PhD research: The Early Days of the Westeros Forum and the ASOIAF Fandom

[Lyanna Stark]

3. Cynicism about the series in general has increased among the longstanding members.

4. Perceived decline in quality between the first three books and the latest two, combined with a now decade-and-a-half-long wait.

I mean yes/no in a way. Long time readers probably complain about the quality yes, but on the other hand I think the armed with re-read and some literary criticism they get markedly better.

The literature forums back in the day used to be mix of GUCT and pointless who would win a sword fight. Further, a lot of the discussions were dominated by men with conservative views when it comes to gender politics, so looking through some of the older threads at EZboard for instance, you see a lot of skewing towards pretty sexist and occasionally misogynist reasoning.

The TV-series may not be awesome, but at least it has brought a huge group of female fans and of more gender conscious fans to the fandom and the book discussions. Often drowned out by white noise from mouthbreathers, but they're there. For instance, the Sansa: Pawn to Player re-read and rethinking project has a definite feminist slant and that would have been absolutely impossible in the late 90s early 00s.

So while cynisism about the series may be more common around long standing members, this is not true for all, and that cynicism may not necessarily permeate the entire fandom either.

- User #23

[Maltaran]

From a long, long time lurker, I would just like to say that this place has always been one of the few places I check consistently. I picked up A Game of Thrones back in 98 when I was a freshman in high school. Promptly devoured it. Didn't really have the Internet back then so I had no idea when the next one was coming out. I randomly found A Clash of Kings at a bookstore one day and was quite happy. Same thing happened with A Storm of Swords a few years later. When I started college in 2001, I had broadband internet in the dorms! Stumbled across the ezboard sometime around there and the rest is lurking history.

I'll occassionally dive into the Winds of Winter section (usually when a new sample chapter crops up). Usually I stick to General (the politics discussions are great), Literature (thanks for the Lynch and Abercrombie suggestions and the Goodkind threads, curse you for the Erikson recommendations...) and Entertainment (shows/video games/sports).

People are just nice here and it's just an enjoyable place to read up on people's perspectives of current events, follow some debates and get some great recommendations for things. It is definitely a lot harder to attach personalities to posters since the fl00b deluge. Still the board has kept motoring along and I keep coming back. It must be doing something right.

As for meeting GRRM, sadly it has never occured. Currently, I'm roadtripping through the west and I missed seeing him give a reading in Santa Fe this past week by a day which was disappointing. As others have said, he seems like a really cool guy. Damn him though for making me a hipster...but...I was totally into ASOIAF before it was cool...and now GRRM pops up on Conan!? So weird...

So from the lurkers to the posters I say, thanks for letting us creepily watch your online interactions from afar.

Sincerely

#638

Three digit user number and only 38 posts - the epitome of a creepy lurker :)

[DanteGabriel]

The literature forums back in the day used to be mix of GUCT and pointless who would win a sword fight. Further, a lot of the discussions were dominated by men with conservative views when it comes to gender politics, so looking through some of the older threads at EZboard for instance, you see a lot of skewing towards pretty sexist and occasionally misogynist reasoning.

The TV-series may not be awesome, but at least it has brought a huge group of female fans and of more gender conscious fans to the fandom and the book discussions. Often drowned out by white noise from mouthbreathers, but they're there. For instance, the Sansa: Pawn to Player re-read and rethinking project has a definite feminist slant and that would have been absolutely impossible in the late 90s early 00s.

Huh, that's something I hadn't noticed/realized before. I haven't been in the book forums for a while so I didn't know what they're like now but I do remember great tides of misogyny swirling throughout any discussions of Sansa and Catelyn. I used to joke that Catelyn threads made me want to ask a lot of the posters about their mothers.

If the discussions have moved beyond "Catelyn is a dumb bitch who did X stupid thing and doomed her family" that's great. I had a few contentious discussions in defense of Catelyn during my active time in the book forums.

[Errant Bard]

If the discussions have moved beyond "Catelyn is a dumb bitch who did X stupid thing and doomed her family" that's great.

They did not. Though it's more about Daenerys these days. It's maybe less vitriolic because mods are swifter with the ban/lock/delete stick when it comes to hate threads, but the volume would likely be more important, from my point of view.

It's just that indeed, a lot of new fans came around and among them a lot more are sensitive to misogyny compared to before. It probably does not speak well of the typical Fantasy book fan, on this subject.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

I'm user number 420 which everyone finds funny for some reason or another.

