The Post Social Media Era and whats next for 12oz and online communities like it

[misteraven]

 

So there's been a lot of conversation about the changes to online life these days. Think the first major thread on the subject was the Weigh In: Has the social media revolution devolved conversation? thread I started a ways back, but there's been a few threads and comments popping up including the comment I responded to from @Fist 666below and Unfollowgate 2019 started yesterday by @Mercer.

 

Perhaps we could just as well consolidate conversation into one of those threads, but to keep the conversation clean, I though I'd start a sort of new chapter in the conversation by way of a new thread. We can still go on and debate whether Instagram is dying or Facebook is over or if the days of social media in general is coming to an end (or at least the largest changes since its inception), which we'll continue in those other threads. Rather I'd like to use this thread to explore what a post-social media 1.0 world might look like, as well as provide some insights into what we're experiencing here on our very own 12ozProphet forum.

 

I think many of you guys remember the dark age of the forum when it was all but dead. Some of you would pop in from time to time, likely we're unable to login due to the massive technical issues or maybe didn't bother trying when you saw it was a grave yard (assuming you checked in at all). Then later, whether through social media or word of mouth, you found out something was happening with the 12oz forum. No doubt even then, it was a pale ghost of what you remember it being and probably poked around and then left again. Slowly but surely we saw the logged in member count go from 2 or 3 people to maybe 5 or 6 and occasionally spike up to a dozen or so. Then with some pushing and promoting, we managed to get to 12 - 15 logged in basically 24/7 and sometimes spiking to twice that. Meanwhile we're all starting to pick up on that low grumbling of discontent in regards to privacy or censorship or just plain feeling of staleness that has crept up and consumed social media.

 

Personally I think we'll see radical change over this next couple years. I also think we're getting pretty close to yet another turning point in the story of the 12oz forums and have been predicting that if we see the exponential growth we've jhad in this last year again over this next year, we'll likely reach a full tipping point where the forum really takes on a life of its own. There's a lot of reasons that I believe are evidence as to how or why this will happen, but mostly I think more and more people are waking up to what was lost with the advent of social media... The in depth conversations and subsequent online relationships that came to be as a by product of exploring concepts with strangers over the internet and discussing / arguing / solving / learning that goes along with it.

 

Anyhow, I have many ideas about where I'm hoping to take this forum. Some are just vague concepts born from instinct and experience and others are more specific development direction based off what I think is needed based on the evidence in front of me. Obviously all of you guys are a part of this journey and so it only makes sense to kick this off and explore the topic. I'm not saying this is a design by committee, as it's likely more easy to herd cats and truth is I probably don't hjave the resources to even begin to map out and execute a group plan, but likewise, I think this is the perfect forum (pun intended) to discuss whats next for the 12oz forum and the future of online community.

 

I'll follow up this introductory post with a few references I've come across in relation to all of this.

 

-------

 

NOTE: This is a repost I decided to turn into a topic. The original comment appeared here.

 

 

On 10/15/2019 at 4:04 AM, Fist 666 said:

I finally kicked it. From a hobby standpoint I am losing a ton of connections, but on a cell phone addiction/reliance front I am fucking thrilled.

 

Hopefully the old paint thread will gain some traction if I keep it bumping, but I fear it might wind up just being a personal thread. 

 

Pretty interesting to see how many more people are doing exactly that. Wasn't going to post this publicly, but no reason not to. This week in particular I'm seeing a significant uptick on here. Obviously a few threads almost feel like the old 12oz. Seen @seekingdrop through, @blood farthas recovered her account and is posting again, seen OG mod @sofarokregularly maintaining the travel and UK train threads, @STYLEISKINGstill swings through and throws in on a bunch of threads (be great to see him throw into the Toys thread and keep holding down the Burners and style thread, Seeing @One Man Bannedand @micahhawaiiessentially making the new forum about the best place to look at frights on the internet once again and certainly awesome to see how @Jokerwent from thinking he was just too busy with life to post regularly to almost single handedly holding down the Toys post here thread (freakin over 2000 pages now), and then there's a few new people and semi established lurkers (including @Limeliciouz, @aufand @ndvto name a couple) that have been logged in most days this past week or three for most of the day. This morning saw a massive spike in my start of day activity feed (165 new updates) which is substantially more than I generally see between the time I leave off before bed to start fo day each morning.

