What entertainment website fell the hardest this decade?

[Dom Cruise]

I abandoned ship on the AV Club because of all the SJW cringe before Trump even went down that escalator - I wanna say late 2014, maybe very early 2015. I can hardly imagine how much worse it got heading into 2016 and beyond. For what it’s worth good ol’ ZODIAC MOTHERFUCKER is still doing the same schtick on Twitter to this day.

They were already pretty woke by 2015, it was in fact on the AV Club that year that I first noticed the "current year" phrasing ("it's 2015!") and especially by 2016 things started to get shaky as you can imagine.

But I had already been visiting the site for years by that point and old habits die hard, plus I had hoped it would get better, I didn't entirely quit until the site was at its absolute worst and it was clear it would never go back to what it was.

 

[-4ZURE-]

I don’t even know where to begin, I feel like all have been hit hard in some way.

FaceBook and Twitter were fine for about half the decade, but quickly devolved into 24/7 controversies as they are the most normie websites possible. If you want to see nothing but unrestrained outrage over whatever, or just pure stupidity, these are the places.

YouTube has remained decent. It has certainly gone down, but it is still pumping out good enough content for me not to hate it. YouTube is sort of one-of-its kind so it can never be fully awful unless a website can match its use while being as advanced. Stuff like DailyMotion just cannot compete to remove people from the platform, so it’s fine.

Tumblr and IFunny are pretty similar. Both started out as fun sites where people just talked about fandom stuff. Both pretty much lost all support post-2016 due to politics attacking them. Tumblr was high liberal, while IFunny was high Republican. Add in a few more controversies, like some pedophile incidents, and these sites pretty much became ghost towns, now housing small communities. In a sense, they are back to their original form, but they have little ability to grow. They are almost dead at this point if we are being honest.

Amino was a cool idea that came and went. I checked it out and it isn’t bad. So far no politics, so that’s a surprise, though that is likely because it is very split up and has a younger user base. It is decent overall, just not much activity and can be slightly cringy.

Vine is dead...R.I.P.

TikTok was fun for the first year, but just became unbearably mainstream. It has the politics of FaceBook and Twitter, along with the annoying over saturation of celebrities and late night talk show hosts of YouTube. Add in the cringe induced humor of late Vine, brought to us by Lele Pons, and a bunch of annoying dances, and TikTok has gone from a site with promise to the literal embodiment of everything wrong with the internet past 2015.

Forums in general are pretty dead at this point. Most have just moved to Twitter or Discord.

God, looking back I feel like the internet has just gotten smaller. There just isn’t much left as sites keep dying. It feels like we have killed all competition so that Twitter, FaceBook, and YouTube have nothing to go against them. It sucks.

 

[Immortal Technique]

ESPN is one that hasn't been mentioned yet. It use to be the undisputed go-to source for sports entertainment. They'd have in-depth, well written articles about sports, and the sport highlights of the previous night. These articles would have comment sections as half the fun of sports is arguing and making fun of others; there was a little community there. Then they wanted to up their profit margins, and put the good articles behind a pay-wall.

Then 2016 happened. The comment section went from needing a facebook account to comment to just getting rid of it all together--destroying any fun the site had. The sports site turned highly political, authors could write any shit they wanted and nobody could make fun of them in the comment section. Those once great in-depth sport articles turned into what athlete tweeted what.

I'm sure they still get a shit load of traffic, but it's just quick hits of viewers that need the score of games and the box score of how players did. There is nothing to do on the site anymore, so people dip fast. The sport subreddits have beaten ESPN in entertainment value. All the major sports subreddits centralize info/highlights/articles and then you can go into your favorite teams subreddits to discuss things.

 

[Jonah Hill poster]

https://www.hotnewhiphop.com/

It went from being about basic cookie cutter TMZ journalism that gave you a laugh about rappers being rappers to now being about Buzzfeed-tier level journalism about rappers being rappers.

Not much of an improvement, but it still is a failure.

 

[TheProdigalStunna]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned 4chan yet. That site was my shit 2010-2014. I know it was still after the "Endless Summer" of 2007 (definitely too young to remember the "golden age"), but I still loved it. There was this kind of joyful anarchy to it, and it was mostly apolitical all at the same. /r9k/ and /pol/ were still funny (/pol/ during the Zimmerman trial was a sight to behold), people didn't seem to take shit too seriously. Then Gamergate happened. The whole tone of the website definitely changed afterwards, especially after large portions immigrated to 8chan and m00t resigned. Going there now, it feels like a barren wasteland. I don't know why, but it just isn't the same.