[The Wolf Maid]

If the discussions have moved beyond "Catelyn is a dumb bitch who did X stupid thing and doomed her family" that's great. I had a few contentious discussions in defense of Catelyn during my active time in the book forums.

I remember in one of these threads, that someone (was that you?) who memorably said [paraphrasing], after someone made another inane point that had been discussed previously in the thread, "So this is what Sisyphus felt like when the rock rolled down the hill."

[Lyanna Stark]

If the discussions have moved beyond "Catelyn is a dumb bitch who did X stupid thing and doomed her family" that's great. I had a few contentious discussions in defense of Catelyn during my active time in the book forums.

Some have. A lot of them are still the same, but the earlier re-read projects were top notch. I'd say the Tyrion, Sansa, "Learning to Lead", Arya and Jon Snow hold up very well.

[DanteGabriel]

I remember in one of these threads, that someone (was that you?) who memorably said [paraphrasing], after someone made another inane point that had been discussed previously in the thread, "So this is what Sisyphus felt like when the rock rolled down the hill."

Heh, I think I remember making that comment.

[Inevittable]

...

So from the lurkers to the posters I say, thanks for letting us creepily watch your online interactions from afar.

...

Thanks for your input StormyMonday. From what I have read so far, lurkers are a constant niggle to online researchers because they can be argued to be just as much of a part of a community as those who post every day.

...

The TV-series may not be awesome, but at least it has brought a huge group of female fans and of more gender conscious fans to the fandom and the book discussions. Often drowned out by white noise from mouthbreathers, but they're there. For instance, the Sansa: Pawn to Player re-read and rethinking project has a definite feminist slant and that would have been absolutely impossible in the late 90s early 00s.

...

Interesting! I will have to make time to read the thread you mention.

For those of you interested in a bit of general chatter about my research so far, this thread is for discussing a short description of my understanding of how the forum works.

[Inevittable]

Hi all,

I've spent the last couple of evenings combing through the first three pages of the thread to dig out some findings to write about, which is going really well.

The only negative is that because I saved those pages as PDFs during the World Cup, you all have your World Cup names attributed to your posts and I'm getting so confused as to who everyone is/was. I'm getting there though. Please keep the contributions coming in if you have anything to add.

[snake]

Let's see. I read AGoT in the fall of '98 I do believe, after seeing a good review in my local newspaper. In the back there was a chapter from ACoK and said that it was supposed to be in stores. It wasn't. So I went looking on the Internet for information and found Dragonstone. Back then it was fun. The series was new, fresh and exciting. We analyzed the hell out of AGoT. Over the years though my participation in book discussions has lessened and I never even bothered to get involved in anything with regards to ADwD. The forum has just gotten too big. These days I stick to General Chat.

I only interacted with GRRM through the Internet. He used to answer posts on the Legends web site back in the day and answered a couple I posed. He also answered a couple emails I sent him with regards to the books. That was before ASoS.

I think I may be the most senior poster who has never actually met another board member in real life. Probably due to where I live.

[Sivin]

I started the books in 2004 and joined the site in 2006, a few months after AFFC came out, but I can't say I've been bullied by old-timers.

ETA: To answer the OP, I am a little annoyed that the increased audience of this site has led to increased server load issues, and very annoyed that it's led to an influx of some really cancerous trolls. I mean, we had a fucking Holocaust denier.

The fandom was much more close-knit back in the days before the TV show. It was possible to know, or at least be familiar with, almost everyone active on this site (and those on others like ToTH). And it was much easier to integrate new users into the community -- we got to know them, and they learned what is and isn't acceptable behavior around here. This last point is important, as you've seen with many of the other posts in this thread: we take a dim view of morons, bigots, trolls, and rape apologists, because all of that shit brings down the level of discourse to something we consider unacceptable. With an influx of more than 70,000 new members over the span of three years, that system of integration has broken, and the TV subforum is, for the most part, a giant cesspool. A number of the n00bs have managed to break free of that stigma (love you guys), but I'm definitely more skeptical of n00bs than I was four years ago.

I read the books and started lurking in 2007, then joined in 2009 at the age of 16. I definitely wasn't ready for the big times, because the oldies drummed me right out of the board.

I was only 14 or so at the time, and I kept making asinine comments thinking I was being clever. I remember a specific instance where someone called me an immature asshole, and asked if I was 13 years old, and I snobbishly replied 'I assure you I am not 13 ('cause I was 16, yo!)'. Anyways, that was with the username 'robs hand' and I reverted to mostly lurking for almost 2 years before I came back out of hibernation with a new account (having forgotten the old one's info) to discuss my appreciation for Theon's character and the show.

