Why Isn't The Forum More Hoppin?(pun intended)

[beaker]

15 years on Muppet Central, and I've never seen the Muppets get as much hype, backing and visibility in that time as they had with the 2011 movie and push. And now with the upcoming movie in a few months. Yet, for some reason it feels like the enthusiasm, new membership, posting, etc seems nil. 2002 seemed to be an exciting time when MC forums moved from Delphi to here. Yet it was unfortunate when so many people left and a split was made. Late 2002 was an ugly time on here, something I was not removed from either. Yet we soon saw the biggest Muppet merchandise bonanza, followed by the Disney buyout and eventually Disney finally putting money where their purchase was.

And here we are...it seems like it's mostly a few of the 2002-2005 folks, some really young newer folks...yet most if not a good 90% of the 1998-2003 folks are gone. And there doesn't seem to have been much of an influx of new people. The 2011 movie proved Muppet fans are everywhere. Heck I still see a lot of people with Muppet shirts.

...could it just be that forums in general are a relic of the past, what with facebook and smart phones and all?

 

[dwayne1115]

Well I hope not, because I love the forums, and my excitement and love for the Muppets has only grown. I would love to have some people come back to the forum, and bring more life to the party, but I don't think it will happen anytime soon,
If there was some way to bring the magic back I would love to do so, because this use to be a very fun place to hang out and talk all things Muppets.

 

[D'Snowth]

Beau, Beakie, and I were discussing this recently, and the fact of the matter is, MC's gone through some many different little episodes of "high school drama" these past few years, and a lot of the people from those older days have grown up, and have become somewhat jaded and cynical from making the transition from childhood to adulthood, and putting up with life, college, work, responsibility, and such. It's clear, and it's been clear, no matter what, MC is NEVER going to be what it once was: there's been countless efforts to restore the community to what it once was, but that's never going to happen, it was in the past, and it's past.

But as for new members, you probably haven't been too active as of late, but we do have a number of newer members around here right now. Every year, there's always something of a generation of newbies, but by the end of the year, only half of them seem to stick around, while the other half just disappears and never return.

 

[fuzzygobo]

Everything runs in cycles. 10 years ago, before I came here, there was a hot spot called YesterdayLand. For about six months, it was sizzling with Generation X'ers like me discussing all our childhood trappings- tv shows, music, toys, and from about April to October 2002, it seemed to be THE place to be. Then the trolls moved in, and in a very short time, the party shut down.

A number of us migrated over here (sseta, Ziffel, mokeystar, to name a few, alas, so did Mikebennedict). Most of them have been lost to the winds of time, but still managed to leave their mark here.

It's like riding a subway train in New York. You might ride the whole length of the line from start to finish, but at every stop, some will get on, others get off. You might see some of the faces on another trip sometime, others you might never see again. But whoever is on the car with you at that moment is a part of your life, even if it is only until the next stop.

People will come and go from this site too. I was away for a couple years myself, staying clear of some embarrassing drama that has since resolved itself. But hopefully with every stop new blood will keep things interesting, dynamics may change, but this place will probably never get totally stagnant or boring.

It will never be like 2003, or 2008, or whatever era you consider the peak for this forum. And trying to recreate the past is an impossible task. Any attempts to do so will always be a disappointment.

But I am grateful to be here with you people now.

 

[Muppet fan 123]

We have these discussions a lot. I think it's safe to say that the forum will never be like it's 'golden era' which was probably back in the early 2000s (too bad I wasn't around to see those).
This forum has been around since 1998, it can't be exciting forever. Eventually we gotta move on, and I think that's what happened.

This is still a great close-knit dedicated group of Muppet fans, but I think the whole forum things seem to die down a lot in the past couple of years, and I think some of this wackiness that used to be around the forum seemed to move over to the Toughpigs Forum.

Like I said, it's time to move on. The good ol' days probably won't ever come back, but we can definetley look ahead to rebuilding this forum in a whole different way.
Otherwise, I think it's time to close up shop. The forums been very quiet lately anyway. Lots of members have left throughout the years, and who knows who might be next?

Stop looking to the past and look at the future! We can make this an awesome forum if we wanted to. Who's with me?

 

[beaker]

It's like riding a subway train in New York. You might ride the whole length of the line from start to finish, but at every stop, some will get on, others get off. You might see some of the faces on another trip sometime, others you might never see again. But whoever is on the car with you at that moment is a part of your life, even if it is only until the next stop.

That was utterly amazing, and gave me goosebumps to read. Very well put.

 

[beaker]

Thing about 1998, is we were crazy stoked for the then upcoming Muppets From Space and Elmo In Grouchland. We thought these would be the big return for us. Little did we know of the EM.TV fiasco, Sesame split, selling off of JHC in new york and workshops there, Disney buyout(which now we see as a good thing), and the long quiet we had for awhile. NOW that we have the Muppets as a top tier commodity, it just feels a little sad not having the forum reflect that. But I'm glad the forum is still here!

We have these discussions a lot. I think it's safe to say that the forum will never be like it's 'golden era' which was probably back in the early 2000s (too bad I wasn't around to see those).
This forum has been around since 1998, it can't be exciting forever. Eventually we gotta move on, and I think that's what happened.

This is still a great close-knit dedicated group of Muppet fans, but I think the whole forum things seem to die down a lot in the past couple of years, and I think some of this wackiness that used to be around the forum seemed to move over to the Toughpigs Forum.

Like I said, it's time to move on. The good ol' days probably won't ever come back, but we can definetley look ahead to rebuilding this forum in a whole different way.
Otherwise, I think it's time to close up shop. The forums been very quiet lately anyway. Lots of members have left throughout the years, and who knows who might be next?

Stop looking to the past and look at the future! We can make this an awesome forum if we wanted to. Who's with me?

It does bug me how some of the best and brightest shut the door forever on MC and moved to Tough Pigs. I think Delphi forums closed shop ages ago but they still insist on using that archaic system like hackers on an IRC chat room. I fully admit I used to be extremely immature and a different person than now, but even I didn't like seeing the split that happened. I can recall hundreds of unique posters from over the years and it's sad the majority of them are gone. (tho some got super amazing careers in the field, so that's a good excuse!) One thing I can say is, Tough Pigs created the most amazing online resource ever: Muppet Wikia...which to this day blows my mind. And Tough Pigs, since it's changed hands, does have a lot of interesting new content.
The Muppet Mindset is I believe one of our best resources as well. The comics injected a lot of new life in our underground scene as well. It's weird to think of the Muppets as underground but I do see the fandom as underground.

I've, I guess been to the only two known live public Muppet shows(Hollywood 2001 and Carnegie Hall 2012) and so it was nice meeting a number of Muppet Central, Tough Pigs and other related members. I wish there were more meetups like that. But the 2011 movie showed that every city has hidden Muppet fans.

I know forums are a little outdated now, but I love em. As much as I am an 80s kid, I am also a kid of the 90s and early 2000's too.

 

[dwayne1115]

I kind of thought that the newest Movie made the Muppets cool again. I know when I saw it at the theater twice there where people of all ages going to see the movie, and they did not act ashamed to be going to it either.

 

[D'Snowth]

True enough; when I saw the movie in the theater, there was a VERY small number of kids actually there, it was mostly like baby boomers and older.

I thought how proud Jim would have been.

 

[dwayne1115]

Well I don't know I think as I have been saying for a long time now, that the whole website as a whole needs some updates. Then Maybe it would attract more people to come to the forum.