If I had to pick a definite year the Internet broke, I would probably say 2014 was the time. The Ferguson riots and Gamergate definitely made it impossible for communities to stay apolitical. Yeah, there was some bubbling under beforehand, but I remember that most people still laughed at the crazies beforehand. Coincidentally, that was the time I also found this site. All things considered, this site has remained relatively the same culturally the same all the years since I've been here. The userbase is much bigger, and the site has become a bit more explicitly right-wing as opposed to just anti-SJW, but the sense of humor and camaraderie definitely still feels the same and it still feels like pre-2010's Internet. There's a reason this is the only "social media" that I use nowadays.

 

[TheProdigalStunna]

I spent so much time on Snopes circa 2006, I went through a phase early in my internet usage where I was totally obsessed with urban legends, I'm curious as to whether they even still have the old urban legends section as well.

They still do, but it definitely doesn't feel the same. I do miss the Web 1.0 look, and they are no longer sub-categorized. Unfortunately, they seem to have blocked the website from being archived on the Wayback Machine, so I don't know if it's possible to find an archive of the old website. If any of you can find one, I'd love it if it were posted here.

But yeah, I was an urban legend/weird trivia/paranormal junkie when I was a kid and probably read every page on the website back in the day. I can only reiterate how it went completely downhill in the age of Trump. Shit sucks but what can you do?

 

[Dom Cruise]

Then 2016 happened. The comment section went from needing a facebook account to comment to just getting rid of it all together--destroying any fun the site had.

It's insane how much we've been silenced on the net, so many sites dropped comment sections or message boards around the Trump election.

I'm still very upset about the imdb message boards being removed, the very first online community I ever registered for.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned 4chan yet. That site was my shit 2010-2014. I know it was still after the "Endless Summer" of 2007 (definitely too young to remember the "golden age"), but I still loved it. There was this kind of joyful anarchy to it, and it was mostly apolitical all at the same. /r9k/ and /pol/ were still funny (/pol/ during the Zimmerman trial was a sight to behold), people didn't seem to take shit too seriously. Then Gamergate happened. The whole tone of the website definitely changed afterwards, especially after large portions immigrated to 8chan and m00t resigned. Going there now, it feels like a barren wasteland. I don't know why, but it just isn't the same.

If I had to pick a definite year the Internet broke, I would probably say 2014 was the time. The Ferguson riots and Gamergate definitely made it impossible for communities to stay apolitical. Yeah, there was some bubbling under beforehand, but I remember that most people still laughed at the crazies beforehand. Coincidentally, that was the time I also found this site. All things considered, this site has remained relatively the same culturally the same all the years since I've been here. The userbase is much bigger, and the site has become a bit more explicitly right-wing as opposed to just anti-SJW, but the sense of humor and camaraderie definitely still feels the same and it still feels like pre-2010's Internet. There's a reason this is the only "social media" that I use nowadays.

I hate to break this to you, but you really missed out if you weren't around on 4chan in 2007, if you think 2010-2014 was good that was nothing compared to 2006-2009.

Seriously, you can't imagine how much fun the site was around 2007, I felt like it was already past its prime by the time the 2010s rolled around, although I'd say the last decent year was 2011, if you saw the site then you have some idea, but that was still nothing like it's peak, I kind of look back in awe at what that site was in 2006/2007, it was a thing of magic.

I agree though 2014 was when the site went to shit, as did most of the internet, the climate became very edgy and tense and it just wasn't as fun as it used to be and 4chan today just kind of sucks, you go on /b/ and it seems like it's mostly just porn nowadays, the whole meme culture seems to be totally gone, not only does the site have a toxic climate, it's just kind of boring.

They still do, but it definitely doesn't feel the same. I do miss the Web 1.0 look, and they are no longer sub-categorized. Unfortunately, they seem to have blocked the website from being archived on the Wayback Machine, so I don't know if it's possible to find an archive of the old website. If any of you can find one, I'd love it if it were posted here.

But yeah, I was an urban legend/weird trivia/paranormal junkie when I was a kid and probably read every page on the website back in the day. I can only reiterate how it went completely downhill in the age of Trump. Shit sucks but what can you do?