Anyways, back on subject, I highlighted Dante's and Xray's posts because I can particularly appreciate that this board has affected my growth into an adult in a very positive way. I used to discuss WWI and WWII politics on this board during school, and goddamn if I didn't actually learn things.

The firm, but wise, masters of this board taught me more about due diligence, fact finding, and citing sources to support arguments than any American institution ever could have hoped. I got to match wits against the wise Raids and inadvertently turn her into a 'Twi-tard', and Dante himself was the subject of my most ungentlemanly comments, leading to a long exile during which I realized how much this place meant to me.

In short, the board pre-show was a place of kinship and magic, where anything was possible. Trolls were dealt with quickly and harshly, ignorance was a disease to be cured, and insufferable fucking 14 year olds were simply not tolerated. ;)

[Prue]

Logged in to check my number (713), but then decided that I could maybe also post for a change ;) . I mainly lurk here. Started browsing the ezboard in 2001, when a boarder in a different forum gave me a link to 'general chatter', as he enjoyed the political discussions there. It was a very interesting but also somewhat scary place back then. Very up-to-date, but full of very extreme conservatives defending the lies that Saddam had 'WMD' (weapons of mass destruction) and declaring that Europeans were 'Eurocommies' and 'surrender monkeys' if they were against a war in Iraq. There were also very intelligent and reasonable posts by people like Lord Manwoody, though. I wish I had dared to post in his threads more often, or started a thread about opera, as he was a Wagner fan. What a terrible loss when he died. It was the first time I really mourned somebody I had never met in real life.

I didn't start posting right away but stuck mainly to the chatroom. So I guess only frequent chatters may remember me from that time. I fondly remember arguing with EHK about smoking. And listening to Lord of Bones snoring when he fell asleep in the middle of a group-skypechat.

There were also really crazy spammers like OsRavan, the king of typos, who sort of grew up on the board and then left a few years ago. And I remember somebody called Checkerboard Ninja who had thousands of posts in a rather short time, and then suddenly disappeared.

During the time the board was dominated by conservatives, there were also a few ezboard-spinoffs. I think I briefly posted on Cerys's board and Ser Camaris's. Anyway. Enough of my ramblings. Maybe I'll remember a few more useful facts to add later.

[Gertrude]

Speaking of spin-off boards, there is one that is still active - the mafia board. It's not as active as it used to be and we don't play as much, but the group that plays is a pretty tight-knit group of people. Some of the mafia players I haven't seen post on this board for ages are still around and active on the splinter-board.

[lokisnow]

you may find these links (via wayback machine) to the 'ancient' days when this board was on on EZboard helpful:

Board Index

https://web.archive.org/web/20051125071441/http://p080.ezboard.com/basoiaf

Who are Jon Snow's parents FAQ

https://web.archive.org/web/20060213132627/http://pub26.ezboard.com/fasoiaffrm6.showMessage?topicID=4.topic

History of the Board thread:

https://web.archive.org/web/20060106185855/http://p080.ezboard.com/fasoiaffrm5.showMessage?topicID=16875.topic

From Ran's post in that thread:

I suspect KAH's thread is long gone. I haven't been pruning the board at all, as I used to.

Here's my brief, incomplete, vague history of the board:

The first major ASoIaF community was Dragonstone, created by an Australian by the name of Peter .... something. Peter Gibbs? He had a FAQ, he had a board, and so on. I came to the board in the midst of some activity. KAH was there, Revanshe was there, I'm fairly sure Jeff was, and, lets see ... well, others, I think. Like I said, my vague history. ;) I'm sure others were as well. When would this be? I would guess 1997 sometime.

But after one crash too many, Dragonstone never recovered. Peter Gibbs became busy with RL (as a programmer? I think KAH heard from him at one point) and never tried to start it up again. So Revanshe started a board on eesite, and everyone flocked there. It was great board for a long while, until it started having horrible crashes and data loss. Revanshe had started an ASoIaF webpage as well, with information, at that time.

Eventually, RL took her out of play, too (med school -- hasn't her sister said she's now doing her residency?). She gave the website to the triumvirate of LindaElane, Relic, and .... uh, someone else. I can't remember. The board she gave to me to run. We tried pressing on with it, but it crashed again, and that was that. We came here to EzBoard on September 12, 2000.

And that's about it as far as the progression of boards. This board might be seen as Dragonstone v. 4 (or is it 5? I think it's board was run on two different sites. And, for that matter, we may have tried something else before eesite when Revanshe took over... which would make it v 6).

