I was there at the end; fandoms, trolls and casuals all bound together in a desperate, disperate determination that something magical will happen. Something will stop the inevitable death of the message boards. We've all seen the movies, a hero will arrive at the last moment and we'll all live happily ever after.
I'm still battling through my PTSD from it.
When those final moments came there was still hope. There was still the idea of people connecting with those that they'd known, laughed with, loved. That last minute PM they hoped would be replied to with contact details, that gag which would finally see old friends laugh through tears of despair, that one particular love finally requited, that old enemy finally to make peace with.
Meanwhile in San Francisco they were having a party at the Amazon headquarters. Jeff Besos was downing champagne by the litre and scoffing, that's right - scoffing, at all the people that he was making unhappy. Unbeknown to most he too was going through the same emotional state that the members of IMDb were. He was hoping for a last minute phone call from Donald Trump, the recently elected president of the United States, telling him that he would continue to get the tax cuts he'd gotten fat on. He was wanting to hear that the future wouldn't be the one he envisioned would happen under the leadership of such a person. Because, damn it, Jeff is a liberal and he wants things to go his way or no way at all.
Just as he pressed the button which would wipe the boards of decades worth of input from millions of people both alive and dead he felt that jolt of instant regret. Whilst the electrons of Little Boy were bounding along, close to the speed of light, he saw what he'd become. He was wiping out culture, erasing history, destroying communities and all for no real reason at all. He knew the boards at IMDb were little more than pennies to maintain, he knew that he had become a totalitarian dictator, drunk on corrupt power.
He cried.
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