 

Based off my own experiences with the forum, I believe the tipping point will come at anywhere between 3 - 5x the current traffic levels, which is actually an exponential increase smaller than what we've experienced in the last 12 months. Not specifically saying it'll happen in the next year as there's just too many contributing factors that can shift this wildly in either direction, but for example, when we released the forum reunion tee, there was a very large increase in activity that has mostly sustained itself since. Crazy that I still regularly get messages form people that are just finding out that forum is back, but I still get them regularly. I do think that the clear (and getting more clear each day) decline of Instagram presents an interesting opportunity not just for our forum, but for online culture in general. Obviously I'll keep pushing to the best of my ability, keep spreading news, likely put together an another tee that celebrates the forum somehow and other programs that give us and everyone else an excuse to talk about the forum (outside the forum), come check things out and register or recover accounts. I also communicate with @Dirty_habiTon a daily basis and am constantly looking into server and software tweaks or other methods / references / ideas on how we can perhaps improve the '12oz experience'. (Actually planning a big site update for the main site so it isn't just an online store, that I believe will make swinging by the site in general a more compelling thing that in turn, should also bring additional attention to the forum as well).

 

Anyhow, you guys should remember vividly where we were 2 years ago... Literally 2 or 3 people logged in and even the popular sections showing threads that didn't have responses for days or even a week. Admittedly it does feel slow to me sometimes, especially when I have a bunch of extra time to pound the forum, but then again when I start exploring sections and threads I don't normally look at, I also come across some really interesting stuff. You guys might have also noticed that I've made it a point to contribute to the content as well. Not just posting comments, but taking the time to pull from daily life and interest and build out proper new threads. I try to think through a topic I find interesting, aggregate a few links and / or files that relate to a specific POV or help frame up the discussion and then release them. Sometimes they take off pretty quick, other times I need to sort of baby them along and cultivate them, but I will often hit up a handful of members I talk to pretty regularly and shoot them a link to go check it out. If I had a little more time on my hands, I'd treat some of these threads like blog entries and include a leading image and maybe some supporting images so it reads almost like an article. Perhaps even convert that into an Instagram post like other news sites do with their feeds so we can pull traffic over. Anyhow, point is that its pretty amazing that we're here having this conversation at all considering people had written off the forum as entirely done back in 2014 or so and it was essentially dead only a couple years ago. At least at this point we can all acknowledge there is a true community on here, even if for now its still a little small when comparing it to the old forum or the major players like Instagram. But we'll get there...

 

 

 

[misteraven]

I came across this article discussing the Hypebeast forums - https://blakplague.wordpress.com/2017/07/26/hb-we-out-dis-risedecline-of-the-hypebeast-forums/

 

It's still interesting to me that they chose to first disable their forums and more recently, pull it off the internet altogether. As I was discussing with @Kultsjust this morning, it would seem that like so many other brands and online properties, Hypebeast has ultimately lost a lot of its identity by investing in social media platforms like Instagram at the expense of focusing on its own property with their site and forum. Honestly I'd love to have more insight into what exactly happened there, especially when for the longest time there was a note on their closed forums saying they were working on developing a new online platform. So far that has not come to fruition, but I do predict they're seeing many of the issues we've identified with social media and I'd expect they're working on a plan to counter it. Will be interesting to see what they end up doing.

 

No doubt most of the Hypebeast forum migrated to Reddit once it was shut down. Curious how much of that community held together over there? Likewise, as their forum peaked in the years that ours was dying, curios how many of you guys were posting over there. Don't think there ever was any credible graffiti conversation happening on their forums, but then again, they did turn focus to street art at a time when that was slowly replacing graffiti in the streets.

[misteraven]

Here's another community I stumbled on by accident that I was fascinated by. Reason is A. I've never head of it before and B. That its an entirely paid private community.

 

http://www.clickinmoms.com/

 

In an age where some people still claim that social media is the end all be all and forums and other platforms have no chance in going up against it, I personally have been claiming that I expect things to go more directional. Same way nobody would have predicted a platform like https://stockx.com/ could ever go up against the likes of https://www.ebay.com/, here we see that they've planted the flag of ownership over specific segments of the resale market and have not only put up a threat, but for most intents and purposes are owning these directional market segments.

 

Anyhow, this private paid community mentioned above is successful enough to have dedicated mobile apps and seem happy enough with their momentum to not even bother with a free tier or trial period. In fact, their membership costs are more than I'd expect. Not expensive, but costs more than the intro plans for Hulu or Netflix.

