Non-turtle talkin' users
 

I get people who stick to general discussion as they've been here for years & found their cliques in there or whatever, sure (Like the PA tech guys & others). But I've noticed a good chunk of users who join the boards & then exclusively post in the non-TMNT sections, never ever posting about the turtles. What's that all about? There's Facebook & tens of other social networks where your actual friends prolly are. Why join a TMNT forum only to not talk about TMNT? I don't get it. It'd be like going to a restaurant, sitting down for 2 hours, & leaving, having never so much as drank a glass of water. Why bother?

I have to admit, I've noticed myself posting more in the non tmnt sections. Idk though. I try and swing by threads that I can say something about, but a lot of times, there's threads that don't interest me in the turtle section. I still try and hit the turtle threads though.

I don't get it either. *shrugs* As long as they're polite, it doesn't majorly bother me - I just don't really understand it.

Maybe people here are just more fun to talk to? 8)

I go through patches where I post less in the Turtles threads but it all depends on what's going on: sometimes it's a bit of a slow period and there's not much Turtles discussion going on. End of the day though, I'm primarily here for the Turtleage.

I'm a little too opinionated to talk about Ninja Turtles too much with people so I try to keep a lid on it so people's feelings don't get hurt.

Maybe they're just casual TMNT fans who don't really know what else to say about the franchise that us hard core fans haven't already brought up time and time again, so they just end up hanging out here. This place can be intimidating at times, especially for newbies.

Sometimes I have to recharge when it comes to fandom speak. Sometimes I don't have a lot to say. Sometimes I have too much to say.

And sometimes I just don't think the board wants to hear about Leatherhead/Donatello.

My only guess is some people don't read comics at all and aren't following the Nick cartoon either...so they really have nothing to talk about.

I feel that way about my fan site at times. I remember back in the good old days when there were tons of fan sites out there, but thanks to companies like Yahoo! and AOL closing their free web service most of those awesome sites have gone the way of the dodo bird!

Most of you seem to think I'm asking why y'all post here or favor this section, & that's totally not it. I wanna know why there are people who have literally never posted anything outside of this section & joined only to post here in non-TMNT discussion.

I dunno, CyberCubed and I both pretty much hit the nail on the head with our hypothesis. Of course if you still have me on your ignore list, you're probably not reading this.

Get over iiiiiiiiit.

That, combined with Tumblr becoming really popular, kind of forced the fan site that lots of people used to have into obscurity for the most part. There aren't as many of them around, and it's a shame, because they were so useful. I used to run one of those type of sites myself but I couldn't afford it so I closed it down back in... 2010-2011. Had it since '05, so it was quite a loss.

Oh I know you were asking about those kind of people, but since some were using it to talk about why they weren't posting in the TMNT sections as much, I thought I'd chime in too.

Yea, okay that quip was definitely in bad taste, but my point still stands that a couple of us have already stated the obvious on the subject of this thread.

I haven't seen any users who ONLY post here, but I'd assume that they're drawn in by friends. Strange.

Who knows... maybe they're testing the waters to see where the majority of the Drome's interests and popular viewpoints are. For example in the TV and Movies section, noticing that a significant amount of TMNT fans are pro-wrestling fans, etc.

As for what they would do with that information or interaction, it could range from mere individual curiosity (how other fandoms are received in a TMNT forum) to demographic research for sociology studies or for companies.

...Just a thought. **shrug**

Well, I fit into this category of a casual TMNT fan of, just, the movies and toys...those are the two things that I've admired about the franchise. I'll pop into those sections of the forums, often. I'm not into discussing theories of the TMNT universe. I, just, like to collect some of the toys and art, as with, my admiration of the first two movies of the franchise because of the kung-fu-like cinematography (where, there are no guns or CGI-type fighting, but, actual stunts like a Jackie Chan movie). But, there's, only, so much I could say about the two films.

The reason I joined the forum is because of the hype the new movie and tv shows brought, which, as a result, brought out many art exhibits and toys for me to check out. So, I'll get my news on such things from these forums and, because I've been raised all over the world, I take interest in the general views of anything, from anyone, to continue my understanding of the world...so, I'll check these sides of the forum, after I've caught up on TMNT things that interest me in these forums.

Also, there's over seven billion people in this world, so, your understanding of humanity shouldn't be easily predictable. I find it amazing and I encourage such unpredictability, it makes the world less boring, to me...kinda encourages me to live longer, to see how a lot of these conflicts, as a result from diversity, plays out.

