What old chat forums do you remember/did you use?

[StolenTeapots]

Anyone remember some parenting forums from way back?

There was babyworld which was quite sensible and had a live chat room too.

The bounty forums which had DDD - discuss debate deliberate. The equivalent to aibu. That was a bit wild.

Then there were the msn forums. People would just upload their entire family albums to random forums and everyone would post "lovely pics hun xx"

And then nethuns which seems to be empty now. They had those ticker things "my baby is 4 months old sparkle sparkle" or "7 months until Disney MICKEY PICTURE "

I miss them sometimes. The utter lack of worry about digital footprint we had back then!!!

Bad Mothers Club, hands down the funniest and most Supportive forum I ever went on. Miss it so much but am still in touch with lots of BMs.

I was a BMCer as well. I met one of my besties through BMC.

Ebay Boards
its where I first used this name over 20 years ago

The Student Room in the late 2000s, including real-life meet-ups too.

Took a step back when I was recognised on campus by a stranger and subsequently asked out on a date 😂

I used confetti when planning my 2000 wedding, loved it and then someone mentioned "netmums but it could be mumsnet" in 2003 and I went with the later and have been here ever since.
There was loads though and i do remember the ticker ones with all the shit dust emoticons - 72 days til disney etc etc. There was one - Raisingkids.co.uk which had been set up by someone I knew which was bought by Disney and then closed down. Which I always thought was odd. It's all kind of social media history and we didn't know it!

Damsels

Handbag was the first forum I posted on. My first post was an outraged post to something Space Cowboy I had said. This was in the days when goady wind-up posters weren’t as familiar to us as they are today, so he stuck out for the Grade A pillock that he was.

Lipstick Alley and Low Carb Friends

Oooh yes, I used to read (and write!) into that too...and then there was a "write it" one where you sent in content you had written based on the theme and if you were lucky they would publish it AND send you a £20 book token. I ended up with so many good books.

I was also on The Student Room in the mid 2000s when applying to uni. I still have some very good friends from there, almost 20 years on./

@SpamatemyraisensI remember Handbag. I was on there when I was trying to conceive

I came here to say this. I went to a meet up but was never in the popular group 😁😁😁

Lots of us are around still! I'm friends with many on Fb and Insta, plus after a recent TTWT bereavement someone set up a WhatsApp group. Unfortunately it turned out that I'm the only one who appears to believe in sex not gender identity and so I removed myself.

I'm sad, but not surprised. I'll stick to much less personal level interactions after years of international meet ups and Secret Santa. Which really makes me sad as I've participated for about twenty years.

There was a what to expect one that seemed to be US based. I never posted but would read it - it seemed a different world. Lots of what seemed really young mums / mums to be posting about moving to different army bases.

I met Space Cowboy... yep I was a Bagger in the past.

I used to love the Handbag beauty and fashion forums. They cost me a lot of money. There was one poster in the beauty forum who posted a lot and I bought so many things based on her recommendations.

I was on Damsels for a long time.

I was always more of a lurker than a poster though.

Msn group called Parent Zone

@TorturedParentsDepartment what was he like?

There was one called Babycrowd. I really liked it there, but then it was spammed to death. I sometimes wonder how the people are doing.

yes!
and there was an attempt at a sort of friendship group according to region thing. With volunteer moderators.

Pretty forgettable but a decent enough bloke from what I recall.

I loved You And Your Wedding up until the blue screen of death - this would’ve been 2007-2010 time. A group of us actually set up another forum after YAYW went down and are still in touch to this day - I absolutely loved the days of forums as a young, lonely mother. I miss that feeling of safety and companionship sometimes even now.

Digital Spy - still exists but closed their General Discussion forum for some reason.

I also used to love the IMDB boards, especially I Need to Know but they all closed a few years back.

ScaryMommy and um...Netmums 🤦‍♀️

Also a BMC alumna....

Baby centre April 2002 group specifically.
It was great. Very supportive and not all hun and daft.
I stayed for years.