 

Again, super interesting and precisely what I expect to see replace more and more demographics that currently congregate on platforms like Instagram most of the time.

 

[misteraven]

Another interesting legacy post from Hypebeast themselves in regards to their now completely gone forum -https://hypebeast.com/2014/8/the-wild-wild-web-the-colorful-past-of-the-hypebeast-forums

[Kults]

Reddit is just the evolution of forums. Congregates all topics in one place and standardized the “like” system. Odd that it’s creator offed himself. Smart dude 

[Dirty_habiT]

You know something that gives this forum a special angle in online discussion is the fact that it's members inherently do not want to share all their personal details about themselves with others here.  We don't get lost in "scrolling hell" like so many other sites want you to get trapped in, and for that I am thankful.

 

I say, do away with infinite scrolling.

I say, bring back the ability to post javascript in comments on MySpace!

If we can get those two things done, I don't think that bringing back Crystal Pepsi would be too much of a stretch.

 

What do you all think?

How do you think the way kids are growing up now (being around social media) will affect their upbringing compared to how you were brought up?  I have my opinions but I would like to hear others.

 

One guy's, *cough, idea for the future of the internet is for it to be used like a library, a mail system, an online store, a place to play video games, and an online news/discussion group/forum.  These were the things it was originally good at.

 

edit: we've come full circle.  @Mercer-> you can't have my nudes.

 

[Mercer]

[+plus+]

I post on surfer mag forum quite a often, and Ive noticed that more people have been active in the past 6 months for what its worth 

 

oddly enough the surfers are much worse cunts than the graffiti people haha! 

[Mercer]

10 minutes ago, Kults said:

Reddit is just the evolution of forums. Congregates all topics in one place and standardized the “like” system. Odd that it’s creator offed himself. Smart dude 

That's a very deep story, and by deep, I mean blatant deep state psychological operation, and abuse of power, easily provable "conspiracy theory"

[+plus+]

I have noticed, subreddits that are small are still fun, but once they reach a certain size it becomes shit.

The type of content organizing works great for some things. 

Not so much for others. 

 

I have been enjoying watching China posts get to the front page then disappearing after they get tot the top.

Tencent the Chinese company now owns a percentage of reddit

HMMMMMM 

[Kults]

5 minutes ago, Mercer said:

That's a very deep story, and by deep, I mean blatant deep state psychological operation, and abuse of power, easily provable "conspiracy theory"

Have fun convincing @Hua GuofangAnd @abrasivesaintOf that 😛

[Mercer]

@+plus+IDK, I like the upvote system somewhat, but find it's a double edged sword. Sometimes I don't want just the popular millennial opinion. Often times the up/down vote system is used to brigade opposing forums, and silence unpopular opinions. Here you tend to have a voice on a forum like this no matter what you're saying, or how well known/popular you are. Combined with an active moderator team to remove span, this system is superior IMO. It's an even playing field where someone with zero upvote bot's, clout, or even thousands of followers on Social media can gain an audience. Their system encourages a "mainstream" perspective, where here, it encourages a more diverse conversation, less confirmation bias.

Edited October 16, 2019 by Mercer

[+plus+]

Mercer, do you remember when it showed the up-vote to down-vote ratio using Reddit Enhancement Suite? 

Thats when it wasn't as bad. Far more bots and crap nowadays. 

 

[Mercer]

9 minutes ago, Kults said:

Have fun convincing @Hua GuofangAnd @abrasivesaintOf that 😛

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#United_States_v._Aaron_Swartz_case

 

It's hard to deny the facts on this one.

 

[Mercer]

29 minutes ago, +plus+ said:

Mercer, do you remember when it showed the up-vote to down-vote ratio using Reddit Enhancement Suite? 

Thats when it wasn't as bad. Far more bots and crap nowadays. 

 

Not really, I haven't been on there for that long. Probably got into it late 2016.

[Joker]

Instagram has been great for business, and by that I mean reaching folks who enjoy my canvas work and want to own a piece of my art. I've been able to share new available work to thousands of people and quickly sell them, and I've had folks reach out to me through direct message for commission pieces. Closing out my Instagram account, which I definitely want to do, is probably going to kill all that. That's partly okay as I'm more than likely retiring from canvas work except for when the moment to create grabs me, and I still have my personal website so I can go back to updating that more often instead of updating my Instagram feed. 

