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A whisper. A shadow. An old empty room. Full of dusty chairs and desks. A candle fading.
There was a hustle (no pun!) and bustle. There was posting aplenty. There was a buzz. A level of activity. It was the message board era and the message board was IN!!! You had to work for it. There was no smartphone. Social media was a babe in arms.
“The Internet has given everybody in America a voice. For some reason, everybody decides to use that voice to bitch about movies.” Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
Movies. Wrestling. YES! We can talk about wrestling. But it wasn’t in your palm. No no, you had to go to the room with the computer in it. Was often a special room. The former junk room, converted to accommodate this glorious new technology. If you wanted it bad enough, you had to go in to this room, get comfortable in a crappy chair and get cracking. Today’s back pains likely started here.
Later came the laptop. Slightly more convenient. You could type a column or say “fuck the Great Khali” from the comfort of your living room watching the football. But you still need to turn that bad boy on, let Windows XP load up, connect to the internet, open a browser and go to LOPFORUMS. That’s like 5 different steps. Can you imagine having to go through 5 different steps today to read a Tweet?
If you wanted Column goodness, you needed time. Time put aside. Before work, after work, during work. After dinner. Saturday morning before starting the weekend. Sunday evening wondering where the weekend went. You needed your computer for your column writing. So your computer always had it’s spot. So the CF always had it’s spot. 10 apartments in 12 years. Where can I put the laptop? There’s columns need writing!
It was a community. A large community with posters from all corners of the world. I was about to say diverse but I think it’s fair to say it was mostly guys :-)… We had opinions. We had thoughts. We had beliefs. WE KNEW BEST. We had egos. We had fights. We had drama. Oh how we had drama.
Laptop wakes up from sleep mode. Still on the CF page. Hit refresh. FEEDBACK!!! I GOT NEW FEEDBACK. OH HOW I LOVE FEEDBACK!!
“Really liked your column, keep up the good work”. Kill me now. My day is complete. Maybe even my life.
Now I’m going to give feedback. I bet I could do 10 columns in an hour….
It was a community. A large community with posters from all corners of the world. We forged alliances, we gained acquaintances. And we forged friendships. We saw past usernames and got to know the person under the hood. We developed trust. We extended that trust beyond the walls of LOP. We chatted on MSN, we connected on that new Facebook thing. We even met in person from time to time. We huffed and puffed and postured but we ultimately understood. And when those around us were at their lowest, we banded together and helped as best we could. Sometimes it was the only kindness or only glimmer of light in someone’s bad day.
Video killed the radio star. It’s no one’s fault. No one’s going to watch a VHS today out of loyalty. A tweet is easier than a forum post. And let’s face it, there’s so much more to see and do out there than there ever was in here. Hearts are pure, memories are fond but the motivation…the well runeth dry.
We could co-exist for a while but what didn’t help further is the main proprietor of the “sport” we love so dear spending the best part of 8 years nosediving under an out of touch septuagenarian who was too busy hysterically laughing at his own jokes that he couldn’t hear the silence over his own voice. Or see the growing emptiness around him.
And you stay loyal for so long. But eventually interest fades. And that’s a powerful powerful phenomenon. Don’t ever underestimate the strength of true apathy towards something you once loved. Because it takes a mountain of suck to really get you there.
There’s a number 2 there now. Not bad. Needs time, needs legs. It’s depressing that, with all the good non-WWE wrestling out there in the world over the last 20 years, the key component to competing with WWE was money! You needed an investor with a shit ton of money to get things started. Then let the talent try the rest. We’ll see….fingers crossed.
But I digress. What brings me here. Just a thought. A feeling. An old old feeling that I was just trying to get back for a few minutes. I’m 35 years old and I just moved to a house in the Irish countryside. Was always a dream and with the pandemic and working from home actually becoming a permanent thing for some, I said “fuck that” and went after the dream!
And I sit and stare out the window. The silence. 12 years of noisy apartments and houses in the city and suburbs. This is so much different. And I stare out the window at night in to the distance and see the distant lights, the passing cars, even the stars if I’m lucky. And the silence brings me places.
And over the last few nights it brought me to LOP. Just a memory I couldn’t shake. Thinking back to a time that seems so long ago. Yet something that was ever present in my life. And I didn’t realise how much I enjoyed it, how much I miss it and how much I mourn the fact that things will never be that way again. In here and in so many other things you leave behind as the years go by. And not just for me, but for so many. Time, culture, life, changes. The sadness. The last days of MSN. All the names greyed out, offline, moved on. Happy I hope.
So many resets. Information lost. Conversations lost. Moments lost. And I get it, there is business needs doing behind of the scenes. Memory needs refreshing; all part of the gig. But I wonder sometimes, if this place does disappear permanently, will it be like it never existed at all?
I hope not. And I hope anyone who ever happens across this site or who may even happen across these words knows that one time this place was fucking rocking morning noon and night!! And I mean rocking. You couldn't swing a cat for the amount of columns in here and people trying to score that page break in the Writer's Block. And I hope everyone whoever spent time here, tells their kids, their wives, their friends. Whoever. Tell them all.
Because when people come together online in the right way it is fucking awesome. And LOPFORUMS and the CF was fucking awesome.