[Yarp]

I'm kind of on the cusp of your dissertation: I started reading the books when Sean Bean was cast for the pilot episode. "HBO is making a fantasy series? I have to check that out."

I learned my lesson about spoilers the first time I came to this site: I had this idea about the plot that I wanted to see confirmed (R+L=J), but then I had the Red Wedding ruined for me. I didn't come back until I finished AFFC. Once I came back, the theories and debates among the fandom became my Lost-methadone.

The book fandom is a combination of spoiler-wary and super-troll. You have your book fans who lie about the plots for their own amusement (like myself), and you have your internet trolls crying out "Snape kills Dumbledore! Roose Bolton kills Robb!"

As far as an evolution of the fanbase, the Bookwalkers and Unsullied stay fairly segregated. As a Bookwalker, I get to rehash R+L=J x20 or other random theories while watching the Unsullied grasp for answers.

[Inevittable]

Hello all,

Thanks, as usual, for your contributions.

I know that many of you don't frequent the TV forum very often, but if you get chance I would really appreciate your input into this thread about what was happening around the time the HBO show was announced: http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/topic/115957-phd-research-think-back-to-when-the-adaptation-was-announced/

The poor thread has died a death among all the other TV threads and hasn't had as much response as I had hoped for.

[RhaegarTar]

Hmm. I joined this forum when I was in 8th grade, circa 1997/98ish. I still check it occasionally, more for nostalgia than anything.

[Kalbear]

I joined this community in 2001, at ezBoard. I was trying to figure out when the next book was coming out. I participated at the time almost exclusively in the book threads and I don't think looked into the general chatter forums until at least a year of me being there.I remember very well getting into debates with Lady Rene and cteresa about Jaime Lannister.

I remember very well finding out about the theory of RL=J on the boards as well. And participating in the great trials against characters. I found out about a lot of good sci-fi and fantasy novels through people on the boards. And yeah, in those days the community was exceptionally small - or at least it felt that way. There was a good chance that you either knew a person in real life or had met that person in real life. Most everyone talked about the books to some degree. There were big political debates, odd drunken threads, guides to performing oral sex, bizarre memes and some very interesting people. And it just kept growing and growing. Chat helped a lot too here; a lot of the time people would get into the chatroom and hang out for hours.

I went to my first meetup with boarders in 2005, in Scotland. Almost entirely because of my friendship with another boarder. It really changed everything. I met a number of people I barely had interacted with, and even more that I had had absurdly long talks with. At that point I stopped thinking about it as some fantasy forum of random people from across the world and started thinking of it far more as the place I go to talk with many of my friends. It is also where I met my future wife, skylarkthered.

A lot of that felt like it changed with the switch to the new boards and AFFC coming out. I know that the show has had an absurd change on the boards, but to me the big change came with the influx of fans when AFFC was released. The boards were different, the chatroom changed. The old timers went to other boards or other venues to communicate more readily (Livejournal was a big one and still remains a bit because of this). The new boards got much more segregated, and it became more unwieldy to follow all the new threads and pay attention to everything. There was just too much. At that point it really did feel like the old guard vs. the new; if you went to cons, you likely got accepted, but if you didn't you kind of got pushed away.

And that's sort of been the attitude for a long time, honestly. We're certainly a more inclusive fandom than many, but we're still fairly exclusionary. Especially those of us who have been along for a long time. Cliques developed and redeveloped. Messy fights happened.

Somewhere along the way we went from being a forum about ASOIAF to a forum about almost every single fantasy and sci fi series around, which was yet another big change. To my knowledge no authors came by and talked with us on the old ezboards; now we were regularly having authors participate in discussions with us about their works and other works, sometimes publicly and sometimes not. For many authors it appeared that we were their community site as well, or at least one of the bigger ones. Like facebook, it seems like we became The Place.

Honestly, I've not noticed a ton of changes with the show vs. before the show. My life has changed significantly since those times, and that's likely way. I've been married now for 7 years, have two small children and don't spend nearly as much time on the boards as I used to. My wife spends even less. For me, it's still those old friends that I talk with vs. pretty much everyone else. I rarely participate in show discussions or book discussions any more. It's usually hanging out with old timers here and there and keeping track of a couple of threads that I'm active in.

It's still amazing to me that I consider so many of the people on here friends. Real, honest to goodness friends. I've met so many great people through the years and wished I got to meet so many more.

[Salafi Stannis]

All the old timers bully me because I only started reading the books in 2004 :(

Don't worry about it, I only read them this year. :)