Maybe, I'm just not raised to be deep-rooted into a community because of the consistency of my life's travels. Which might be a bad thing because I'll never experience the hardships the community has gone through, so, I'll never identify as part of the community in such a deep level. But, I don't think people should be treated as such, they should be allowed into a community, free of such judgements. Otherwise, it's a hate group; which, I haven't experienced such a thing, in this community, btw. A lot of you are awesome, I'm just sorry I don't keep up and follow through with dialogue that I start because I get busy and forget...sorry, if I've left anyone hanging, like that.

The point also stands that Powder's told you to leave him alone on numerous occasions. Quit crawling up his ass in the threads and making passive-aggressive little comments. People here are sick to death of reading them - it's really old and it's not winning you any points. If you're that fixated over the fact that someone on the internet doesn't like you, then you really need to get help. LET. IT. GO.

I admit I'm a bit baffled by this as well, but maybe some people just don't want to talk about TMNT and would rather just hang out in the general sections of the board. I know that I'm always going to join in on the TMNT discussions because that's why I signed up for this site in the first place. But maybe other people are too shy to do that yet, or they haven't been following certain types of TMNT fandoms, so they don't want to discuss it just yet. That's the way I feel about it.

Good thread Powder, I think about this as well. I guess some people just test the waters in these sections, as said above. Perhaps they want to develop a rapport with others before posting in the most important sections i.e. the turtles sections.

I know you said you don't mean people who are very active here and slightly less so in the turtles section, but I've also been aware recently that I've been more active here than in the turtles section. Up to a few weeks ago I spent far more time there. But my reasoning for that is that I've been taking some time away from the TMNT to recharge (finished up rewatches of 2k3 and FW not long ago, as well as looking at Mirage again) and I've been more focused on academia and general life debates. That's probably why I've been more active in here than there as of these last few weeks. But that would never ever be a long-term thing for me, as I'm here for the boys (that sounds gay, doesn't it?)

I dunno. Maybe they do when they first get here but since they only have a fond appreciation of the franchise as opposed to really watching the new movie, the toon or the comics they find not much to talk about so yeah. Everything else. Just speculation though.

I've known multiple people who've joined the forum specifically because a friend told them how fun the GD was. Something like this, or similar to this, is probably your answer.

I've seen this happen I don't know how much on the pony forum... plus there's a lot of people there who have gone off from liking/watching hte show/would like to distance themselves from it now, so that's another thing that could be happening here.

But also, maybe they feel they don't have much about TMNT to discuss. Maybe what they felt about something has already been said, and doesn't need to be repeated ad infinitum from new sources. I feel like this myself a bit, since the place seems so soured on Apritello... I'd rather discuss it somewhere I felt it would be more welcome.

Sometimes people come looking for others who like the same things they do, and the General threads are the place to find what else you have in common and just yak.

And, just to throw this in the mix too, guys tend to talk obsessively over one subject for long periods at a time. Me, I can't keep my attention on one subject for more than a few minutes. Unless it's something that really captures my attention, I just can't stay interested, and would rather move on to talking about something else. (female mind thing) I'm not generalizing here... I'm actually citing stuff from a psychological study.

Oh, also, just because people don't say anything doesn't mean they're not following the discussion.

My main reason for signing up was that I liked the discussions in the GD section. I like that it's divided into different subsections. Other websites like Saturday Morning Sonic and BuffyBoards don't have a great section like that.

We all joined for different reasons. Not many people tend to stay I noticed but friends are the only real thing I can think of besides being a tmnt fan. People are just odd in general.

Was GD really that fun back then?

That makes sense. I post on a big football forum that's one of the biggest forums in my country that has a huge off-topic section for pretty much anything. That leads fans of other teams, including fierce rivals, to join said forum just to post about tv shows, politics, music, etc.

That being said, I'd never join, let's say, a forum about Ferrari cars if I had no interest in Ferrari cars at all, even if said forum's off-topic section was pretty good and active.

Yup. There were a lot more active GD members back then, so it was always pretty busy. There were always a lot of fun threads and discussions going on. On top of that - no one was self serious, so everyone generally took things a lot lighter than they do now.

The forums also had a ton of active veteran posters at the time, so you not only had fun discussion from people who'd all been together for a long time, you also didn't have three or four people dominating every single conversation in multiple threads.

Easily the best few years I had on the Internet.

