. Yes, this is the fault of the massive data companies who benefit from that situation. But I might argue that we're also
letting it happen. We're becoming less discerning in our "consumption", often going for volume over quality. We haven't held onto our old communities, protected with them, continued to engage with them, instead hopping over to the passive convenience of the modern algorithmic stream, choosing scrolling over discussion and engagement.
What do you think? The article doesn't provide any kind of solution. But I think there's space for small communities to thrive, away from all the noise of the "Modern Internet". A slower, quieter sub-net, if you will. In fact, we're probably in desparate need of such a change of pace
(there's a whole slow Internet movement, but I don't know much about it yet).
Community is essential to the creation of art, so we as artists can only benefit from pushing to make our communities really work. How do you think a small forum like this one can generate a little more buzz and encourage people to visit and engage more?
There are two things I've noticed/think might be relevant:
1.) When I visit a forum these days, the off-topic/discussion board is usually very, very dead. Some art forums today hardly even provide a structure for this, with minimal sub-categories or sub-forums for the discussion/chit-chat/fun side of things, instead focusing primarily on sketchbook threads. Back on my old forum though, discussion was the main order of the day! Discussing technique, sharing tips, talking about art and movies and comics and entertainment, playing silly drawing games. Discussion is where you get to know other forum members. Once people become friends, they're much more invested in each others' work.
2.) A strong community with strong engagement seems to require some pillars of the community. Users need to step forward and start threads, respond to discussions, organise forum events (or even RL meets). The forum I used to be in revolved around a collective of artists and their books, so things sort of revolved around our fandom of the creators. This gave everybody some common ground to start building a community around. There was something uniting everybody. But there were also lots of people (starting with the artists of the collective themselves) who were very engaged in the community and helped it flourish, grow, and helped the quieter people start to engage.
I have lots more to say about this topic, but I would like to hear what you have to say!