on every artist-specific message board ever

78. 18-year-old boy (probably called Mark or Graeme) who moves across the country to go to university near where the band is from. (I've known people move from St Albans and Liverpool to Leeds to be near a band, and from the South East to Exeter - for Muse!)

Was there a big hug waiting for them when they got to Leeds?

Ha, that's what the were after.

79. Someone posts link to either crappy YouTube footage of their band or crappy cloud stream of their band. The music is indisputably crappy, but if the musician is a regular poster, responses are uniformly positive. "Man, that cymbal crash just before the chorus really reminds me of Titus Andronicus! Neat job!" If the musician is not a regular poster, no one replies.

80. Posters all agree that band recommended by singer in an interview is, like, totally fucking awesome. After a few weeks, they quietly forget about said band. (Lesson learned the hard way by REM fans over the years.)

81. Small but vociferous rump of posters for whom preferring the early/obscure stuff is not hardcore enough. They loudly protest that, in fact, great though this band is, the singer's previous and completely unknown band were even better.

82. Forum member meets singer for no more than 30 seconds at an aftershow event, and afterwards repeatedly posts about how he's hung with the singer, and he's a really genuine guy with a lot of time for his fans who's really interested in what we've got to say.

(Have seen this irl: the 30 sec meeting, then the subsequent posts.)

^^^ that's the scenario whose later play-out results in friends of mine going "welp, I don't wanna move into a gated community, but guess what honey, we're moving into a gated community"

83. Thread counting down the years until (band) is eligible for induction the The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum with absolute certainty that (band) is made of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum stuff and/or thread complaining about how (band) isn't in the The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.

...yet.

84. Thread trying to figure out if listening to dubstep is compatible with liking (band).

85. long thread about why the bassist definitely isn't a paedophile

Oh, you read phish.net too?

lol was gonna lie and say New Order

lawl

86. People talk about how said band is underappreciated, in both the media, and commercially, irregardless of how many awards they've won or how great their sales are.

A review is poste giving the album four of five stars and everybody reacts incredulous that the "moronic" critic didn't give it a 5

Man, why would you even hang around a forum that got this far under your skin? The few I've belonged to were so mellow I had to remember I was subscribed!

The MBV forums are good for a continual update. It's proved price of admission when a fairly recent thread & poster claims the band has finished everything but Bilinda's vocals ... which leads me to

87. Guy who types in lowercase and claims to know band cannot be doubted

And the variation on that:

88. Guy who claims to know band and claims to know something amazing is going to happen soon but that he isn't allowed to give any further details about it.

Re: 66, there must be a dozen message board couples on one board I used, AT LEAST, with at least four of them resulting in marriage and (quick mental tally) 5 babies so far with another due soon.

― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Saturday, October 22, 2011 1:32 AM (19 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

iirc theres a married couple who post to ilx and met on an artist specific message bord

89. If the band in question has gone through considerable style changes throughout the years, then you will have constant wars going on between those who prefer the band the way they were in the past and those who have become a fan based upon more recent stuff.

(I saw this very much on a Genesis mailing list I was part of in the 90s, where anyone posting about Phil Collins' solo material would be met with some very hostile posts by members largely into 70s Genesis)

Whereas you like the Decca/Jonathan King album best, right?

Are there any decent Genesis forums left these days?

Whereas you like the Decca/Jonathan King album best, right?

The person who would prefer their debut album(or the last one with the Ray Wilson for that matter) would be considered the loonie of that board. :)

This was such a great thread.

90. on release days, fans will document their record-buying experiences in obsessive detail. "I went to Best Buy at 9:00 am. there wasn't a single copy of Poodle Hat on the shelf. the store wasn't even open yet. I was so mad I really ripped the clerk a new one. then I went to FYE (50-mile round trip)..." they'll tally up the number of stores that carry the record and the ones that don't, and brag about buying multiple copies to give away to friends (I already had 2 copies, including the one I got on preorder, but the one copy I saw at FYE look so lonely, I just had to buy it").

if they buy the album on preorder, someone will post comical pics where they're hugging and kissing the package as it arrives, then photograph the contents (promo t-shirt, bonus concert DVD, individual scans of each page of the booklet) upon opening it. the thread will devolve into a lengthy debate about why the liner notes don't include any lyrics, and it will be several days before they start discussing the actual music.