^^ Sounds legit.
I remember being a lurker in 2004 and just having a blast reading what people had to say. Between that and all the other Fan sites as well as NinjaTurtles.com I was a happy camper.

I miss the OG's. Barkworm pops in like every year. Matt even less. Anarky is probably somewhere in a drunken haze. Mecha Cow and Sewer Bull are somewhere being European. GK is in Canada because he convinced himself he's actually Wolverine.

Hey I go even further back with this fandom. I remember when Horse Techie, Brinatello and Mikey QM used to rule the place!!! Now those were the days.

Uh-huh. A guy with 6 posts sure did a lot of ruling.

Here's a serious question along that vein for the long-term members: have the forums changed significantly over the years while you've been here? What changes have you noticed, for better or for worse? Do you think the forums have slowed down more/become more insular in terms of fewer active members, or do you feel that there's still a healthy amount of fresh blood arriving and actually sticking around for the long haul?

Like I said - serious question, looking for serious answers (not thinly-veiled jabs at/bitching about other members). For those of you who've been here for years and years, I'm sure you've seen a lot and I'm genuinely interested in your perspectives and experiences. Are you happy with the current dynamic here or do you wish it was different? Do you wish there were more members here? Are there changes that you'd like to see?

Those days didn't exist, bud.

It has definitely changed. When I first joined the forums in their original incarnation there was literally 5 of us active and we all ended up becoming mods. I believe Machias and I are the only ones from that group who are still around anymore. At the time the franchise was dead, though, so it's kind of to be expected. It was me scanning VHS covers and people talking about the old cartoon. TMNT 2K3 brought in the first real influx of members and it was fantastic. A lot of people stuck around and made names for themselves and the community grew to a respectable size, both in and outside of the TMNT community. At some point there were kind of too many young egos and some big misunderstandings led to the forums being shut down. The backup forums was run by Anarky and a totally different mod team, but that place was also really fun. When Krang brought the proper forums back online, these ones, it kept rolling, but by that point I think a lot of the crew that made the Drome what it was were starting to get a little older and people drift. Nothing lasts forever.

I find now that the franchise is more popular than it ever was during the "big" years of the forum, we get a lot more members that are here specifically to talk about TMNT and nothing else, so the GD has kind of become, like I said before, a series of threads full of the same people talking to each other. It seems like the bleed over from TMNT forum-goer to full fledged Dromer happens far less than it used to. It's also important to remember that way back then the GD was literally a single section and not a grouping of sub-sections, so every discussion was lumped into one big section, which caused glorious chaos, but meant that people who wouldn't generally even click into a section about toys or video games or whatever would see all that stuff anyways, so there was more crossover.

This is from the perspective of someone who stopped actually talking about the franchise in like 2004, though, so I pretty much only see the GD. The TMNT sections seem like they're pretty bumping these days, but I don't know for sure.

And for those interested new members, years ago Cure and I started a project called the Drome Wiki for fun and it has some great stuff in it. It kinda got overrun by people puffing up their enormous egos, but most of the stuff there is a pretty fun read.

Also, another cool/weird part of Drome history. On Da Drome thread. Yes, a Technodrome rap I wrote and was performed by old member R-Izzy. And direct link to the MP3.

Way WAY back.. back during the earlier times before 2003, the forums were smaller and much more tight knit. We had a very small group of users that used to talk constantly, derail threads with random roleplaying... mangoes everywhere. HT, Nturtle, Kali, Azure, Peanut and myself... We had a great time.

Things got fairly busy when the 2003 show came out. I was in college, and it was the show and the discussions here that actually made me turn from hating writing to wanting to major in it. We had an influx of artists, writers and a great group of show viewers that loved to overanalyze everything to death - Not just trash the show.

I dunno... it seems like members now are a lot more cynical. We had some hilarious times..


Edit: ...and peanut answered it WAY better than I did. :lol:

Not just cynical, but overly sensitive, as well. People flip over the smallest things. No ribbing like there was back then because people need their self esteems coddled. Like imagine if we jokingly called someone a pedophile now like we did to Doom? Chaos.

I think this is true of the Internet and the world in general, honestly. Things were way different 10 years ago.

Oh god... I miss Doom and his insane postings. And Voltron, for that matter... :(

The scary part is I called the Doom/Hannah relationship like YEARS before it happened!

I bet Doom double checks Hannah's homework for her.

HAHAHAhahahaaaaa it's not as funny without them here.