That sucks if the old site isn't archived.

it blew my mind just how many urban legends were out there that I had never heard of, like the "ghost kid" in Three Men And a Baby or the "hanging Munchkin" in The Wizard of Oz.

 

[-4ZURE-]

Anyone else miss Miiverse. A bit of a trashy site, but it had a unique charm that is still unrivaled to this day. The peak of the site was definitely 2015 with the release of Splatoon and the Smash stage. The amount of great fan art and memes was something to behold. While I understand that Nintendo is now using Twitter, as it will gain them more main stream notoriety, I do wish that they would still have a service up.

Also, not really a social media platform, but Cartoon Network’s website is so bad compared to the old days. They took out so many great games like FusionFall. It feels lifeless now with the lack of badges and general basic look likely made for phones. I guess streaming services have sort of let CN go without the site.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

Speaking of Miiverse, MARIO WiiU.

 

[Dom Cruise]

Also, not really a social media platform, but Cartoon Network’s website is so bad compared to the old days. They took out so many great games like FusionFall. It feels lifeless now with the lack of badges and general basic look likely made for phones. I guess streaming services have sort of let CN go without the site.

Nick has also removed all those great flash games and things as well.

And in addition to the flash games CN also ages ago removed the "web premiere toons" like Pink Donkey (yeah, I know, but it's something I saw as a kid and would like to rewatch just because) and there exists only piecemeal episodes and not the whole things.

Is there an archive of the Nick and CN flashgames anywhere?

 

[bothiggedyhog]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned 4chan yet. That site was my shit 2010-2014. I know it was still after the "Endless Summer" of 2007 (definitely too young to remember the "golden age"), but I still loved it. There was this kind of joyful anarchy to it, and it was mostly apolitical all at the same. /r9k/ and /pol/ were still funny (/pol/ during the Zimmerman trial was a sight to behold), people didn't seem to take shit too seriously. Then Gamergate happened. The whole tone of the website definitely changed afterwards, especially after large portions immigrated to 8chan and m00t resigned. Going there now, it feels like a barren wasteland. I don't know why, but it just isn't the same.

2010 4chan was peak internet, raiding shit, making fun of jessie slaughter, plus the porn was compiled neatly.
I don't know when it lost its zest and everyone on there became a faggot, but one day I checked up on it and it just wasn't the same.

 

[-4ZURE-]

2010 4chan was peak internet, raiding shit, making fun of jessie slaughter, plus the porn was compiled neatly.
I don't know when it lost its zest and everyone on there became a faggot, but one day I checked up on it and it just wasn't the same.

The site likely just became well known through other avenues, leading to its demise as people joined after seeing posts. 2014-2015 IFunny went hard on 4chan posts for comedy, so many unknowing people got their first taste of the site from a relatively well known platform at the time. You can also add in the leaks for things like Smash, which were covered by multiple channels such as GameXplain for it gaining traction. They also got a boost in 2011 due to the MLP craze, as 4chan was the hub for ponies.

All this to say, the more members, the more trash it became. Nowadays it seems people have basic knowledge of the platform’s existence. It sometimes catches me off guard how well known it is. For example, prior to me deleting TikTok, I saw multiple jokes about putting characters in jars. To my knowledge, this came from a 4chan thread (I saw on IFunny in 2015) where a man placed a pony in a jar and came in it. He then took images of the jizz filled jar with a pony in it, and how it eroded. My question is, how did normie filled TikTok find out about this ancient post? It is a little unsettling. It also doesn’t help that this post went from one you have to look for on IFunny, to a common joke.

New members likely saw the bizarre posts and tried to copy. They wanted to be as funny as the green text stories, likely leading to more autism than ever before.

Also, 2016 politics definitely played a part. They took a hard pro-Trump stance, so just like IFunny and Tumblr, the politics would eventually get the best of them.

 

[Pond Scum]

There are a lot of websites I can choose from, but I want to go for a personal pick and pick a forum I used to frequent called Project AFTER which was a fun small forum that had a pretty cool community. I really loved frequenting the Fanfiction mockeries subforum which was dedicated to mocking absolute shitty fanfiction either in a collective sense or in a sort of Mystery science theater 3000 format which brought a lot of nostalgia to me. Hell the site pissed off a lolcow named Dakari-King Mykan to the point he made the entire website into villains who were capable of beating up a bunch of superheroes till he saved the day which was unintentionally hilarious. I even mocked a few fanfictions there myself (ususally MLP or Sonic fanfiction).