91 lengthy treatise about how artist x has informed and in some instances been informed by poster's longtime eating disorder

92 ultimately abortive attempts to forcibly crosspollinate the names of band members with popular internet memes

93 one person from mexico and one from brazil who gets really upset about ppl not spelling it brasil

94. a week before the album's release, there's a thread where fans speculate about the 30-second Amazon clips and rank them from favorite to least favorite. someone rips the audio and shares it with people so they can put it on their iPods. a few voices of reason says it's impossible to properly judge a song by a 30-second clip, but they are just spoiling the fun.

95 forum lore surrounding nubile ex-poster known to have had close encounter with lascivious band member about whether they did actually fuck and if so in what way, americans attempting to convey this via baseball metaphors to ppl who don't know what baseball is

96. a poster who claims to know how the music industry works and is constantly coming up with ways the band could make more money and reach more fans if only they were smart enough to take his insider advice.

97 said poster constantly calculates artists's paltry spotify royalties, attempts to denominate this in lbs of birdfeed and how many of his birds would die every month on such a derisory amount of food

98. a "shameless self-promotion" board that's mostly just links to their own awful youtube covers of "fan favorite" songs

lol nakh

99 paypal forum funding drive based around the conceit that a band member will have to be forcibly kidnapped and ransomed if cash is not forthcoming, solitary female member who finds this to be in poor taste

I think about half of these things actually took place on ILM's own Loutallica thread.

this last batch is so great!

lol at picking Poodle Hat for that example, I think I was one of those people with Bad Hair Day or Running With Scissors.

33. People show up to ask fairly reasonable questions about the band, get savaged by regulars who have seen the question too many times before

my first ever internet experience was this! my family got AOL when i was 14 and i went to their "beatles" message board to ask what john lennon was saying at the end of 'free as a bird.' the only responses i got were like 'ugh, not this again, this has been debated a thousand times already this year, did you JUST start reading the board or something?' so i never did find out. :(

Lennon is mumbling "freebird" while McCartney is playing IIRC.

100. The one poster who keeps posting images of his vinyl collection, making a point of how certain items are rare/autographed/come from a different country and therefore the packaging is slightly different because it has the name of a different record company on it or the copyright spiel on the label is in a different language.

101. "I have a massive collection of vinyl from over 30 countries! How dare you criticise my awful and completely wrong opinion of the bands new single!"

102. Poster on the forum of an older, established band who released their albums when vinyl was the primary format mentions that he doesn't actually care for vinyl and that he's increasingly going digital for convenience. Opinion is seen as complete sacrilege... "but it's better! the artwork! it sounds warmer!"

103. Young member of the forum, possibly brainwashed into liking said band/artists by his/her middle aged divorcee parents, who take him/her to gigs by said band/artist simply to have someone to go with because the realities of parenthood and work have decreased their social circles significantly, makes occasional posts about how he/she finds the 60+ year old singer/keyboardist/bassist attractive.

104. On the forum of an older, established band: a middle-aged poster who enjoys spending his evenings getting absolutely rat-arsed, logging onto the forum of his favourite band, and arguing with or insulting everyone he possibly can.

105. The person who isn't a moderator, but somehow thinks they're a moderator. So you think my signature is too big or too long, do you? Fuck off.

106. Fans of the earlier stuff and the later stuff lock horns. Fans of the later stuff accuse the fans of the earlier stuff of being nostalgic and precious, and that the band/artist has moved on and has left them behind, fans of the earlier stuff tell the fans of the later stuff that they weren't there at the time and you just wouldn't understand, man.

107. Journalists or critics who have even dared to write a middling or bad review of a bands/artists gigs or albums are immediately noted down by hardcore fans who can't take the slightest bit of criticism regarding the work of their favourite band/artists and are mentioned frequently on the boards as an example of someone who "has it in" for the band/artist.

108. "Let's flood the comment box of this review with comments to show this idiot critic just how wrong his or her opinion really is!"

109. "Have you seen what this dickhead has written on Amazon? Let's flood Amazon with positive reviews to show this idiot just how wrong his or her opinion really is!"