I think they were more "20-something year old losers" (I was barely 20, personally).
And I was more active on the mailing list than here, originally. Actually it went "Mailing list -> Undermanhattan.com -> Here", in that order.
I do always spin the tale about not being able to get any of my friends who liked the old show into the 2003 series, though, and it was indeed very frustrating. In one group, there were the "young 20-somethings" who spent their Friday nights on whiskey and cocaine and thus weren't going to wake up early on a Saturday for a cartoon show, no matter if they were Mikey for Halloween back in 1990 or not. But even among those who showed mild interest, "No Krang/Bebop/Rocksteady/etc." turned them completely off. No exceptions. I had a ton of friends back in the 80s/90s who loved TMNT and couldn't get enough of it. Yet I could not PAY them to give the 4Kids series a chance.
Some of them dipped back in with the BayTurtles movies, which they mostly liked because "It's stupid like TMNT should be!" and had all their favorite dopey characters involved. So I'm pretty sure they simply had terrible priorities in the first place and never actually cared about Ninja Turtles.
For my part, I learned how to program a VCR for the first time in my entire life for the 4Kids show.
Just in time for the entire format to die completely.