I’ve been on the internet for a couple of decades in one way or another, from the days of text only newsgroups, early email and mailing lists. Across that time I’ve contributed to many different discussions, camping on ‘radio’ as the one I’ve joined in with the most passionately.
As the internet has changed, so too has the platform hosting the ‘radio’ conversation. As the web developed the conversation moved from email based lists to web based ‘boards’ and fora. It multiplied and divided into different directions and differing sub-groups and places and platforms faster than the appearance of different chains of steamed milk based coffee houses in the UK.
At the same time, interest in ‘radio’ started to wane. The die hard radio enthusiasts (‘anoraks’) of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s were not being joined by a new generation of anoraks, and so got settled onto their preferred platform or host for discussions and stayed there growing old with fellow anoraks. There was virtually no new blood supplementing their number.
A common practice amongst the more devoted anoraks would be to flit from one forum to another in order to post more or less the same message. Parallel conversations would sprout up everywhere, usually between the same core people, but with the addition of maybe one or two others that weren’t frequenting anywhere else. This made it very time consuming trying to re-read more or less the same threads on every available site, and even more time consuming when joining in.
There came a point when I decided to reduce my waxing lyrical from all the different fora and settle in to just one single place. Rightly or wrongly, I made this place Anorak Nation. I’d been a moderator (mainly silently) on a number of different fora, and so picked Anorak Nation as I was/am a moderator there. I still shoot round the other places speed reading the contributions, but by concentrating my efforts on Anorak Nation (and my own personal blog) I have released myself from so many hours of wasted life!
In recent times we’ve tried to broaden the appeal of Anorak Nation to encompass new media, gadgets and gizmos, maybe attracting a younger generation. It’s not worked that well, as the core users remain us older folk who are a bit stuck in our ways and have had the same conversations about radio circa 1967 a thousand times. We are mainly all conversed out, if we are honest. The level of chatter has gone down to a whisper with only the occasional bickering and trolling, and that’s about it.
So, in order to breathe new life into it, Anorak Nation needs you! It would be really nice if we could get an active collective of new and old blood intermingling and happy to chatter about those things worth ‘anoraking’ about, whatever they might be. And then, happy to veer off topic and to chitter-chatter about ‘stuff’.
Would you care to join us and say something…anything…please?
England's England 