 

The problem is making the leap. I can't decide if I'm shooting myself in the foot or if I'm making more time in my life, or if I'm going to end up filling that spare time with 12oz. 

 

@misteraven- I'd be interested to know if Instagram has helped increase sales in the 12oz shop, or if the general increase in forum traffic has increased sales. With all the chatter about social media - do you plan to keep your Insta account or close it out altogether? Just looking for outside thoughts about this from a business perspective... I guess. 

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Mercer said:

@+plus+IDK, I like the upvote system somewhat, but find it's a double edged sword. Sometimes I don't want just the popular millennial opinion. Often times the up/down vote system is used to brigade opposing forums, and silence unpopular opinions. Here you tend to have a voice on a forum like this no matter what you're saying, or how well known/popular you are. Combined with an active moderator team to remove span, this system is superior IMO. It's an even playing field where someone with zero upvote bot's, clout, or even thousands of followers on Social media can gain an audience. Their system encourages a "mainstream" perspective, where here, it encourages a more diverse conversation, less confirmation bias.

Neg'd 😂 

[Mercer]

@KILZ FILLZYou've silenced my diverse opinion!

[misteraven]

1 hour ago, Joker said:

@misteraven- I'd be interested to know if Instagram has helped increase sales in the 12oz shop, or if the general increase in forum traffic has increased sales. With all the chatter about social media - do you plan to keep your Insta account or close it out altogether? Just looking for outside thoughts about this from a business perspective... I guess. 

Everyone has their own reasons for leaving and their own thoughts on just how to do it. As far as my own position (at the moment), is I'll probably just delete the app when the time comes. Not sure I see a point is canceling it since they have all your data anyways and cancelling it wont cause them to delete it. Though I don't see myself going back afterwards, options don't hurt. I'd love to make a statement and delete it, but doubt it'll ever even get noticed. Rather, my plan was to request copies of my content, which I've done several times already with zero response, and then edit my feed down to a bare minimum. Once I exit, I'll put up a last post explaining what I did and why and encourage people to come over here and continue the conversations.

 

As far as my own experiences with business... Its been a dismal failure almost since the beginning, but especially in the last few years. Despite having operated a professional photo studio and having all the best kit and plenty of cool stuff I could shoot, its hardly worth the effort. Can't even imagine being a company paying someone to do it for me. You can audit just about any account on Instagram right now from Kaws to Kanye West and note that the ratio of followers to likes, is typically under 1%. Literally all you're asking for is a double tap and only 1% (usually half or a quarter of theta 1%) will bother. So consider an actual conversion like a sale or email signup and you're talking a fraction of a fraction of 1%. Works I guess if you have millions of followers, but honestly metrics like those... You might as well by blocks of millions of emails off chinese hackers and start spamming, cause those are the conversion rates spammers see. I don't have specific metrics in front of me, but you'll recall that Futura release we did years ago. Not entirely a valid comparison, but the sell through on the stacked logo from that release is almost 10x better than the best release we've had through Instagram. When you factor in how long it took (under 24 hours) compared to how long the average sale runs now, as well as consider the active users then (active defined as users that logged into the forum in the trailing 7 days, which was about 18,000) compared to active followers on Instagram now (about 54,000), the math on it was that conversions were many thousands of times more than they are through Instagram and Instagram seems to be performing worse and worse each week.

 

I've had a lot of conversations with industry colleagues and its not just 12oz. Brands across the board from small to fortune 100 are all seeing this and it seems to be accelerating. Real problem is nobody knows what the next move really is.

 

Further to the above, and again not entirely accurate data, but the forum release tee is an anomaly so far, largely thanks to all of you guys. Every release of the last 18 months saw 98% of referrals coming from IG. The forum release almost inverted that completely with IG only referring something like 7% of the sales for that tee. Likewise, its the second best selling release of the last 18 months. Again, not truly a valid comparison cause I was promoting it heavy here on the forum and was offering those coupon codes through the forum, but I was hugely pleased to see that experiment play out and how quickly and effectively I was able to switch things up. The obvious goal being to remove Instagram from the equation and no longer put them in a position to middle man the dialogue (or sales) between 12oz and its following. I'm considering ways of continuing that, as well as further encourage both the growth of the community, as well as the build up of the brand, since its literally the shop sales that are the sole revenue stream for the site as I've chosen to no longer run commercial advertising.