I dipped out of the forums though in 2016 due to not really being interested in the fanfiction scene, and checked back into it later to find out that the entire website closed in 2017.

This was a blow to me as while I did lack interest in the site, it did make up a significant portion of the life I have online and to see that part gone was sad.

Man, thinking about Project A.F.T.E.R really takes me back. I remember someone claimed to have backed up all the fanfiction mockeries before the site shut down but I haven't been able to find any of them, which really sucks. Not a lot of places left on the internet to just make fun of harmless shit without getting political.

 

[Dom Cruise]

All this to say, the more members, the more trash it became.

Is this really true in the case of 4chan though? Because it seems to me like the opposite is the case, when 4chan had more members it was better, what happened is a lot of it's user base got cannibalized by other sites and there was a "brain drain" as people left leaving behind the weirdos, when 4chan used to be a site that just about everyone dabbled in, it was much better.

I could be wrong though.

 

[-4ZURE-]

Is this really true in the case of 4chan though? Because it seems to me like the opposite is the case, when 4chan had more members it was better, what happened is a lot of it's user base got cannibalized by other sites and there was a "brain drain" as people left leaving behind the weirdos, when 4chan used to be a site that just about everyone dabbled in, it was much better.

I could be wrong though.

I, and probably many others likely never heard of 4chan before 2014, when it’s posts started getting on popular sites like IFunny. 4chan seemed to be an obscure part of the internet with the occasional popularity due to MLP or some YouTuber.

From what it sounds like, the site was in its glory days in 2010 and earlier. My guess is many left like you said, but with more exposure it brought in more brain-dead people to replace. The 2016 political field may also have played a part, as 4chan was similar to Tumblr in that an influx of political-minded individuals made it their home for a period of time.

This is just a guess though.

 

[Dom Cruise]

I, and probably many others likely never heard of 4chan before 2014, when it’s posts started getting on popular sites like IFunny. 4chan seemed to be an obscure part of the internet with the occasional popularity due to MLP or some YouTuber.

From what it sounds like, the site was in its glory days in 2010 and earlier. My guess is many left like you said, but with more exposure it brought in more brain-dead people to replace. The 2016 political field may also have played a part, as 4chan was similar to Tumblr in that an influx of political-minded individuals made it their home for a period of time.

This is just a guess though.

I guess I have something I can boast about though because I discovered the site all the way back in 2006, 2014 seems absurdly late for someone to have first heard of it, but I guess that's just me.

As for what exactly were the reasons for the sites decline I guess it's hard to say, other than the 2016 political climate as you mention, but I just know that 4chan circa 2010 and below was a thing of magic, I sure miss it.

 

[White Devil]

2007 4chan was the shit. Habbo Hotel, getting on Fox News, etc. All those raids were fun as fuck. No one gave a shit about politics really and everyone was a faggot just for existing. No one got super mad about that shit. /b/ was actually good.

Fuck, I feel old.

 

[ScatmansWorld]

I'm gonna go with 2 websites not mentioned in this thread, Gametrailers.com and the Facepunch Forums, cause they're both fucking dead now. For Facepunch, Brexit and the 2016 election turned their userbase into ResetEra lite, and the unofficial-official replacement site "Knockout" is even more politically radical. I'm not completely sure why Garry shut it down, but he was probably just sick of the upkeep, mod drama, and spending time and money to redesign it while the userbase was mostly unsatisfied or indifferent to the changes.

As for why Gametrailers died, it was probably a combination of Youtube, Geoff Keighley, and Viacom. I still remember how I'd frequently visit the site for Screwattack, GT Countdown, and AVGN. I miss the days when a lot of a websites tried to be an "all in one" hub with forums, user groups, user blogs, and even user submitted videos, but I guess nowadays that much user content is too much of a liability. Everyone uses social media/Discord to share shit nowadays anyway, so most companies don't bother.

 

[Idiotron]

I don't know about this decade but this year, it's definitely boxofficemojo.
Cinemas are still pretty much dead and, since nobody is going to see movies, nobody is checking what the profits are.

 

[PointOfNoReturnPoint]

I didn't see this mentioned but Gameinformer. I dont know if it really went downhill with SJW type shit but it's a magazine in 2023 how can it compete with anything anymore. I read a rather recent edition and it just, didn't hold up anymore with the limited space they have in an article. One of my old selling points was the cheats at the end of the magazine. But you dont have those anymore so that is gone by the wayside entirely.