Never forget.
There was a hustle (no pun!) and bustle. There was posting aplenty. There was a buzz. A level of activity. It was the message board era and the message board was IN!!! You had to work for it. There was no smartphone. Social media was a babe in arms.
“The Internet has given everybody in America a voice. For some reason, everybody decides to use that voice to bitch about movies.” Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
Movies. Wrestling. YES! We can talk about wrestling. But it wasn’t in your palm. No no, you had to go to the room with the computer in it. Was often a special room. The former junk room, converted to accommodate this glorious new technology. If you wanted it bad enough, you had to go in to this room, get comfortable in a crappy chair and get cracking. Today’s back pains likely started here.
Later came the laptop. Slightly more convenient. You could type a column or say “fuck the Great Khali” from the comfort of your living room watching the football. But you still need to turn that bad boy on, let Windows XP load up, connect to the internet, open a browser and go to LOPFORUMS. That’s like 5 different steps. Can you imagine having to go through 5 different steps today to read a Tweet?
If you wanted Column goodness, you needed time. Time put aside. Before work, after work, during work. After dinner. Saturday morning before starting the weekend. Sunday evening wondering where the weekend went. You needed your computer for your column writing. So your computer always had it’s spot. So the CF always had it’s spot. 10 apartments in 12 years. Where can I put the laptop? There’s columns need writing!
It was a community. A large community with posters from all corners of the world. I was about to say diverse but I think it’s fair to say it was mostly guys :-)… We had opinions. We had thoughts. We had beliefs. WE KNEW BEST. We had egos. We had fights. We had drama. Oh how we had drama.
Laptop wakes up from sleep mode. Still on the CF page. Hit refresh. FEEDBACK!!! I GOT NEW FEEDBACK. OH HOW I LOVE FEEDBACK!!
“Really liked your column, keep up the good work”. Kill me now. My day is complete. Maybe even my life.
Now I’m going to give feedback. I bet I could do 10 columns in an hour….
It was a community. A large community with posters from all corners of the world. We forged alliances, we gained acquaintances. And we forged friendships. We saw past usernames and got to know the person under the hood. We developed trust. We extended that trust beyond the walls of LOP. We chatted on MSN, we connected on that new Facebook thing. We even met in person from time to time. We huffed and puffed and postured but we ultimately understood. And when those around us were at their lowest, we banded together and helped as best we could. Sometimes it was the only kindness or only glimmer of light in someone’s bad day.
Video killed the radio star. It’s no one’s fault. No one’s going to watch a VHS today out of loyalty. A tweet is easier than a forum post. And let’s face it, there’s so much more to see and do out there than there ever was in here. Hearts are pure, memories are fond but the motivation…the well runeth dry.
We could co-exist for a while but what didn’t help further is the main proprietor of the “sport” we love so dear spending the best part of 8 years nosediving under an out of touch septuagenarian who was too busy hysterically laughing at his own jokes that he couldn’t hear the silence over his own voice. Or see the growing emptiness around him.
And you stay loyal for so long. But eventually interest fades. And that’s a powerful powerful phenomenon. Don’t ever underestimate the strength of true apathy towards something you once loved. Because it takes a mountain of suck to really get you there.
There’s a number 2 there now. Not bad. Needs time, needs legs. It’s depressing that, with all the good non-WWE wrestling out there in the world over the last 20 years, the key component to competing with WWE was money! You needed an investor with a shit ton of money to get things started. Then let the talent try the rest. We’ll see….fingers crossed.
But I digress. What brings me here. Just a thought. A feeling. An old old feeling that I was just trying to get back for a few minutes. I’m 35 years old and I just moved to a house in the Irish countryside. Was always a dream and with the pandemic and working from home actually becoming a permanent thing for some, I said “fuck that” and went after the dream!
And I sit and stare out the window. The silence. 12 years of noisy apartments and houses in the city and suburbs. This is so much different. And I stare out the window at night in to the distance and see the distant lights, the passing cars, even the stars if I’m lucky. And the silence brings me places.
And over the last few nights it brought me to LOP. Just a memory I couldn’t shake. Thinking back to a time that seems so long ago. Yet something that was ever present in my life. And I didn’t realise how much I enjoyed it, how much I miss it and how much I mourn the fact that things will never be that way again. In here and in so many other things you leave behind as the years go by. And not just for me, but for so many. Time, culture, life, changes. The sadness. The last days of MSN. All the names greyed out, offline, moved on. Happy I hope.
So many resets. Information lost. Conversations lost. Moments lost. And I get it, there is business needs doing behind of the scenes. Memory needs refreshing; all part of the gig. But I wonder sometimes, if this place does disappear permanently, will it be like it never existed at all?
I hope not. And I hope anyone who ever happens across this site or who may even happen across these words knows that one time this place was fucking rocking morning noon and night!! And I mean rocking. You couldn't swing a cat for the amount of columns in here and people trying to score that page break in the Writer's Block. And I hope everyone whoever spent time here, tells their kids, their wives, their friends. Whoever. Tell them all.
Because when people come together online in the right way it is fucking awesome. And LOPFORUMS and the CF was fucking awesome.
Never forget.
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