[abrasivesaint]

7 hours ago, Kults said:

Have fun convincing @Hua GuofangAnd @abrasivesaintOf that 😛

Convincing me of what exactly? 
 

edit: PS: i still have to read everything here. A lot of catching up to do. 

Edited October 16, 2019 by abrasivesaint

[Mercer]

If you're considering possibly using IG for professional reasons in the future deleting the account itself isn't a good look. As for deleting the app, there's no reason you couldn't install it on your old/backup iPhone just to make posts or check for PM's from time to time. Using just the web interface to access your account doesn't give you much functionality outside of scrolling your feed.

[misteraven]

Just a heads up that the discussion on forum features (font size, etc) was split off and appended to another thread that is more on topic.

 

You can find it here: https://forum.12ozprophet.com/topic/87056-forum-update-status-feedback-and-bug-reports/page/2/

 

 

Hoping to keep this thread more conceptual or at least strategic in regards to the topic, which is discussing a post-social media world and where we might be able to carve out our niche.

 

 

[morton]

I never got on the facebook or instagram.

 

Reddit does not do it for me but I do check it out, they are running some hustle, the content disappoints, and I feel no connection to  the community.

 

In my analysis forums got phased out by a holistic push across the internet to monetize everything. The days of finding nerds and enthusiasts online are gone. I assume they are still here, somewhere, but the search to get past everyone trying to make a buck, one way or another, is difficult and frustrating.

 

[Guest]

I wonder if car forums are still flourishing?

 

Something like a Honda forum seems like it could be endless. Endless DIY treads, endless images of user cars, endless questions about troubleshooting repairs, endless questions about modification. And when one model gets old it's sold to a new owner who may have the same questions and stumble upon the same forum. 

[abrasivesaint]

When i bought my 66 Triumph i found a couple Triumph forums still active. 

[Kults]

1 hour ago, KILZ FILLZ said:

I wonder if car forums are still flourishing?

 

Something like a Honda forum seems like it could be endless. Endless DIY treads, endless images of user cars, endless questions about troubleshooting repairs, endless questions about modification. And when one model gets old it's sold to a new owner who may have the same questions and stumble upon the same forum. 

Reddit killed em. They’re still around but on life support 

[abrasivesaint]

Not necessarily. Old dudes don't know and don't want to know what the fuck reddit is. They trust the expertise of people on a place like...

 

 https://www.triumphrat.net/#/

https://www.thetriumphforum.com/

 

 

... where it’s more of a niche and dialed in discussion. Some random dude isn’t going to just stumble upon those forums like they could on reddit. They search for those. PS: That member photo is from just moments ago. 

 

I’m in my 30s and very aware of reddit, and everything it has going on, yet i couldn't give a fuck less about it. I use it to stream Patriots games when i cant get it for free elsewhere. That’s it. One of my best friends, however, treats Reddit as his absolute go to for anything and everything.
 

Edit: To me Reddit is the McDonalds and Facebook of forums. My girlfriends child who is under 10 years old knows what reddit is. I’ll pass. 

Edited October 17, 2019 by abrasivesaint

[abrasivesaint]

On 10/16/2019 at 11:37 AM, Mercer said:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz#United_States_v._Aaron_Swartz_case

 

It's hard to deny the facts on this one.

 

Still unsure what i would allegedly disagree about here as well.. 

 

if we’re talking about the abuse of power and systematic psychological bullying and oppression leading to this kids death i’m with it. 

[Kults]

I don’t think you quite get it. How many active total users does that forum have? A quick glance at r/triumph shows 15 276 

[misteraven]

So Facebook / Instagram is fucking us again... Suddenly half the 12ozProphet shop is back under review with most of what is being reviewed now rejected. 

 

They're also playing games with the 12ozProphet Stadium x 1984 release and not allowing it to be published on Instagram as a shopable post. Same thing happened with the Bandwagon Bitches tee, which ended up hurting that release pretty badly. This is why its important to take motherfuckers like them out of the equation. Bad enough they're amassing billions by invading everyone's privacy, but now they're censoring anything that poses any type of threat to their business or personal ideologies.

 

12ozProphet needs your support... Please help me spread the news about all this... Also that the forum is back and lastly, if you dig what I'm trying to do here, dig the product we're making and can afford to pickup a tee or two... Purchases from our shop is the sole revenue stream for this forum and the 12ozProphet brand. Obviously we dropped all third party advertising a long time ago. Sales on our web shop is how all of this gets paid for. If nothing else, please help spread the news about the forum and what we're doing here.